rftag

I seem to recall that the band were proud of COS at that time but in retrospect they admitted that they may have been smoking too many jazz cigarettes.

Yeah Ged actually says that in BTLS.

Geddy has even said that he hates Lakeside Park, so I was pleasantly surprised when they performed it on the R40 tour.

Geddy Lee: "I can’t go back beyond 2112 really, because that starts to get a bit hairy for me, and if I hear ‘Lakeside Park’ on the radio I cringe. What a lousy song! Still, I don’t regret anything that I’ve done!”

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/rush-caress-of-steel-album/?trackback=tsmclip

A 40th anni release of COS would have been something that I would have loved. I am relatively new to the band, so it would have been a good introduction to that time.

I am new to this forum too. This is my first post.

A 40th anni of COS would have been timely considering the band was on a farewell tour.

 

Nice to meet everyone here btw

Welcome to the forum.

I don't know why they didn't do a 40th anniversary release of COS, but the members of Rush are on record as considering the album something of an embarrassment and as others here have pointed out it is one of their worst selling albums.

There are some big fans of it on the forum but it's not particularly popular here either so far as I can tell.

I personally think that Lakeside Park and Bastille Day are great songs and think Alex's guitar playing on The Necromancer is kick ass.

This was supposed to be their breakthrough album and at the time they were very proud of it.

The listening public didn't agree; album sales were low and the tour supporting the album drew thin crowds and saw them playing ever smaller venues; they jokingly referred to it as the "Down The Tubes" tour because they figured they were finished as a band.

Rush excitedly played some of the material from the album (then still not finished) for members of the band Kiss while touring with them as an opening act and the members of Kiss were decidedly underwhelmed.

Following the disastrous reception of COS their record company essentially gave them an ultimatum to the effect that if their next album didn't return to the more conventional hard rock format of their previous recordings they would be dropped from the label.

Rush famously defied the ultimatum by following COS with the decidedly unconventional 2112, which ended up being the breakthrough album they hoped COS would be; one of the ballsiest moves in the history of rock.

If you haven't seen the great Rush documentary film "Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage", you should definitely see it. Aside from being a great film, it gives a much better description of the problems the band encountered following the release of COS than I could possibly provide.

Again, welcome to the forum!

The cringiest part for me is Alex repeating the chorus ("superconductor!").

 

Also, in the official video for the song where they're suposed to be playing live (though it doesn't appear to be from an actual concert), there's this dorky, chubby guy at the front of the crowd dancing really excitedly; it's just soooo cheesy.

 

Just a very bland, poppy, crappy song in my opinion.

 

The video is supposed to be cheesy.

I know Rush has a great sense of humor and has been known to indulge in self deprecating humor, but I don't think this is what was going on here.

I think it was intended to be taken seriously and it just happened to be cheesy as f**k because - well - it WAS cheesy as f**k. Certainly the song was not intended to be cheesy.

I think genres of music come about through a process similar to evolution, and I don't think metal was a distinct "species" until the 1980s. To me, metal was in its "transitional fossil" phase during the 1970s. So I voted "no". CX1 was not a metal song because metal as a distinct genre didn't exist at the time CX1 was recorded. Can it be found on the path that led to metal? For damn sure.

No disrespect intended here (I've enjoyed your posts for years), but according to this line of reasoning the original Ozzy era of Black Sabbath (1970 to 1979) wasn't heavy metal, which strikes me as absurd.

The cringiest part for me is Alex repeating the chorus ("superconductor!").

Also, in the official video for the song where they're suposed to be playing live (though it doesn't appear to be from an actual concert), there's this dorky, chubby guy at the front of the crowd dancing really excitedly; it's just soooo cheesy.

Just a very bland, poppy, crappy song in my opinion.

In order:

In The End

Anthem

Best I Can

Definitely Moving Pictures.

His last classic screeching was the "each of us, a cell of awareness" etc bit in Freewill on PeW.

In no particular order:

2112 - Side 1

FTK - Side 1

PeW - Side 1

In no particular order:

Alex

Hendrix

Jimmy Page

David Gilmour

Tony Iommi

[Technical proficiency isn't a particularly important metric for me. If we were to favor guitarists based on their technical proficiency alone the top five would include a lot of guitarists from horrible bands.]

Man, I LOVED the R40 tour.

I saw two shows (Atlanta Georgia and Portland Oregon) and had tickets for the final show but couldn't make it.

Loved loved loved the various set lists.

My only regret is that on both of the shows I saw it was set list A, which did not include Natural Science or Camera Eye (that and the fact that set list A was also shorter than all of the other sets).

But watching all of the shows on Periscope with all of the TRF people commenting in real time was a very unique experience which, unfortunately, will apparently, never be repeated.

Periscope made 2015 a very special year for a Rush fan and made that last tour appropriately special.

Remember all the anticipation of when they would actually play Losing It?

Good times...

Great question.

It made me remember that one of the most exciting and unique things about Rush is how their sound would change so much from album to album (what other band does that?).

There was always the exciting anticipation of what would be different on the next album.

There really are no two Rush albums which sound very similar to each other, which is one reason why Rush is so special.

That said, I would have to say that possibly Fly By Night and 2112 sound the most similar.

Lyrically it's definitely P/G. But despite the very dark lyrics, it doesn't sound particularly dark musically.

Though one could argue that the contrast between the dark lyrics and not particularly dark sounding music actually makes it more dark, in an ironic way.

If so, I am skeptical that it was intentional; I think Neil was in a darker frame of mind writing the lyrics than Alex and Ged in writing the music; the latter seemed more motivated by exploring Police like sonic spaces than anything else. At the time Alex said that they were very much inspired/influenced by The Police and were intent on exploring that sort of sonic terrain.

I prefer Moving Pictures.

Most Rush fans seem to consistently like all of the songs on the album except for Camera Eye, Witch Hunt, and Vital Signs.

I initially didn't like Camera Eye but ultimately came to love it.

I always loved Witch Hunt (I realize I am an outlier here but this may actually be my favorite song on the album).

I never liked Vital Signs and still don't, though the fade out part is OK. It sounds more like a Signals song.

Too synthy for my tastes. I think it would have been better if it weren't so synth saturated.

I came across a demo version of it on YouTube several years ago which - to my ears at least - sounded a lot better than the version that ultimately appeared on the album. It was less overwhelmingly synthy and somewhat more guitar driven. Still no gem in my opinion.

I think they just got way too synthy in the mid to late 80s, and so much of that sounds so cheesy and dated today (hell, it sounded cheesy back then).

Ironically their synth era stuff sounds more dated today than their late 70s stuff.

It's a decent song but it would have been better if it wasn't so synth saturated, IMHO.

But if you are partial to synth era Rush you will probably love it.

I think the poppiest is The Wreckers and the heaviest is Headlong Flight; it wasn't a difficult choice.

I like both songs.

I like the song frankly.

Sure it's a competitively shallow song from their early days but it's good early 70s hard rock.

Best:

 

Chain Lightning

Presto

Available Light

 

Worst:

 

Scars

Superconductor

 

That's it

Superconductor is a strong contender for worst Rush song ever.

The video is particularly bad, especially the faux concert footage with the cheesy looking chubby guy rocking out front and center.

[i am referring to a guy in the audience, not Alex (Alex wasn't chubby yet).]

Do you consider Xanadu heavy metal?

 

I'm almost afraid of the answer. It will probably make me weep.

I definitely do. Very proggy metal, but metal nonetheless.

Kid Gloves hands down.

I personally was never a fan of GuP but Kid Gloves was my favorite song on the album. It also struck me at the time as being the least synthy and most guitar oriented song on a very synthy album (which is not to say it isn't a synth driven song but at least Alex's guitar makes itself known here).

It's an interesting song for me in terms of the new direction Rush took in the 80s and how the way my evaluation of what constituted a 'good' Rush song changed in the wake of that change.

Before GuP came out, when their last studio album was Signals (which I perceived as a profoundly disappointing follow up to Moving Pictures), I regarded the song Vital Signs as the weakest track on Moving Pictures because it sounded like a Signals song.

By 1984 when GuP finally came out (and I was very disappointed with it), I regarded Kid Gloves as the strongest track on the album - because it sounded like a Signals song.

Given the unbroken stream of near perfect albums that had preceded Signals, I was confident that Signals was an outlier and was very much looking forward to the next album being a return to form.

But I was even more disappointed with GuP than I was with Signals.

So yeah; not a fan of the synth period.