jnoble

Snakes was Neil's 'Old Man Yells At Cloud' moment. In fact, that should've been the album cover only him instead of Grandpa Simpson :-)

Snakes has no repeat listening value. Aside from Far Cry and a couple of the instrumentals, there's little there that makes me excited about wanting to put the CD on again. Thus why mid tempo acoustic dirges sung poorly about why Neil hates religion other people and the world is a mean terrible place was a bad idea for an album lol

I'll admit my patience and attention span isn't what it used to be when I was younger and my taste in music has changed a bit but you couldn't pay me to sit and listen to Clockwork or Snakes start to finish. Or Vapor Trails. They're all too long and too dense (or in the case of Snakes, plodding and monotonous) to get through end to end.

Just because its not aggressive hard rock or proggy or has any show-offy guitar /bass/drum parts that they are known for doesn't mean its a bad Rush song. I think its a great example of the band merging a lyric with perfect music , something they got away from in the years to follow where too many songs sounded scotch taped together with lyrics shoe horned in

What's funny to me is that RTB gets a lot of flak around here from the fans but for many years Geddy himself claimed it was his personal favorite album they ever did

I've always liked that song too and don't understand the hate it gets from a segment of fans. OK, so its not exactly hard rock but the song has soul and a great melody and arrangement

TFE, Snakes, Clockwork. I find the latter two pretty much unlistenable, especially the wall of unmemorable hookless dense noise that makes up most of Clockwork. I still can't believe the band was OK with the mix. It sounds like Geddy is singing in a different language, I can't make out a damn word of almost any song

And TFE was also the beginning of the layers upon layers of distorted guitars & bass wall of noise production plus the infamous Geddy choirs of "whooaaass" and "ooohhhhhs" which just got worse with Vapor Trails onward lol

I pinpoint TFE as the album where A: Neil's lyrics really started decline in quality and B: Geddy and Alex couldn't come up with inspired music to put them to. Their long time method of coming up with riffs and parts and fitting them to the words started sounding obvious (Time And Motion comes to mind as a particularly disjointed sounding song) Color Of Right is another example of bland music put to bland words with a bland melody by Geddy

Heh. I went to a couple Snakes tour shows and couldn't wait for then to get past all the new songs. Like I said, Far Cry kicked ass but the others, yeeech. Talk about a string of bathroom or beer stand break songs... lol I've sometimes wondered if bands ever notice fans leaving their seats walking away during certain songs or segments of their sets and if it bothers them

Snakes for me because Rush doing an album of folk-rock type songs was not their best idea nor played to their strengths. Far Cry and Malignant N were the only two songs on the entire album that sounded like them. I respect that they made an entire career out of changing direction every few albums but that wasn't a good one for them in hindsight and seems a lot of fans consider it a drink coaster now

The 45 minute thing is absolutely true. The final three studio albums were all at least 3 or 4 songs too long. Especially VT, they could've left the last few tracks off that one and not lost anything worthwhile

Geddy seemed to really love the songwriting they accomplished on RTB but even when it was brand new and still on the charts he was vocal about how weak the production sounded

Where did you see that? Alex & Geddy are both on record (no pun intended lol) not happy with CP. I believe its mentioned in a couple of the Martin Popoff books. Alex didn't like some of the lyrics while Geddy complained "there were too many compromises" while making it plus he and Alex had a lot of fights during, probably over how and where to use keyboards in the songs. Not sure what Neil thought about it.

That's unfortunately why I don't listen or watch very often any of the live or studio albums past R30 or if I do its only for a couple of select songs. His voice and singing style was just unpleasant and cringy. And like others have pointed out, I'm NOT saying that as a put down or an insult. I've been a big fan for many many years now. But Lee's voice was just worn out, plain and simple and there's no getting around that or denying it

The bass part on studio Scars was a looped synth anyway, not a real bass guitar so it didn't matter to me that he didn't play it live.

For the longest time Geddy always named Power Windows and RTB as his personal favorite albums they ever did

I like his crunchy Ric tone, especially on the Exit Stage Left video. But on the other end of the sonic spectrum I also really liked his poppy clean Wal tone which sounded great on the instrumentals like YYZ & La Villa. I never cared for the Steinberger either aesthetically or its plastic thin tone

RTB and Vapor Trails (and I would argue Clockwork) have opposite production problems....RTB is as soft and light and non-crunchy as the other two are too loud and an unrelenting assault on the ears with every instrument turned up to 11

If any Rush song needed to be re recorded with a beefed up sound, Face Up is one of them

Someone earlier made a good point, Rush always touted their newest album as "the best thing we've ever done". A lot of bands do that fresh out of the studio with new material they're happy with. And then a few years later when they're putting out another new record they'll usually dismiss the earlier album it as "it was OK but we could've done better. THIS album is the one..." Funny thing about Rush is the albums in the later era of the band they didn't care much for (Presto, Counterparts) I like a lot while the ones they really seemed to love (Snakes, Clockwork) are drinkcoasters at my place I rarely if ever listen to because aside from a handful of songs they're hot garbage

Their songwriting style got very "safe" in the Hine era. The melodies and structures and recorded performances were fine but they were really holding back compared to the musical chops they showed on the previous albums. It wasn't until Counterparts where they seemed to cut loose and start having fun again (Cut To The Chase & Between Sun and Moon are good examples)

I enjoy both. But RTB is a tale of two albums: One half great and the other half wildly mediocre. Its like after the good songwriting of Dreamline/Bravado/RTB/Ghost Of A Chance/WMT? the band just ran out of gas in the studio and coasted to fill the remaining space. And that weak-ass production. I didn't mind it on Presto but Hines wimpy mix job on RTB really sucked the potential out of the songs and gets on my nerves

I wouldn't mind seeing it in theory but the reason I never bought R40 in the first place is because his voice is mostly pretty bad throughout

One of the things I love about the Afterimage solo is how it fits the somber tone of the song and isn't just aimless shredding. And how that last note "freezes" and slowly fades away as the bridge kicks in again