len(songs)

Good, but not exceptional, even at this point.

For Tull... Anything from Stand Up to Brick is a good starting place. Minstrel does do well at "summarizing" the "classic Tull" era but in my opinion it's not quite on par with the others from that era (though still quite good). If you're interested in their "folk era", then check out either Songs From The Wood or Heavy Horses (Horses is my favorite of these but a lot of fans disagree); I can't really advise you on anything post-Stormwatch other than that Broadsword is a solid album but NOTHING like Tull up to that point (well, maybe it's similar to A, but what I've heard from A is pretty bad so I'm not exactly anxious to check that one out)

7

Jethro Tull - Stand Up (1969) A New Day Yesterday: 11/15 <Jeffrey Joes To Leicester Square>: 10/15 *Bouree*: 14/15 Back To The Family: 12/15 Look Into The Sun: 11/15 Nothing Is Easy: 13/15 Fat Man: 10/15 We Used To Know: 11/15 Reasons For Waiting: 12/15 For A Thousand Mothers: 11/15 Overall rating: B Track by track: •A New Day Yesterday is a blues song with a great riff (better than anything on This Was) and great guitar and flute solos. I believe it also includes a harmonica, which works alright, though it doesn't add much (in my opinion) to the already solidly good song. •Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square is kind of short and lightweight, but it still works, though I'm not sure it would if it were longer, as it doesn't have much in the way of interesting melody. •Bouree is AMAZING, a "cocktail jazz" (Ian's words) interpretation of an old Bach piece. It has plenty of drive throughout, led by Ian's flute, but eventually going into a jazzier section and even a bass solo (!). Overall it's definitely the best song on here, and in my top 10 of all Tull songs. •Back To The Family features a terrific melody underpinned by a very nice arrangement and complemented by a very nice flute/guitar solo. I swear, this is what rock radio should sound like... ah well, be la vie. It's a great song either way. •Look Into The Sun is a primarily acoustic ballad with some electric underpinnings and a good melody (though it feels a bit awkward in places). Maybe "hardcore" Tull fans wouldn't appreciate such a "lightweight" track, but I enjoy it plenty. •Nothing Is Easy has a neat bouncy rhythm and a great riff, which contribute to a track which I can't see as anything but an absolute classic. If I had to voice one complaint it would be that the vocal melody occasionally feels a bit awkward, but honestly I only notice if I try to concentrate on it, and the song certainly isn't any worse for it. •Fat Man is a somewhat strange Eastern-tinged number with hilarious lyrics... not too much else to say about it but it's a good track either way even if it doesn't quite stand up (heh) to the better songs on the album. •We Used To Know is yet another great song, this time firmly in the "classic rock" mode (and actually featuring the same progression as The Eagles' Hotel California), with a neat guitar solo. Honestly, I can't remember much of it after it's over, but in this case it's great enough while on that I can let it slide. •Reasons For Waiting is a gorgeous acoustic ballad with great flute, organ and string parts to accompany a (once again) great melody. This one is noticeably softer than most of the tracks, but it puts this to good use to create an interesting atmosphere and overall it's probably my third favorite on the album. •For A Thousand Mothers is a bit weaker than the other "main" tracks in my opinion but it still has a nice feeling of intensity to accompany a decent melody before the album closes (after a pause) with a great (as usual) instrumental jam which earns the song an extra point in my book, for what it's worth.

Any Rush fan is a "true" fan... unless they're just pretending to like them... There's nothing wrong with "just" liking the radio hits. A casual fan is just as much a fan as a devoted fanatic. True, it can be annoying to try to discuss more "obscure" songs/albums with a "casual" fan, but that doesn't change that they like their image of the band. After all, we all have our own image of the band, and even if someone's is "incomplete", that doesn't make it any less legitimate.

Hmmm... I never though too much about it. Maybe he just had some sort of epiphany after being defeated, who knows :P

Interesting... 7 days before it was released?

But rush fans probably don't want elevator music haha Stop trying to pidgeonhole Rush fans. They're not a homogenous mass; there are plenty of fans who'd rate HYF higher than AFTK or Hems. And don't you go on about "real Rush fans"; I'm sick and tired of that attitude, and it alienates fans without accomplishing anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_Radio:_Greatest_Hits_1974%E2%80%931987

lol Fly by night isnt on caress of steel The disc is a hybrid between FBN and COS, so of course no everything is from COS :whip: lol Fly by night isnt on caress of steel The disc is a hybrid between FBN and COS, so of course not everything is from COS :whip:

There's nothing "wrong" with casual fandom. Now, if you have someone like bluefox's friend, that's another story (and they don't know Zeppelin I? :o) but a casual fan is honestly no less a "real" fan than a devoted fanatic; they're simply less acquainted with the band's catalog (and who knows, they could just be starting to get in depth). Honestly I HATE it when people complain about fans not being "real"; it's that kind of attitude that turns people off of the band in the first place.

Here you go: http://www.therushforum.com/index.php?/forum/2-rush/page__prune_day__100__sort_by__Z-A__sort_key__last_post__topicfilter__all__st__17640

There was a Snakes sub forum a while back if I'm not mistaken (Internet Archive said there was one)... there SHOULD be a few hundred threads which were last posted to in 2008. If I could find the right page on the subforum I could see how people reacted...

Agreed.

I prefer it to 2112 as well, though I wouldn't quite put it on the "classic" level. As far as consistency goes, I think that ITIGB kind of puts a damper on that.

whhha Side 2 is beast side 1 is just radio hits besides yyz. The camera eye is alot more progressive than almost all side 1 tracks combined. I don't care how "progressive" or "non-progressive" Side 1 is, I care how "good" it is, and in that regard it certainly stands up well. Using "prog" as a synonym for "good" is an EXTREMELY annoying (but irritatingly common) mistake IMO.

Purely selfishly, I want to hear some of the CA songs, but recorded and produced decently and with the extra breathing room that the live vibe naturally lends to the sound... I feel like CA is the Rush album with the greatest "unrealized potential" in that the songs themselves are mostly good but recorded/produced extremely poorly. If they were willing to record some of these songs (I'm thinking most of 7COG, which sounds the most "muffled" on the album, and Caravan/BU2B, where the guitar seems to overpower everything else to the point where it's actually very detrimental to the sound) in a live setting, with a decent amount of clarity and without Nick R. wreaking havoc on it production-wise, I would be very happy. And for the inevitable complainers about the lack of pre-1980 songs in Rush's live sets, just look at the setlist of King Crimson's Power To Believe tour... ALL but two songs come from the THRAK-TPTB era (3 albums), with the other two crammed in at the end, and yet the tour and the resulting live DVD was actually very successful (from my viewpoint), revealing many characteristics of the TCOL/TPTB material that seemed to be sadly lacking in the studio. If only Rush would bother to make an audible live album with a liberal sprinkling of CA material. Ah well.

King Crimson - The Power To Believe (2003) The Power To Believe I: []/15 *Level Five*: 13/15 Eyes Wide Open: 11/15 Elektrik: 12/15 <Facts Of Life>: 11/15 The Power To Believe II: 12/15 Dangerous Curves: 13/15 Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With: 12/15 The Power To Believe III: 11/15 The Power To Believe IV: 11/15 Adjusted Average: 11.89 (B) Overall Rating: B (Very Good) The zenith of the 90's/00's lineup, for various reasons. One is that King Crimson was no longer forcefully separated from the "ProjeKcts", which meant that they could bring in some more "experimental" material (Level Five, Dangerous Curves) which happens to be the best stuff on here. Another is that Gunn and Mastelotto are finally unleashed: their playing here is far more fluid and virtuosic than on TCOL, and this enhances the base enough to add a dimension to the music that was largely lacking on TCOL. But the biggest improvement is in the songs themselves: there's no uberderivative 9-minute snoozefests (a la that album's title track and LTIA IV) or songs that seem to rely on nonexistent breathing space (Into The Frying Pan, The World's My Oyster Soup etc.) (though this album does have a lot more "room to breathe", owing partially to the acoustic nature of most of the drumming); instead, we have a high-quality pop song (Eyes Wide Open); the title track (presented in four variations and essentially based upon a love song; version 1 features Belew singing a capella, version 2 is the longest and is based upon some very pretty soundscapes, version 3 is actually based upon an earlier piece ("The Deception Of The Thrush") which hadn't made it onto any King Crimson studio album to that point, but which has a very disturbing atmosphere which contrasts interestingly with the lyrics; version 4 is also based upon soundscapes and closes the album); a nu-metal parody (Happy etc.), which features some wonderful heavy guitar interplay to complement Belew's typical parodic elephantosity; a good (but not great) vaguely "modern"-sounding hard rock song (though with plenty of King Crimson charm) in Facts Of Life, which is actually marred considerably by the dippy lyrics (Belew's lyrics were never that "profound", but perhaps that was for the better given what happened (this, People) when he did); and finally three more "experimental" tracks which all seem to have different "focuses": Elektrik is based upon some terrific guitar interplay which, yes, we've heard before, but which obtains more "breathing room" here than it usually had in the past to great effect; Level Five is based upon a quantity of drum patterns which push forward great guitar part after great guitar part; and finally, Dangerous Curves is simply an extremely well-executed rhythmic crescendo, which leads into Happy (etc.) with great effect. Overall a much better album that one would expect following the disaster of TCOL, and probably the best we could have hoped for at this point... it's a bit of a shame that this lineup had to end just as it started making consistently good music.

MP Or S&A if you meant "consistently mediocre"

Sorry Narpski: Yes - Drama (1980) Machine Messiah: 13/15 White Car: (10/15) Does It Really Happen: 12/15 <Into The Lens>: 10/15 Run Through The Light: 11/15 *Tempus Fugit*: 13/15 Adjusted average: 11.5 (A or B) Overall rating: B (Very Good) Just a brief note on Into The Lens: I can understand perfectly why many fans hate it, and in all fairness many parts of it annoy me enough for me to place it as the worst on the album, but are there really no redeeming features? I mean, there are parts of it that I really like; for example, the "though you may find time will blind you" part is one of my favorite passages on the album. I can see why people would get annoyed with the chorus (I do admit that it bugs me more a bit), but (IMO) it's hardly an "irredeemable mess"...

oops

Do you consider John Rutsey a member of Rush? Or, along those lines, do you consider Jonathan Silver a member of Genesis? Or Peter Banks a member of Yes?

Hilda 2

By the way I came up with a sort of rubric for what averages tend to "point to"... this shouldn't be the overall rating for an album but I think it will be interesting to see how they coincide (or fail to) Really, this can serve as an indication of the "other aspects" of the album, beyond song quality... for example Using the adjusted average, this is approximately what I came up with: 14.5+ = 10 14-14.5 = F 13-14 = E 12.5-13 = D 12-12.5 = C 11.5-12 = B 11-11.5 = A 10.5-11 = 9 10-10.5 = 8 9-10 = 7 8-9 = 6 7-8 = 5 6-7 = 4 4.5-6 = 3 3-4.5 = 2 <3 = 1

What the heck, I've made the compulsory 3 listens... *Gentle Giant - Octopus (1972)* The Advent Of Panurge: 14/15 Raconteur Troubadour: 13/15 Cry For Everyone: 13/15 Knots: 11/15 //Honestly, it REALLY shouldn't work as well as it does... but I enjoy it enough that an 11 seems justified <The Boys In The Band>: 11/15 A Dog's Life: 12/15 Think Of Me With Kindness: 12/15 *River*: 14/15 Adjusted average: 12.5 (D) (The average of the mean and the median) Overall rating: D (Great/Very Good)