sitboaf

I mean albums #1 and #2 - Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle. Such a unique vocal style. Too bad he couldn't sustain it. I find the song quality to be quite a bit better on Greetings. I will listen to The Rising a couple times on Spotify and see if it grabs me.

Welcome to the Machine is cynical, but YAM is atmospheric. I vote YAM.

When I explored his first couple of albums recently (I was quite young when they came out) I found them amazingly original. However, my appreciation of Born To Run is dulled by overplay and countless imitations (not Bruce's fault, I know). After that, the quality got lower, and he got stuck in a car-song phase. Did he forgot how to write good lyrics? It seemed more and more like he just wanted to be liked. Then Born in the U.S.A. was adopted by the neo-conservative movement and played to death, so that was a further turn-off. (And yes, I know the title song is the depressing tale of a Vietnam soldier.) In the '90s, he got slower and s l o w e r and s l o w e r (the…se…cret…gar…den…zzzzzzzzz), finally joining Bryan Adams and Sting in the "how to make money after your nards are cut off by writing songs for movie soundtracks" club. After that, I just gave up. Sounds like there has been some good stuff (finally) lately, but I just don't care anymore.

As long as they are feeling inspired, their next effort will probably be good. The most logical progression I forsee, remembering Geddy's quote about reapplying their gathered knowledge as a trio, would be a heavy, less-cluttered album (sounding like CA) with some accompaniment like strings or brass or voices. THAT would be cool.

Confused... Was Sanctuary not on your edition of the LP? And yes, those first two albums rule!

I dunno. I like the mid-'70s "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" stuff when she was wearing Bob Mackie dresses and looking fine.

that was hilarious. 13 for me.

True. And I don't think it's laziness or not seeing the big picture, or thinking that loudness is preferable to dynamics. I mean, it's some of those things, but until listening experiences change, production won't change. Most young people (the ones spending the money) listen to their music with crappy earbuds or in crappy car stereos, or with crappy mono bluetooth speakers. In all those cases, "improving" (adding dynamics to) the production makes little difference to the listeners because of the output limitations. Until the quality of output devices improves (I fear the opposite - cheaper and worse-sounding speakers will continue to be made), producers will still aim for the lowest common denominator and make loud music. Having said all that, why can't bands release loud SINGLES (for radio, Pandora, etc.), followed by dynamic ALBUMS for the rest of us? Include the loud single versions as bonus tracks if you want.

I'm pretty sure Kurt Cobain wrote and performed most of his songs before he died. Do we kick Elvis out? Hendrix? They killed themselves with drugs.

Summary of above: "I'm nostalgic for the music I loved when I was 18"

I made a naptime mix a few years ago which had lots of Nick Drake, Vangelis and Dead Can Dance. Also, Pink Floyd's A Pillow of Winds, If, and Fearless. The entire Meddle album is good for napping, once you get past the part about cutting someone into little pieces ;)

Yes (x4) - Tales from Topographic Oceans Yes - In the Presence Of

A friend and I would put on U2's Joshua Tree every day exactly 50 minutes before quitting time, so that when the last song ended, it would be time to leave work. This went on every single day for months. Some in the workroom actually got tired of this, and we promised to stop. So we played a different album every day to end the day - you know - Boy, War, Achtung Baby, Rattle and Hum, Unforgettable Fire... Does that make me a dick?

I was going to rate this song a "one", but even after hearing dozens declarations of how this girl loves Chinese food, I feel certain that she eats only pizza, chicken nuggets, salad and (maybe) spaghetti. Any chance that this song has in convincing a young woman to try ethnic food will die when she notices the enormous lack of sincerity. Zero.

Alex put his foot down in the late '80s when Geddy's keyboards got to be too much. Maybe Geddy is telling Alex "enough with the layers upon layers of guitar. It's getting to sound like a friggin' hive of bees!"

Agree on the Cher, Meat Loaf and Jimmy Buffet (who has turned one idea into a career. Why do drunk people keep throwing money at him?!? He's not a stripper, he's a fat, bald dude with a half-octave singing range!) "Werewolves" may not be the best representation of Warren Zevon's fine catalog, but he was really damned clever.

I know the songs don't line up perfectly, but I didn't want to be accused of stacking the deck by lining up songs a different way. So I did it the most natural way I could think of and allowed others to change it if they like. Lining them up like that was reasonable. Just now I first put all the songs in order of my preference THEN matched them up. This is what happened: 1 [The Best off Both]: The Pass > Dreamline. Great IS better than good. 2 Show Don't Tell > Bravado. Barely. Lyrically, Bravado's way better though. 3 Available Light > Where's My Thing. Close one again but the lyrics give AL the win. 4 Presto > Ghost of a Chance. Honestly, Lifeson's solo is what makes Ghost a decent song. But it still ain't enough to beat Presto. 5 War Paint/Scars > Heresy. Only combined these 2 simply because they're in the middle of the pack. They massacre Heresy. 6 Red Tide > Roll the Bones. It's the rap. 7 Chain Lightning > The Big Wheel. Mediocre is still not as bad as below average. 8 Superconductor > Neurotica. Shocked? Well, I dislike Neurotica...chorus, vocals, lyrics. Believe me, Superconductor is NOT on my list of good either. 9 Anagram > Face Up. I haven't listened to Face Up in probably half a decade. 10 [bottom of the Barrel]: Hand Over Fist> You Bet Your Life. Probably my most disliked Rush tune but it's at least in the top 3. Hand Over Fist likely cracks that top 10. Final score: Presto 10, Roll The Bones 0 Hmm… I don't think this is a fair way to compare things. If you have 2 excellent albums, with "song ratings" that line up like this: 10, 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7, 6.5 versus 9.5, 9, 8.5, 8, 7.5, 7, 6.5, 6 then the first album wins eight to zero, and that's not realistic. If you were to randomize the song lists, then the first album wins something like 5-3 most of the time. LedRush's initial method is more fair.

100% correct. "Tonight She Comes" has one of the best solos i've ever heard. Perfect pop rock construction.

All really good points. Well done. Yes, By-Tor marks the beginning of Rush as "prog" or "art rock", which would define them over the next few albums. By-Tor is significant in one more way, though: they tried another arty song on FBN called "Rivendell". Let's be glad the band agreed with us and recognized By-Tor was a better way to go!

First of all, I am flattered that my CP vs. TfE post inspired this one. My initial vote was that I liked RTB more, mostly because I owned it when it was new, and bought Presto much, much later. Then i did the comparisons, which don't line up all that well, but whatever, it was worth a shot. The score came out 5 to 5! So, I couldn't vote on the 2nd and 3rd questions. Simply put, I feel that Presto is a little more consistent than Roll the Bones, which has slightly higher highs, but slightly lower lows. My preference is for Roll the Bones for 1. nostalgia, and 2. better lyrics.

Great show. He gets some fabulous performers, and it's always such a wonderfully random collection. Good for your music karma.

Let's not forget: because of the way some parts were originally recorded, some parts could be IMPROVED but not entirely FIXED. It's like working on a photograph that was taken in a pitch black basement. You hope to "fix" it by ligtening it with Photoshop, thereby creating dynamic range, but you're probably just going to turn solid black into solid gray. I am enjoying all the many improvements in the remix, but when I hear bits that are mashed or clipped, I don't get upset, because I know Bottrill just couldn't fix them.

Oh, I forgot about that one. Great call! Superb transition between those 2 songs. While I'm here... Badfinger: Money / Flying

I'd always liked Sweet Miracle, but the remix improves it more than any other song. It might be my favorite on the album now. It is SO nice to listen to the whole album straight through, as I just did, without getting a headache.

It is the remix. I had to delete the (old) album artwork and grab a new image to add to the tracks.