StellarJetman

QUOTE (jnoble @ Jun 20 2011, 03:38 PM) HYF is nothing BUT keyboard/synth heavy songs with thin sounding guitar mixed somewhere in the background on most tracks. Actually, it has surprisingly few keyboards, if you really listen for them. It just sounds like there are more, because everything has about three layers of echoes and filters slathered on top of it.

I wonder what Cozy Toes would have posted if he hadn't been banned. Probably something about how a certain recent album was "vapid" or something. If only I could remember!

Completely artless and silly, but I couldn't resist: Mess of Echoes (Yeah, it's really a mess of vocal harmonies, but the only substitute for the word "echo" that I could think of was "gecko", and that would have been lame.) "Mess of Echoes" "Drivel" "Half the Work (Needed for a Decent Song)" "The Color of Scheisse" "Time Signatures in Motion" "Hokum" "Dog Turds" "WHOOOAAA MAN IT'S 1996 AND COMPUTERS ARE A THING NOW" "Resist Falling Asleep" "Bimbo" "Worse than Roll the Bones?!" Sorry, Nate! If it's any consolation, I think that "The Color of Right" and "Limbo" aren't too bad.

QUOTE (Kenneth @ Jun 19 2011, 11:22 PM)I was surprised to see 2112 was played on a mellotron. Huh? QUOTE (Planet Mellotron)However, it isn't the album's centrepiece that concerns us here, but a rather inconsequential ballad on side 2, Tears.

"Xanadu" doesn't seem as long as "The Voyage" or "The Camera Eye" because it isn't terminally boring; you're listening to it, not sitting through it or waiting it out. And "Jacob's Ladder" makes those two seem like "Red Barchetta" in comparison. I want a song about a thunderstorm to sound like a thunderstorm, not a lifeless drizzle.

I'm still waiting for the Wyld Stallyns to start touring. It's going to be incredible.

QUOTE (King Whompus @ Jun 18 2011, 03:29 PM) They are also adding a part 3 to Cygnus, a sequel to 2112 called 2113 which takes place a year after, and a song called Huck Finn. Don't forget "Neighborhoods" and "America Man".

For anyone unable to view the linked video, you can watch it here instead.

QUOTE (Lost In Xanadu @ Jun 18 2011, 11:27 AM) Really? What about Freeze? Part 4 of the fear trilogy "Fear" was originally a trilogy, but it stopped being one when "Freeze" was released. It's actually subtitled "Part IV of Fear", with no reference to a trilogy at all.

QUOTE (trenken @ Jun 17 2011, 09:55 PM) Some of those songs are pretty epic, and Bravado is officially a light rock song you could hear on any soft rock station right after Rod Stewart or Elton John. "Officially"? By whose authority? Not saying that it isn't, but that word - I don't think it means what you think it means.

QUOTE (waddler25 @ Jun 17 2011, 10:20 PM) I think this album is one of their best, because I don't think the synthesizers were very overpowering of Alex's guitar--in fact, I don't think I have heard a happier sounding song than "Kid Gloves." Fly by Night, "Making Memories". Makes "Kid Gloves" look like "Red Sector A".

The transitional part in "Leave That Thing Alone" from 2:28 to 2:34 is marvelous.

QUOTE (jnoble @ Jun 17 2011, 05:13 AM) Geddy's been losing range as early as the GUP tour. I'm not too familiar with that one (although I recall a contemporary interview in which he admitted as much), but on A Show of Hands, he can't quite hit the high part at the end of "Marathon", which he'd recorded only two years earlier. Makes me wonder what his range over the years would look like plotted out on a graph.

Is anybody else wondering when Neil will get around to playing something that isn't "The Rhythm Method"?

Before, but, as I'm not a drummer myself, I don't pretend that I'm making an informed decision. I just loved his drumming on Hold Your Fire and Presto.

QUOTE (desertfan @ Jun 16 2011, 12:00 AM) I agree with those who talk about the album's uniqueness. Maybe it's Neil's integration of electric drums (which I think gave Rush a fresh new sound), but there's something about this record that is like nothing else they've ever done. You could say that about most of their albums, though.

That "girl" was Cozy Toes.

QUOTE (drbirdsong @ Jun 15 2011, 06:42 AM) Rush had a hard time finding a producer. One or two people backed out and they did a lot of work before Henderson came on board. Ah. That would explain what Geddy said about the album being too "stressful" for him to be able to appreciate it.

QUOTE (LyndseyG @ Jun 15 2011, 02:11 PM) Great stuff! Xanadu is one of my favourites! Same here; I just got into it after realizing that my initial reaction to "Natural Science" was 100% right (cool first half, completely unnecessary second half, nice ending) and going back to "Xanadu" to see if it would be a fitting replacement as a favorite. I don't know why, but I always thought of it as just another "Jacob's Ladder" - thank God that I saw how wrong I was!

QUOTE (goose @ Jun 14 2011, 02:49 PM) I'm with you. I don't think they represent Neil's best work, either. Good ideas, not so greatly executed. I appreciate the effort, though. Better subject matter than fast cars or fast women. Says the guy with the "Red Barchetta" signature.

QUOTE (Silas Lang @ Jun 14 2011, 09:22 PM) Interesting how this and VT are the two that were basically self produced by the band Peter Henderson produced it. Or am I missing something here?

QUOTE (An Enemy Without @ Jun 14 2011, 10:23 PM) Tai Shan is probably their worst song ever. Ever. Summed up perfectly in a review that I read a while ago: "Chockful of stale cliches ('there was magic in the air, the clouds surrounded the summit, the wild blew cold and strong...'), trying to communicate something really deep but failing, it is the typical reaction of an ecstatic, but dumb geek tourist. 'China? Uh-huh, man, China, like, means mountains, summits, clouds, landscapes, uh, temples, uh, like, forty centuries, wow, man, that's cool!'"

QUOTE (presto123 @ Jun 14 2011, 11:22 AM) One of the most unique sounding records I've ever heard and such a dark feel. Amazing. I always thought that it sounded kinda similar to The Police's Synchronicity, although harsher and more sterile.