I've enjoyed reading this post and can totally relate to it. I was a huge Rush fan from the mid-70's through the early 80's. I didn't like when they went into the keyboard phase starting with Signals. I stopped listening to anything after Signals for 10 years. Then I re-discovered them and started listening to the 10 years worth of material I had missed and found that I then liked a lot of it. The metal head in me deprived me of some cool music because I wasn't quite ready to be more open minded.
I am still nostalgic I guess and still prefer the stuff from the 70's and early 80's. Each album has at least a couple really killer tunes and the musicianship has never flagged.
