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-- GOD TIER-- MOVING PICTURES PERMANENT WAVES HEMISPHERES 2112 -- GREAT TIER -- POWER WINDOWS A FAREWELL TO KINGS GRACE UNDER PRESSURE PRESTO -- GOOD TIER -- HOLD YOUR FIRE SIGNALS CARESS OF STEEL COUNTERPARTS ROLL THE BONES VAPOR TRAILS RUSH -- DREADFUL TIER -- CLOCKWORK ANGELS SNAKES AND ARROWS TEST FOR ECHO

He seems to know an awful lot about an album he claims to have never heard before, and being in a somewhat progressive band, I find that a little hard to believe, but maybe its true. I honestly wasnt even sure if Neil denounced some of the things he was following in the past, and ive been following this band very closely for a long time, but Dennis seems to know that so he's obviously been doing a lot of research for a band he says he wasnt even a fan of. Seems a little fishy. Also sounds like they may have been influenced by 2112 and did some borrowing, but is afraid to admit it, which is silly in itself because Neil has also done a LOT of borrowing. Much of what he writes about isnt from his own mind. He's borrowed a LOT over the years.

Ive been listening to it for 3 days. Musically its clearly far better than the muddy mess than it was, but vocally, not working for me at all. It sounds like the engineer took a little too much liberty with that. Rush approved it, but the last time they had total control over an albums recording, which was this album, we say how that turned out. They are not recording engineers. Geddys vocals are so in front of the mix, and not IN it, it just sound so separate and strange. He also changed a lot of things like at around 3:28 in Ceiling Unlimited. That vocal on the original track was much more in the background which felt right. He pulled it out front and it sounds ridiculous now. The same recording repeated twice way in front of the mix. Derp nice job. Theres so much of this now, it sounds like something a recording school engineer would do.

I actually do like this album, but this remix is just horrendous IN MY OPINION. It really sounds very empty. Amazingly, although they did fix the clipping issues, this actually sounds worse to me than the origina. It sounds like a recording engineer school project. He added reverb to the vocals in parts which is absurd and makes it sound like this was recorded on a 1980s Fostex 8 track machine. Meh. I dont need to buy it and I wont so theres not much point complaining about it since I already have the album, but I really was expecting something that sounded more solid. Not like it was taken apart and then put back together with Elmers glue, where the instruments barely sound like they are hanging on to each other. This is like the opposite of what they teach in engineer school.

They still sell music in stores? Interesting. I cant figure out what the point of the reissues are. Dont most of their fans own all of their albums, or the ones they like? The only people I could see that would ever buy this are maybe new fans? I guess maybe collectors too that need to own every single thing they release, but I really cant see this selling much.

Love, love, love PoW. Yeah its very 80s sounding and dated, but to me this album is the best recorded album, so crisp and punchy, and its hands down Geddys best bass work, in writing and playing. Never matched before or after. His vocals were perfect on this album and then for some reason dropped off a cliff with HYF, so to me PoW is his last great singing album. Also the songs have interesting arrangements, some with many parts that are crafted well so that they flow together. Its one of their best for me. Signals is so dead and lifeless to me. The keys were too overpowering, and with PoW they figured out how to find a good balance. Also the songs on Signals just feel so, I dont know what the word is, just uninspired or something. To me theres 3 good songs on it, and the rest are just filler. Stuff like Chemistry and Digital Man are so forgettable to me. But just my opinion of course.

I only really thought he was out of control with the layering on VT. Without the solos and keys he felt a need to fill in the sound. If I had to pick anything I guess my biggest issue with them is the safe song writing. They are so far away from what I loved about 2112-MP. They were a lot more creative and adventurous back then. Even with CA, they made it sound like this was going to be a prog album, but its not really any different than any other albums from the 90s or 00's. I was expecting a lot of parts, time changes, complex sections, a couple really long songs, some crazy instrumental work here and there, but there's really none of that. Nick seemed like he really wanted to push them with this album and go back to their roots a bit which I think would have been so refreshing but Geddy wasnt having it. Even with Neil writing a long story, Geddy cant get out of safe song writing mode and said he wanted each song to be able to stand on its own. WHY????? Just go nuts, this could be your last album you ever write, so why have rules that theyve been chained to since maybe Signals.

When I listen to this album which isnt often but I always hear a band who was just burning out. The creative well was running dry, just going threw the motions slapping some songs together for the paycheck and because a couple years went by and it was just expected. I dont really hear anything that sounds like it was a labor of love or something they truly wanted to make. Its a really, really safe album. I like some songs on it, but overall it sounds pretty uninspired to me. The cover art is excellent though. :)

There's some solid songs on this album. I really wish TWTWB didnt have that bluesy section in it. Seems so out of place and shoehorned in there, otherwise I like the song a lot. Spindrift since its a little odd sounding and edgy, Faithless (aside from the lyrics), Monkey Biz is great, Armor and Sword is pretty good too. A few clunkers but thats ok. I never LOVED the album just because they talked about being inspired by Feedback, and being in my mid 30s I never grew up with those songs, so the album always sounded a little bit dated to me, wish it were little heavier and edgier at times, but overall I do like it more than Clockwork. Do not get me started on that album. I was ok with it for about 3 days when it came out, and it was all downhill from there and now to me its one of their worst albums. So forgettable.

Yeah I havent read any of these in ages. I usually just stop by here to see if theres any news relevant to Rush in it. Im sure he loves writing about other things in his life, which is interesting for a guy so private, but to me he's just the drummer in Rush. Thats all I ever want to hear him talk about. Going skiing or riding his bike is interesting to him Im sure.

Im not so sure they hated CoS when they wrote it, but Geddy has said it hasnt aged well, Im assuming partly due to the hokey lord of the rings lyrics. Plus it represents the worst time for the band so it must be hard for them to look back on it as well as some fans do. That album doesnt represent a very dark time for most of us, but it does for them. I was a little relieved to hear Geddy say he thought Tai Shan was an error. I like HYF, but that song is so corny and out of place. Its one of those songs that I refuse to let anyone hear me listening to, like Rivendell. I hear Tai Shan and its just 180 degrees in the opposite direction of what I love about Rush. Leave that stuff for Elton John. He has some stuff that doesnt sound that different than that. Rush isnt a soft rock band. Not their strong suit at all.

Proof genius. Watch the end at 5:00. He actually sings over the overdubbed vocals that he was lip synching to at the beginning, and again, the sound of it is not the same as when he actually sings for real into the mic. Would have helped if you watched the whole video before claiming he was actually singing that. And its a 100% fact he is not.

Yeah, the Stick It Out chorus is sampled to augment a live lead vocal. Geddy doesn't lip sync. At all. Stop gguessing wrong. Didnt say he lip synched that one. He lip synchs the beginning of cold fire. So you dont think he is lip synching here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSnfLHEB14s&list=PL79A7714AEA91E85D&index=4 You can tell he is because it sounds very different than when hes really singing in verse 1. No. It's Geddy singing live, with an echo on the beginning cold fire part, which is probably more spoken than sung. No lip sync at all. You open yourself up to insults when you guess instead of actually knowing things. Youre completely wrong. He IS lip synching there. It sounds completely different. It has nothing to do with an echo. The quality of his voice is totally different in that part than in the rest of the song when he's singing. Whatever helps you sleep at night though...

For me that goes to Time and Motion, for the odd 5/8 time signature and just the overall strange sound of the song, which used to be the norm for them, but became extremely rare as they got older. Time and Motion is pretty god awful musically. It has incredible lyrics, but the music and the melody is not to my taste. See thats what I like about it. That its so different from so many of their 90s songs that just sound so.... average and normal. That song is much closer to what I used to love about Rush, their originality that they got so far away from and has rarely been seen since the early 80s.

Lol Rush fans are always so tight around the collar. Lighten up people. Its just a joke, pretty sure they arent killing Geddy Lee, or asking anyone to kill him, or even sing about him at all. There is a pretty popular band called Head Automatica, and they have a song called Ill Shoot William H Macy. Um.... he is still alive.

Yeah, the Stick It Out chorus is sampled to augment a live lead vocal. Geddy doesn't lip sync. At all. Stop gguessing wrong. Didnt say he lip synched that one. He lip synchs the beginning of cold fire. So you dont think he is lip synching here? You can tell he is because it sounds very different than when hes really singing in verse 1.

i also like how there seems to be an order and calmness to the chaos. Yeah, Neil's explanation is obviously the best, but its also one of those covers that could mean other things to different people that never see his explanation to it. There are certain lyrics on the album that could tie in with that image in different ways than what he described. Chorus lyrics from Entre Nous. Then you see a man and a woman, space between them, he is waving, shes ignoring him. Flooded road between them keeping them apart, but she doesnt seem to care at all. could be reflective of a one-way relationship.

For me that goes to Time and Motion, for the odd 5/8 time signature and just the overall strange sound of the song, which used to be the norm for them, but became extremely rare as they got older.

Yeah. I'd say this sums up a lot of Test for Echo songs. Tough talking hood boys!* *in borrowed ties and jackets Man, I forgot about that one. That one is pretty corny, actually I think its even worse than net boy net girl because its actually attacking people very different than Neil. Or at least making fun of them, and the borrowed ties and jackets line is a little ignorant too. Anyway...

There is a LOT of vocal overdubs over the years. There are some excellent bootlegs from a youtube user named Roll The Femers. Geddy even lip synched at times. Beginning of Cold Fire, he pretends to sing it but clearly isnt because he will back off from the mic in a couple of the vids, but the voice still goes, and sounds very dubbed. His voice was horrendous on that tour, so you can tell it was dubbed when it sounded really good, it was not him. It was also a bit louder than his voice when he was actually singing. He goes from sounding amazing singing "cold fire" in the opening of that song, to sounding horrible in the verses. Stick it out, chorus when he says "stick it out", not sung live, dubbed in. I just remember those 2 because I just watched the Counterparts tour from April 94 at the Spectrum that he uploaded that I was at. I dont know if its cheating, I guess it could be, theres no reason why he couldnt sing those lines live I just mentioned, but he just didnt for unknown reasons. They werent colliding with other vocals, could have been pulled off live but just werent. There are a lot of examples of this with Rush, some on their official live releases. Could be just to give his tired voice a break whenever he can get one. I was at all of those tours when his voice started going down after Power Windows. Hold Your Fire is when I first remember them doing a bit of vocal overdubs live. You can hear a lot of it on A Show of Hands.

The thing I always loved about this cover is how abstract it is. It doesnt really mean anything. Its a collage of different things, and could mean whatever you want it to. Even reading the description from Hugh, he never explains it. He just talks about how the idea came about, the idea of a woman in front of a mess of things happening, but never talks about what that means, and that certainly is no description of what it is, so its basically just very random, which was good because explaining it kind of ruins the fun mystery of it. And maybe there is no real explanation of the actual meaning of it. It means whatever, or nothing. It doesnt matter.

Yeah but that song wasnt meant to be serious. Its just a brainless fun song, like 90% of Van Halen's catalog. Virtuality is serious, which is what makes it kinda corny now. To me, thats far cornier than when in I think Im Going Bald, they says, "Dressed in flowing hair... go WILD!!!" Because that song is meant to be fun and silly so its ok to have corny lyrics, like Def Leppard. Virtuality isnt trying to be corny, but just is because of how specific it is to a certain period of time. I think if they kept it much more abstract, didnt use words like modem, or buzz terms like cyber sea, it could have been much better. Neil used to write very cryptically but started getting too direct with his messages in the 90s.

This is one of those period specific songs that wasnt that corny at the time, since the internet was in its infancy, but now so many years later, hearing them talk about putting messages in modems, cyber sea, net boy net girl, it hasnt aged well lyrically. Its no different than all their silly fantasy lord of the rings lyrics back in the day. That stuff wasnt all that unusual in the 70s, but you hear it now and it sounds like a bunch of kids writing songs with really goofy nerd lyrics. You know none of them can think Rivendell is a good song now. Ill bet they cringe when they listen to that. I dont mind the music in Virtuality, kind of reflective of rock at the time in the mid 90s. It has a semi-heavy edge which was kind of nice coming out of their light rock phase in the late 80s/early 90s.

They really can come up with all kinds of excuses to tour. Ive been hoping for years that they would do a tour where outside of the old standards, they only play songs theyve never played live or having played in a really long time, and there is a lot of them still, so to me that would be a great excuse to tour before they retire, just to get everything they havent played in a long time or never played out there for the fans, then call it a career. Body Electric, Emotion Detector, Different Strings/Losing It with just Geddy and Alex after the drum solo (bathroom break time), Double Agent, first side of Hemispheres (toned down a lot so Geddy can sing it), Red Tide, etc..

I can see it being the last album if they are sticking to this 5 year schedule. Who knows though, other bands have put out albums at that age. One thing I dont think for a second is that they will never tour again. Even if they dont put out another album I can still see them doing at least 1 more tour... for the money, not for the fun of it or to say goodbye to fans. I dont ever see them doing a "farewell" tour. Just doesnt seem like them. They arent Kiss. Its known they each have somewhere around 30mil, but they all have families and kids, and grandkids. They arent filthy rich like Just Bieber who was like 250 million. That money will get passed down to their kids, and their grand kids, and each make about 75 grand a show so if they can still stand and move their fingers and arms, just keep raking it in before they physically cant do it anymore. Honestly I can see them going on tour in 2 years, for no other reason than for the paychecks.