Timbale

I have given it a "spin" one time, though just on streaming - I'm currently away from my turn table, so will be buying the vinyl at some point soon. It is definitely a "clearer" mix...I didn't have the patience to A/B the entire thing, but did jump back and forth a couple times when I first started. The guitars off the top of Dogs sound more like "real" acoustics...there's a clarity there that is more present than the original mix...but I don't know if that adds up to "better" or not yet. The vocals have had some work done on them, removing reverbs seems to be the main thing. They feel more present, perhaps more in line with the vocal quality on The Wall. I think some other choices have been made as well - I believe the kind of prechorus on Pigs (You're nearly a good laugh...) used to have a double tracked Roger vocal, or perhaps a tape delay that was stereo panned to give a double track effect. It sounds like that has been altered...I don't know if maybe the time of the delay has just been shortened so it has a different sense of separation or something. Curious to really dig into that and figure it out. They also brought up Gilmour's back ups in the song. I'm not sure I ever really registered that it was him singing on the chorus, but now I can clearly hear that it's him. Over all the bass seems bigger and the overall separation of the instruments is greater, so there are a few keyboard things that I had never noticed before which was nice. I will have to live with it for a while to determine if it's "better" than the original or not...

This is the amazing thing about a band that was around as long as Rush...there's so much material that people can have such different opinions over. I respect yours, even though I disagree with it. After reading what you had written, I opened up my itunes to give T4E a spin, to at least listen to the songs you listed...only to find that I must have deleted it from my hard drive to make space for something else. I guess that says something about my feelings for it, haha. (I seem to have removed T4E, RTB and S&A. The rest of the records are there...) Maybe in another thread we could have a discussion about the difference between good songs and essential songs, if there even is one. I'm interested in the semantic difference that may exist. Like, I think for better or for worse, Roll The Bones is an essential Rush song when it comes to their trajectory...even though the middle section is kind of embarrassing to me, so might not go into my "good" category. I could kind of see that Resist might, might go in the essential column because it landed in a more melodic, acoustic place that they visited after that...but I don't know. :)

Yes, I agree, I should have said that. Although some of RTB is pretty disposable - I think we can all live without Face Up, for instance - those first three are important "modern" Rush songs in ways that none of the T4E songs are.

I think T4E is Rush's least essential album - like, if it didn't exist, it wouldn't alter the story or the trajectory of the band very much. There isn't a song from it that feels particularly emblematic or that you can't imagine a concert without. It just feels to me like it could disappear and we'd all just be OK I don't think you can say that for any of the other albums...maybe Roll The Bones, but that one was at least the continued step back to the 3 piece focus started on Presto. It's just so "meh"... it feels like a lot of filler to me, where everything is kinda so so ok...with a few real stinkers thrown in. I know I bring a subjective opinion because it was the first album they put out where my deep fandom waned. I never sat with T4E and dissected it the way I did with all the albums up to that point. It was the first one for me that didn't feel like an artistic statement, like an intentional release...it just felt like an album with some songs on it, which the other ones had not felt like to me (even though, of course, by definition, they were). Maybe that's why I don't like it...it kinda makes me feel sad, like the remnants of a breakup.

I feel a real sense of connection to a lot of Hold Your Fire. I think the songwriting is interesting, goes in some unexpected places and does not meander (save a few spots here and there.) I think it is a softer, less powerful album than Power Windows...but after giving it a spin recently, it really struck me how CATCHY so much of it is. I like when Rush is a bit heavier as well...but I would put many of these songs over stuff that came out on Vapour Trails, S&A and Clockwork Angels. When listening to Time Stand Still, I really noticed how the verse, the pre-chorus, the chorus, the sort-of post chorus ("freeze this moment...") and even the bridge were hummable and had intention to them. One of the things I dislike about more modern Rush is that the verses often feel like a hodge-podge of words and chords that don't create an interesting melody or rhythm...they're just crammed together. Songs on HYF are songs in a way that a lot of that stuff isn't for me. Honestly, I would rather listen to Tai Shan (which I seldom do) than Headlong Flight. I don't care if Headlong Flight kinda sounds like Bastille Day and they shred on it or whatever...I don't enjoy it as a song, and I think Tai Shan is at least a departure where they took a swing. And I think Ged sings it, and much of the album, really well. That said, it's not my fave album, and a few of the tracks get very little airtime for me (I cannot stand Turn The Page, despite Geddy's skill), but it overcomes it's sonic shortcomings for me by being interesting, and in that Neil Peart, slightly removed way, quite heartfelt.

AP - September 10, 2022 Although it has been touch and go with Her Majesty's health for the last year or so, Buckingham palace announced in a statement that the Queen and her family were comforted that she lived long enough to see the 40th Anniversary release of Moving Pictures. With the band delaying the release a year past its actual anniversary, there were rumours that the royal family were feeling stress that the band would not get the box set out in time. It has been long known that Moving Pictures is the Queen's favourite Rush record by some margin. Known for her cheeky sense of humour, Her Majesty would often pull the vinyl out in front of visiting dignitaries, point to the cover sleeve and say, "Look - the photo is taken at ME Park!" The newly crowned King Charles III, off the record, stated after his mother's passing, "It is a bloody shame that the band could not pull it together to get the damn Signals box set out on its proper anniversary - she would have had something to look forward to, and it may have just made her hold on through the fall." The new King made this comment, despite the fact that is well known that the Queen was not the biggest fan of the so called synth era, and preferred the classic, 3-piece approach. We hope her joy at receiving the deluxe Moving Pictures box set kept her vital signs up, if only for a little while longer.

Oh man, Omar playing with those guys was SO damn cool! I love that he didn't sound like some Rush tribute drummer, he sounded like his bada** self! And I don't care if it wasn't too close to the actual intro...having someone actually play the synth at the start of 2112 was a big smile!

Me as well. I hate that the Signals dog, for instance, is on the AFTK cover. Why?! "Oh, it's just a little reference", I imagine Syme or the band saying. But...a reference to what? We all own all the damn albums, I mean, we get it, it's a character from another record, but there's no logic to the reference itself. Exit...Stage Left is a great cover because the references make sense - it tells a little story. Having the dalmatian just shoved in there is idiotic, sorry.

It's a damn shame that there was a parting, whatever the circumstances, because Allen was clearly the superior tech. I can't imagine he would have let the atrocity that was the R40 second set kit go through the PA sounding like it did...

Ugh...the Farewell To Kings box cover is dreadful. I think Hugh Syme is super talented...but he seems to lean into "cute" with his digital stuff, and I find it really off-putting.

Wow...I guess they're not f**k ups because I assume Hugh Syme was on board for all of the boxsets...but those are some big differences with MP and Hemispheres. Hemispheres is almost a whole other album cover...not just the brain but the shadows, the horizon, the font and the colour around the red Rush lettering. And the missing lines around the name on Moving Pictures looks so weird to me...like a low rent version. I have read something somewhere with Syme voicing his distaste for the finished product of the Hemispheres cover...but it's a bit George Lucas to go in and make a new brain. Weird. (I didn't notice much difference with PW...)

I don't imagine that Signals gets an anniversary edition...although I would love it if it did - it is a definite top 5 album for me. I think, despite Subdivisions and New World Man being hits, that the "classic" era of albums is considered over by the record company and the band. The wider appeal to the rock fans who might buy, say, a Bruce Springsteen box or a Fleetwood Mac box or something, reaches its pinnacle with MP...after that it's "just" the fans. I will rejoice if I am wrong because it's one I'd run out to buy.

So you don't think Rush were performing Finding My Way, In The Mood, Working Man, Take A Friend and What You're Doing in '73-'74? I find it hard to believe that a band in that position went into the studio and decided "let's write new material for this". Like, it's not how bands make 1st records, almost ever.

So...Geddy has told the story before that he basically had to write the lyrics right in the studio because John was responsible for the lyrics but then he had a tantrum of some sort and destroyed them all? Something like that, anyway... But...these were surely songs that they had been gigging before they went into the studio, right? Weren't these songs that Geddy had been singing prior to making the first record? How does this make any sense?

Hmmm....I'd be interested to know what parts those are. I'm a Rush fan who puts 2112 in general way lower on the list than I think many fans do...but having said that, for me it's all of pretty much equal quality - I think Soliloquy is pretty much as good as Overture, for instance. I think Tears is quite cringy...but it's cringy the whole way though - it's not like the verse is blah and the chorus is really beautiful. It's all equally not good for me. I also think the songs on PW are very consistent - I can't think of a part of one of the songs that is of a different quality than the song itself. Freewill is a song I don't ever really listen to any more...but it's kinda because the whole thing doesn't appeal to me that much, not because I love the riff but hate the bridge or whatever. But Presto has things I really dislike rammed up against things I do like. 2 examples that are not Superconductor -1, Chain Lightning: the verses are tuneless and uninteresting to me, and the "that's nice" at the end pretty much guarantees that I would never play that song for another living grown up. BUT, the chorus "sun dogs fire..." is top tear middle period Rush, melodically, lyrically and arrangement wise. 2 - the title track: I like the verses a lot, I love the chorus and the bridge "don't ask me..." , but the "if I could wave my magic wand" into and pre-chorus thing - and particularly the synth sound that accompanies it - are terrible to me. So I don't know - does Jacob's Ladder go on a bit too long and meander a bit? Probably...but there's nothing that makes me wince like some parts of otherwise good songs from 1990 on....

YES! Might have even been interesting to have him pull the Bonham/Kashmir trick and play a four against it. Maybe even just some of the time. It would have been cool to have the pre-chorus go to regular time in the drums - a softer, quieter section but with the drums picking up intensity. You should have produced the record, Chemistry! Then we could have had you warbling "superconductor" instead of RH!

Wait, do you mean Neil playing half time against the riff...or the whole thing taking twice as long?

Indeed - also moments that I don't enjoy.

I listened all the way through Presto the other night, and have been thinking about Superconductor. Presto for me is the starting point of Rush having songs where I like parts of the songs but not other parts... the "hits you in a soft place" pre-chorus I really like a lot, the rest of the song doesn't do much for me. But with Superconductor, a big part of that is them choosing to have (I think) Rupert Hine sing the eponymous word in the chorus. I'm a bit baffled by it, even after all these years. This is the era where Geddy started singing more harmonies and back ups to himeslf, I imagine feeling freed up by the sampling technology that was allowing him to trigger vocals live. So, with all the layered stuff going on on Presto (turn around and turn around and turn around, oh the wind can carry/in the available light etc...) why have another, very different voice sing in the chorus? (I have also always found it weird the the delayed version of the word sounds like it bends out of tune, which sounds very unpleasant to my ear...) How do you feel about this other voice jumping in out of nowhere in the song? Would you enjoy it more if it was a 2 part harmony Geddy singing "superconductor"?

I guess this is kinda my question, though - and I know that we don't really care what Wenner thinks at the end of the day, but... do you really think Jann was up there feeling like he had to "take it" in the sense of, oh, my publication ignored these guys for so long and now I'm embarrassed by how badly I miscalculated it....or do you think he went back stage, sipping a martini with some friends after that intro and said "of course a thousand nerds showed up to make a spectacle out of the event." As I said, I don't actually care about Jann per se, and I was happy for the band itself... but did it give the impression that these guys have been overlooked, or was it just like, well, any band we've inducted could fill this hall with fans...but only fans of a band like Rush would actually bother to make a point of it...

I was reflecting on this the other day... there is now a sort of mythology built into the huge audience response to Rush's induction...the way the crowd went crazy the second Jann Wenner even said "Toronto"...and I think most of us who are fans looked at that as an indication that Rush were long overdue and far more welcomed than the "mainstream" would have us believe for so many years. But... Isn't it just a case of a s**t tonne of fans buying tickets to the thing and essentially taking over the event? I mean, it reads, watching it, like "the establishment" is finally giving Rush their due and celebrating how amazing they are...but isn't it just a huge pack of Rush nerds who've probably seen them in multiple cities on multiple tours just adding that event to their plans? Like...think about a band that you really don't like...and imagine them getting inducted and that response happening - would you be super impressed by the place exploding, or would you think "Right - a bunch of dicks on a Nickelback facebook fan page organized a trip to Cleveland". Was it cool....or lame?

I think there are a bunch of interesting ideas on CA - I remember hearing the title track for the first time and thinking "I've never heard them play this kind of groove before". After 19 or so albums, there probably aren't a lot of bands who could surprise you like that. BUT, I personally find their post 2000 sound too muddy and too big/loud/crowded. The drums are fine, sonically, I guess - I prefer earlier albums but the sound on CA isn't terrible... but the bass and especially the guitar are just sludgey to me - it sounds like a Foo Fighters record in terms of the biggness of the guitars, which is a real turn off to me. It's not as insane as the original mix of VT, but I don't find it pleasant. I feel like a song like The Wreckers is a tune you should be able to put on at a medium volume and have it sound "nice" - clear and defined with the vocal up front. But like a lot of the album, it's a thing where I keep wanting to turn it up to hear more definition, but then I want to turn it down because it's too noisy. And I'm sorry to say it, but Geddy's voice is just not enjoyable to listen to on most of it. I wish he'd just continued to embrace his lower register the way he was doing around Presto. I blame the producer for pushing him so everything could sound like "old Rush".

Yes - that Bowie record is top tier...an amazing farewell.

This is the only music forum I'm actively (and I'm not really that active) a part of. I did spend some time on a Bob Dylan forum some years ago, but just kind of drifted away from it. I poked around on a Genesis board for a bit, but it wasn't very active. There's lots of more recent music that I like that I wouldn't dream of finding a forum for. I do find that Rush is a very interesting band to discuss because of their focus on musicianship and the lyrical content - some music that I love doesn't have that intricacy to it.

They are not #1 for me anymore....likely in the top 5 (which is how I voted), but sometimes they are further down. BUT, Rush was #1 when that sort of thing was really important - for me, from about the age of 10 or 11 until my early 20s. It's completely formative and no other band or artist is going to ever have that effect on me ever again. I've become much broader in what I listen to as I've aged...and Rush would likely be the heaviest music that I still like. I'm more into jazz and the absurdly big umbrella of "singer/songwriter" now than I am rock music. I still listen to rock of course, but "new" bands do not tend to stick with me for the long haul anymore. I saw someone post something about Those Crooked Vultures recently on here... I had forgotten they existed! When that first record came out I bought it and liked it...but I have no interest in hearing it again. I feel that way about almost all new rock. It just doesn't go in very deep for me for some reason, where as Laura Marling or William Doyle or Cassandra Jenkins do. But Rush still does...and I go through phases now of it being in and out of my life. The recent MP 40th release made me listen to the live show from TO...and it was a joy...and it connects like few other bands do for me.