diatribein

I don't even know when that was. Must have wiped it from memory. September 27, 2013 I believe is the date you are looking for. We still have a few months, but it seems unfair that Vapor Trails should get two anniversaries a year!

Roll the bones, Presto are also available from Audio fidelity 24 kt. Gold, and they sound fantastic. Fantastic is a BIG word to describe the sound quality for those two. Let's just say they sound better than either the original releases or the 2004 remasters. They still suffer from the tinny production with too much high end and not enough low end, especially on Superconductor, Red Tide, Face Up, and You Bet Your Life. For those songs I personally find the 24 Bit flac downloads that were free with the 2015 vinyl reissues are a little better. The one that really shines in terms of the Audio Fidelity 24kt. releases is Counterparts. That one is easily the best version of the album available and a significant improvement on the 1993 release and the 2004 remaster. I discuss these 3 releases in my Best Mastering post here: http://www.therushforum.com/index.php?/topic/102929-rush-best-mastering-guide/

I don't think it hearkens back at all to either 2112 or A Farewell To Kings. To me it is more delivering on the promise that Presto never could. Let me explain: There was a move away from synthesizers to more acoustic guitars on Presto. For the most part the tinny production and weaker songs mooted a lot of those changes, making the album often sound like it was poorly conceived or lost in some in-between place. Snakes & Arrows, on the other hand, has a strong direction and uses acoustic guitars masterfully. It is the only album that truly made good on the deemphasizing of synthesizers without compromising the overall sound of the band. All the other albums where synths are not present post Hold Your Fire feel flawed to me. Like the band was trying to chase a trend or go backwards. Some of it is still excellent, but no album is as good as anything they had done before, except for this one. Snakes & Arrows really delivers on the promise of an engaging, powerful RUSH album fronted by amazing acoustic guitars mixed with the heavier guitars we had gotten used to with Counterparts, Test For Echo and Vapor Trails with almost no synthesizers. For me, this is easily the best thing they have done since the halcyon days of the synth era.

1. Natural Science 2. By-Tor and the Snow Dog 3. 2112 I don't really like any of the others.

I did not disagree with your point, but rather your signalling of Hold Your Fire as the moment where that became reality. My point is that the change to a longer album format came about in the mid-1990s rather than the late 1980s. I actually feel like this is not to the detriment of any album, since I often like songs that might have been left on the cutting room floor. If you do not like a song you can just always skip it. There are many songs on albums I have only heard once or twice that contain songs I have heard thousands of times. It is up to you to what you listen to.

Last night I ate steak. I liked (not loved) it so it must've been bad. Makes sense. :crazy: :P If you are going to call me crazy I prefer :banana: If you noticed, RUSH have more than 168 songs, so there are a few in the just like category. Also, I didn't count the Geddy Lee album. Had I done so, it would have been 121 LOVE.

patriotism [pey-tree-uh-tiz-uh m or, esp. British, pa-] noun devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty. The above definition is from dictionary.com, none of the above exclude or preclude thinking for one's self or mindlessly waving a flag. Pride of place. This is a classic circular argument. I could ask you why it could be considered a bad thing. The question has the smell of modern open mindedness about it where everything is ok as long as you don't actually believe in anything. I love my country, I love my state and where I'm from...yet I don't brush aside their faults. I consider Patriotism generally to be a bad thing because it automatically values the arbitrary place you are from over the other and therefor, as Mosher so eloquently put it "It allows for people to choose NOT to help others, or to assume others are somehow different, somehow driven by motivations other than basic human motivations". It creates false rivalries and a sense that one place or group of people is somehow better than the other. It inherently creates inequalities. Who am I? Am I Canadian? That is my passport. Am I Portuguese? That is where I was born and lived my entire teenage life. Am I American? I live here now and am a permanent resident. How does this colour me? Where and why should I feel Patriotic about? What service does it provide me or the world to love any or all of these places above others? Patriotism is often a tool used to motivate populous to do things on the behalf of a nation that it would not otherwise do. There is no question that in that form it is a force of evil, but when is it ever a force of good? .

Beautifully said. Thank you.

Not to be too provocative, but... Why is Patriotism a good thing? What would be the harm if people weren't patriotic? I don't think Neil is just talking about going to war over a piece of dirt. There is that, but so much more too. This thing you say: "Patriotism for one's country is a good thing" seems like just one of those things that people say because they have heard it over and over. Why is it a good thing? What does the world look like without Patriotism? Is it a worse place? Why would it be? These are the questions posed in this song and they are important to ask oneself. .

More of a criticism on blind Patriotism than anything else I believe, especially from the perspective of someone who holds citizenship in various places (citizen of the world). As someone who has Canadian and EU citizenship (born in Portugal, child in Canada, teenager in Portugal, young adult in the UK & Canada) and now a permanent resident in the US, I can totally relate with this song. Patriotism often manifests itself as small provincial thinking that effectively stifles intellectualism and progressive ideas. The concept of provincialism and the dumbing down of thought to fit a locale or system is a theme on Power Windows that is discussed from a few angles (Grand Designs, Middletown Dreams, Territories, and the influence of capitalism in this theme in The Big Money). Remember, Neil lived for almost 2 years in London after high school and by 1985 had travelled through much of the world. Living in more than one culture gives you perspectives not afforded to someone who has spent their entire life living (tourism does not count) in one country and absorbing all the rhetoric associated with that locale. I like Neil's thinking on this song (and album) a lot. For me Power Windows is his first lyrical masterpiece. From this point on many more of the lyrics would be socially conscious, thoughtful and insightful. My connection to the band became so much stronger once Neil started voicing so much of what I was feeling. I love these lyrics. My interpretation: If you consider yourself a Patriot ask yourself why? What is it that makes you think this country you pledge allegiance to is better than any other place? For me Patriotism is earned, not a given. My explanation is inherently political, so I don't want to go into it here. I will say though, that I actively rooted against Canada from 2006 to 2015 and felt no connection to my fellow Canadians during that period. It has changed recently and I am missing my home at a time when we are doing so much good. .

Love: 110 Songs Bad: 58 Songs But, as covered in another thread I am a love it or hate it sort of person.

Please DO NOT remove 2 of my 3 favourite songs off of Roll The Bones or the deserving last single from Test For Echo. There is also little reason to excise High Water from Hold Your Fire. There are no consensus "bad songs" so please do not speak for the rest of us by taking away songs that some of us love. You wouldn't want me deciding what RUSH songs should be removed and I certainly don't want you being the arbiter of what is a worthy song. The first thing I would eliminate are all of those boring instrumentals. Does that seem like a fair deal to you? You should also do a little research. In 1987 cassette tapes were by far the dominant format, with vinyl beating out CDs by the smallest of margins. That was reversed in 1988, but the sales of both formats combined wouldn't overtake cassettes until 1992. CDs had nothing to do with Hold Your Fire having 10 tracks. I would say they did impact Counterparts and all subsequent albums in terms of length, but nothing prior to that. Don't believe me? See for yourself: http://blog.thecurrent.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/9/files/2014/02/units-vs-dollars-riaa.jpg

Yeah, Snakes & Arrows is considerably better than the follow up. I'll never forget how disappointed I felt half-way into my first listen of Clockwork Angels knowing that is was nowhere near the quality of its predecessor. Snakes & Arrows had really renewed my relationship with RUSH after the mess that was Vapor Trails. So many good songs on Snakes & Arrows: The Way The Wind Blows, Bravest Face, Workin' Them Angels, Far Cry, We Hold On, Faithless... It is just great song after great song. .

I define it as: If the percentage of music I love on an album is 20% or less, then it is a bad album. There is nothing to speak of that I really like off of Feedback so that would be 0% The only song I love off the debut is Working Man so that is 17.5% (7 minutes out of 40) I really like Lakeside Park & Bastille Day off Caress Of Steel and that is exactly 20% (9 minutes out of 45) Hemispheres is really, really close since I only like The Trees & Circumstances which end up being 22% of the album, but I feel like the 20% rule is fair. I call Hemispheres a sub par album, rather than outright bad. I think it makes a hell of a single though, with Circumstances on Side A and The Trees on Side B! So for you it's a minimum of 20% LOVE? If I use that model then I'll have to bust out with the calculator because there'll be a few borderline albums. Post HYF, there are plenty of songs I LIKE but don't LOVE. And then there are some that I think are just OKAY. 21st century Rush consists of a lot of OKAY & LIKE but to say those albums are BAD doesn't seem justifiable. Well, but I have so much music in my life (3750+ items in my collection) that I only ever listen to songs I love. I never listen to the other songs on Caress Of Steel for example. EVER. I very rarely listen to whole albums. I make 25 to 30 song mixes by eras and listen exclusively to those. So Bastille Day & Lakeside Park are the only songs I listen to from that album in that era mix. I have only listened to the rest of the album when I was selecting which songs were worthy of making my mix. In fact, there are only two albums in my RUSH collection that I would ever put on my stereo as a whole album more than once or twice. One of those technically isn't even a RUSH album! I love every single song on Grace Under Pressure and Geddy Lee's My Favourite Headache. On every other album there is at least one song that is left out of my mixes and even the Geddy Lee album, I have to cycle off a song (right now The Angels' Share, but it was on the previous iteration) because it is difficult to get 11 songs from any album on a 30 song mix that takes music from 4 to 5 albums. If you are curious I have four 30 song mixes for RUSH. 120 songs is quite encompassing, so it makes RUSH one of my most listened to bands. The mixes break down as such: RUSH Part I: 1973 - 1981 (Not Fade Away to Moving Pictures) RUSH Part II: 1982 - 1988 (Signals to Hold Your Fire)* RUSH Part III: 1989 - 1999 (Presto to Test For Echo) RUSH Part IV: 2000 - 2015 (My Favourite Headache to Clockwork Angels) * - The amazing thing about this era is that RUSH were still doing sub 9 song albums for the most part. That means that I use 30 out of a potential 34 songs!!! I was considering using Witch Hunt Live from either the Grace Under Pressure Tour or A Show Of Hands in order to increase the pool to 35 and because it made sense with the Fear Trilogy, but I decided that I liked High Water more than anything that I would have to add to Part I to replace Witch Hunt. In fact, the whole reason why I am on this board is because I recently upgraded my mixes from 25 songs per era to 30 (100 total to 120). That meant I was considering moving things around in a way that necessitated possibly putting Spindrift (my 8th favourite song on Snakes & Arrows) on Part IV. That was a problem because it is stupidly crossfaded into The Larger Bowl. Songs that are crossfaded are difficult to isolate for mixes without sounding shitty, so I went looking for the Promo which has a Radio Edit. Someone on this board had that promo for sale and the rest is history. In the end I made a better version of Spindrift myself by using the isolated files from the 5.1 mix AND I ended up not putting it on the mix anyway, so the point was moot. Still, that is why I am here. You probably didn't want this much insight into my mind! :banana: in regards to your last sentence I'm not sure you really answered my question. The minimum 20% question that is. I'm trying to grasp the idea that IF you only LIKE 100% of an album but NOT LOVE it, then it's a BAD album. How does that work? It's good but it's not great so it's bad?! Teacher (to student): You did well Mikey. 1 A and 7 Bs on this quarter's report card but since you didn't get ALL As, you get an F for the entire quarter. Mikey: ((sobbing like a mofo)) :P Well... it's more like I feel 0 or 100 about songs. Either I listen to them or not. There is no real in-between. I guess Spindrift is a good example of a song I like, but do not love. So, since I only like it, it gets left out of my mix if I lack space to accommodate. In so doing, I never end up listening to it since I almost never listen to whole albums. BUT, if suddenly a situation would arise that would necessitate another song making it to a mix, then Spindrift would be elevated to the same status as any of the other songs I listen to. This would happen if RUSH releases a new album with less than 10 songs I love for example. On occasion I switch out songs I love less for other ones that I like, but that happens rarely. Oh, and the constraints are set by me. I like the era parts to be uniform in terms number of songs, so that forces choices. It's kind of a fun way to interact with music; at least it's quite a lot of fun for me. Have I clarified? The only thing that matters to me on an album is songs that I love. Songs that make me want to make a mix. I don't know about "like", but a whole bunch of okay songs isn't going to do much for me. Oh and as someone who has been in academia both as a Masters student and a teacher, I prefer Pass or Fail to staggered grades. .

I define it as: If the percentage of music I love on an album is 20% or less, then it is a bad album. There is nothing to speak of that I really like off of Feedback so that would be 0% The only song I love off the debut is Working Man so that is 17.5% (7 minutes out of 40) I really like Lakeside Park & Bastille Day off Caress Of Steel and that is exactly 20% (9 minutes out of 45) Hemispheres is really, really close since I only like The Trees & Circumstances which end up being 22% of the album, but I feel like the 20% rule is fair. I call Hemispheres a sub par album, rather than outright bad. I think it makes a hell of a single though, with Circumstances on Side A and The Trees on Side B! So for you it's a minimum of 20% LOVE? If I use that model then I'll have to bust out with the calculator because there'll be a few borderline albums. Post HYF, there are plenty of songs I LIKE but don't LOVE. And then there are some that I think are just OKAY. 21st century Rush consists of a lot of OKAY & LIKE but to say those albums are BAD doesn't seem justifiable. Well, but I have so much music in my life (3750+ items in my collection) that I only ever listen to songs I love. I never listen to the other songs on Caress Of Steel for example. EVER. I very rarely listen to whole albums. I make 25 to 30 song mixes by eras and listen exclusively to those. So Bastille Day & Lakeside Park are the only songs I listen to from that album in that era mix. I have only listened to the rest of the album when I was selecting which songs were worthy of making my mix. In fact, there are only two albums in my RUSH collection that I would ever put on my stereo as a whole album more than once or twice. One of those technically isn't even a RUSH album! I love every single song on Grace Under Pressure and Geddy Lee's My Favourite Headache. On every other album there is at least one song that is left out of my mixes and even the Geddy Lee album, I have to cycle off a song (right now The Angels' Share, but it was on the previous iteration) because it is difficult to get 11 songs from any album on a 30 song mix that takes music from 4 to 5 albums. If you are curious I have four 30 song mixes for RUSH. 120 songs is quite encompassing, so it makes RUSH one of my most listened to bands. The mixes break down as such: RUSH Part I: 1973 - 1981 (Not Fade Away to Moving Pictures) RUSH Part II: 1982 - 1988 (Signals to Hold Your Fire)* RUSH Part III: 1989 - 1999 (Presto to Test For Echo) RUSH Part IV: 2000 - 2015 (My Favourite Headache to Clockwork Angels) * - The amazing thing about this era is that RUSH were still doing sub 9 song albums for the most part. That means that I use 30 out of a potential 34 songs!!! I was considering using Witch Hunt Live from either the Grace Under Pressure Tour or A Show Of Hands in order to increase the pool to 35 and because it made sense with the Fear Trilogy, but I decided that I liked High Water more than anything that I would have to add to Part I to replace Witch Hunt. In fact, the whole reason why I am on this board is because I recently upgraded my mixes from 25 songs per era to 30 (100 total to 120). That meant I was considering moving things around in a way that necessitated possibly putting Spindrift (my 8th favourite song on Snakes & Arrows) on Part IV. That was a problem because it is stupidly crossfaded into The Larger Bowl. Songs that are crossfaded are difficult to isolate for mixes without sounding shitty, so I went looking for the Promo which has a Radio Edit. Someone on this board had that promo for sale and the rest is history. In the end I made a better version of Spindrift myself by using the isolated files from the 5.1 mix AND I ended up not putting it on the mix anyway, so the point was moot. Still, that is why I am here. You probably didn't want this much insight into my mind! :banana: Also, I was thinking about it, and considering that the average album has 12 songs, if you LOVE 3 of them it is 25% of the album. If I love 3 songs off an album, I consider it to at the very least to be a decent album. There is no way I could call it bad if I love 3 songs. Edit: If by some craziness RUSH do go ahead and release another album or Geddy puts out a second album my mixes would change so that Signals would move to Part I, Presto to Part II, My Favourite Headache to Part III and the final mix would go from Vapor Trails to album #21 or Geddy album #2. I would NOT expand to a 5-Parter unless there were at least two very good albums released or if there are two additional Geddy albums (for a total of 3 solo albums) If it is the latter, I would then remove Geddy's material entirely from the RUSH mix and give him a 25 song mix of his own. In that scenario Snakes & Arrows gets at least 9 songs onto Part IV, Feedback finally gets a song on a mix, and Bravado gets switched to Part IV from the Clockwork Angels Live CD. .

I define it as: If the percentage of music I love on an album is 20% or less, then it is a bad album. There is nothing to speak of that I really like off of Feedback so that would be 0% The only song I love off the debut is Working Man so that is 17.5% (7 minutes out of 40) I really like Lakeside Park & Bastille Day off Caress Of Steel and that is exactly 20% (9 minutes out of 45) Hemispheres is really, really close since I only like The Trees & Circumstances which end up being 22% of the album, but I feel like the 20% rule is fair. I call Hemispheres a sub par album, rather than outright bad. I think it makes a hell of a single though, with Circumstances on Side A and The Trees on Side B!

Feedback, :rush: , and Caress of Steel are all bad albums. In a career of 20 that is still pretty awesome.

I hate all this crapping on one of THE BEST RUSH ALBUMS on it's anniversary thread. This is a brilliant album and the only one that is great from start to finish that RUSH released this millennium. I absolutely love it and listen to it as much as I do Permanent Waves, Grace Under Pressure or ANY other RUSH album. I wish they had been capable of writing and recording such an amazing album as their last album, but this one really ended up being the last awesome RUSH album. If you have already voiced your dislike for the album on this thread, please don't post another inane diss, just so the last word about Snakes & Arrows will be negative. Leave this final bit of positivity and move on to a thread with a topic you like more. I don't make it my life's work to make sure every thread about Hemispheres ends with a some disparaging remark and I would hope that everyone here is mature enough to respect that some RUSH fans love Snakes & Arrows and don't need to read about how you personally hate the album 20 times over.

What bases is he hoarding? Does all your base belong to him? ROFLMAO!!! :LMAO: I really hope that other people on here got that, because you sir have won this thread.

My 8 tracks would be: 1. Caravan 2. BU2B 3. The Anarchist 4. Carnies 5. Halo Effect 6. The Wreckers 7. Wish Them Well 8. The Garden Running Time: 43:13 That is around the traditional running time of a 70s / 80s album! You could release it on a single vinyl LP, but the title would need to be changed once Clockwork Angels was excised. How about we call it Thinking Big?

Love: Caravan, BU2B, and The Garden Like: The Wreckers, Wish Them Well, and The Anarchist Hate: Headlong Flight, Clockwork Angels, and Seven Cities of Gold I really, really, really, really do not understand the love that Headlong Flight and the title track get on this board. I remember putting this album on for the first time. I, obviously, already knew the first two songs from the single. Immediately, I was annoyed that they had been changed so that they were kind of crossfaded (I detest crossfading). I thought to myself, that's okay, I still have the single versions, so it doesn't matter. Then the next track came on and it was so long and pedantic. I kept thinking to myself when will this thing end and OH NO, THIS is the title track! After what seemed like an hour The Anarchist lifted my spirits momentarily, but I was again disappointed by the fact that it too was crossfaded into Carnies. I felt like both Carnies and Halo Effect were okay if not particularly memorable, but by this time it was already clear to me that the album was a HUGE disappointment compared to Snakes & Arrows. Then there was Seven Cities Of Gold; that was a difficult listen. I instantly had a new least favourite on an album that was already very sub-par in my book. I liked The Wreckers instantly, so that was a nice respite, but it didn't last long. I had watched the video only once on the RUSH website for Headlong Flight and was legitimately surprised that it was the lead single. I thought it had to be a mistake. There is nothing about this song I like. It is poorly written and poorly constructed and it sounds like a boring jam rather than an actual song. UGH! BU2B2 isn't really a song, so... At least the album ends well. I like Wish Them Well. The only problem with it is that it comes so late in the album that you've lost faith by the time you reach it. At least the lyrics on that song are relatable! The last song was brilliant too. I kept singing "The hours tick away... The cells tick away...". Yes they do. I think I'll tick mine away listening to a better RUSH album, like Snakes & Arrows.

You forgot the caption: Geddy Lee Pictured ON STAGE at concert in Brazil sipping a Piña Colada between songs.

Who doesn't?!?!

My ears are bleeding in celebration! :fury:

If you like the Audio Fidelity Counterparts release you will likely enjoy the Test For Echo, Snakes & Arrows, and Feedback 96 kHz / 24 bit flac downloads. Audio Fidelity use their own in-house guy, Kevin Gray, for mastering and he is very good. The 24bit flac files are mastered by someone else, who may not be as supremely good, but has similar sensibilities. I would say that the Counterparts 24 bit flac download is almost as good the Audio Fidelity and actually a little less loud. Since there are no Audio Fidelity releases for Test For Echo, Snakes & Arrows, and Feedback, the best available mastering is the download. Presto & Roll The Bones are a little more problematic. I'll give you an example: On Presto I use Red Tide and Superconductor from the 24 bit flac download rather than the Audio Fidelity CD because the EQ helps mitigate the very flat & tinny high end that dominates those songs. The same goes for Face Up and You Bet Your Life on Roll The Bones. The rest of the songs I am fairly happy with the Audio Fidelity mastering. These problems are not really the fault of the mastering, but rather poor production choices at the time the albums were mixed. Both could use a remix, but I feel like the time has long since passed for that and there would be little interest regardless. The main point is that there are differences between these masters and that both the Audio Fidelity and 24 bit flac files have merit. May I ask how do you like the Audio Fidelity Mastering of Hemispheres? Is it similar to the Audio Fidelity Counterparts and Roll The Bones? I absolutely love the original Canadian Anthem version I have, and most of the people who have both that posted on forums.stevehoffman.tv seem to prefer the Canadian mastering. The price for the Audio Fidelity Hemispheres has really gotten out of hand too, so I feel no real need to buy it since the mastering of the original compares favourably.