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jnoble

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Everything posted by jnoble

  1. the thing about VT is that even with a proper remix and remaster, it's still going to sound more or less like a wall of distortion because Alex and Geddy put so many layers of guitars and bass on each song. The songs I'd like to hear cleaned up the most are "How It Is" and "The Stars Look Down". The level of noise and clipping in 'How...' is expecially horrendous. And I really like that song too.
  2. jnoble

    Face Up

    QUOTE (circumstantial tree @ Sep 2 2011, 08:34 PM) QUOTE (jnoble @ Sep 2 2011, 09:27 PM) QUOTE (presto123 @ Sep 1 2011, 04:40 PM) Love it. There is something about Roll The Bones I really like. Neil was real introspective on this record with songs like Bravado, Face Up, and Neurotica. Wonder if he was in some sort of self therapy during this period or just reading some psychology stuff?Plus the record contains Dreamline one of my fav Rush tunes that I never get burnt out on. The way Geddy phrases those words the song just flows so well. OH and that goosebump inducing guitar solo as well. RTB is the last Rush album I really liked (almost) track for track even with the thin pop sound. I liked the lyrics, the theme, and the upbeat nature of the whole production. Everything after that didn't really sit well with me. Neil's lyrics started getting bad, Geddy changed his bass style (too many notes) and slowly started losing his ability to write a good melody, Alex's wall of distortion sound started coming into play. CP sounds great but most of the lyrics are cheesy, TFE is just.......meh. VT is an overlong noisy mess of sound and distortion, S&A is boring. Maybe it's my bias of RTB being the "new" Rush album at the time I got into them in high school, but that's the last album of theres I didn't skip over most tracks. I can agree with you in away. I liked Roll the Bones when it came out but my musical interests began to change and by the time Counterparts came out, I wasn't impressed. I didn't start to get interested again until Geddy's My Favorite Headache and Vapor Trails came out. I like Vapor Trails but I lost interest again with Snakes and Arrows. My "die hard" fandom ended after Roll the Bones. I've almost been more of a pop-rock than a hard heavy rock fan anyway, so just my personal taste itself lends me to like RTB and Presto more than everything that came after. Unfortunatly, it seems that once Rush discovered how to sound loud and heavy again with Counterparts it came at the price of not writing consistantly good or memorable songs anymore. Maybe Geddy not composing on a keyboard like he used to had something to do with it.
  3. jnoble

    Face Up

    QUOTE (PariahDog @ Sep 2 2011, 07:39 PM) QUOTE (ghostworks @ Sep 2 2011, 09:26 AM)the production: terrible (Rupert knew what he was doing with The Fixx, but he shaped Rush into a weird, sterile, robotic mockery of themselves - almost unforgivable) The production on RTB improved from Presto, but sadly the songwriting dropped off a bit. There's not really a bad song on Presto (still don't get the hate for Superconductor?), but RTB has three pretty weak tracks. Luckily, they rebounded big time with CP. I don't know what was going on with Presto/RTB, but even from the opening moments of CP it seems like a weight was lifted off Rush's shoulders. My cover band played a few corporate events where we were told "don't play too hard" or "try to hold back a bit." This is the impression I get from the Rupert Era, especially Presto, like Rupert was telling Rush to restrain themselves in their playing. This plus the thin, trebly sounds on P/RTB was not a great combo. Rupert wanted Rush to thin out their sound and the band wanted to as well. The previous two albums before that were overproduced with tons of keyboards and effects and complex arrangments. So if Presto and RTB sound sparse, that's just the direction they were going for at the time. Personally, a lot of the sonic issues would've been solved if Alex picked up his Gibsons and Geddy switched to his Fender Jazz earlier. They were trying to record harder sounding songs with instruments and effects that weren't really compatable.
  4. jnoble

    Face Up

    QUOTE (presto123 @ Sep 1 2011, 04:40 PM) Love it. There is something about Roll The Bones I really like. Neil was real introspective on this record with songs like Bravado, Face Up, and Neurotica. Wonder if he was in some sort of self therapy during this period or just reading some psychology stuff?Plus the record contains Dreamline one of my fav Rush tunes that I never get burnt out on. The way Geddy phrases those words the song just flows so well. OH and that goosebump inducing guitar solo as well. RTB is the last Rush album I really liked (almost) track for track even with the thin pop sound. I liked the lyrics, the theme, and the upbeat nature of the whole production. Everything after that didn't really sit well with me. Neil's lyrics started getting bad, Geddy changed his bass style (too many notes) and slowly started losing his ability to write a good melody, Alex's wall of distortion sound started coming into play. CP sounds great but most of the lyrics are cheesy, TFE is just.......meh. VT is an overlong noisy mess of sound and distortion, S&A is boring. Maybe it's my bias of RTB being the "new" Rush album at the time I got into them in high school, but that's the last album of theres I didn't skip over most tracks.
  5. it's refreshing to hear a deep cut title mentioned as opposed to reading about the solos to TS or Limelight for the 87 zillionth time
  6. jnoble

    Best Vocals Album

    QUOTE (ak2112 @ Aug 24 2011, 10:23 PM) I think his singing on Snakes and Arrows was some of the most melodic of Rush's career. no offense but I couldn't disagree more. His singing and "melodys" on Snakes is mostly terrible. Most of it sounds like he's making it up on the spot with a lyric sheet in front of him
  7. jnoble

    Best Vocals Album

    as far as the '70s albums, Fly By Night is probably my favorite. Sure, he's screechy and awkward sounding and slightly out of control but it adds to the excitment and youthful energy of the songs.
  8. jnoble

    Best Vocals Album

    Geddy's singing in the '80s was less screechy, but also the production of his vocals affect how I hear them. For example, his vocals on GUP are very upfront and dry while on Power Windows, his singing is drenched in reverb. On some songs he sounds like he's singing in a trash can. It's always taken away from my enjoyment of that album, him sounding too remote and robotic. Presto is my favorite album for his voice actually. Not only does he hit the notes without strain or awkwardness or the yodeling crutch he's fallen on (that would come years later) but the effects are perfect...not too "echo-ey" and not too dry. Counterparts, while not my favorite Rush album, still finds him in good form. It wasn't until TFE that he really started to lose his range and strain, at least live.
  9. I think Geddy meant to say "mid 70s" instead of "mid 80s" when talking about using compression and distortion. His synth-era bass sound, especially with the Wal, was anything BUT crunchy sounding.
  10. QUOTE (Bastille Dave @ Jun 20 2011, 06:44 PM) I usually listen to the first 8 tracks and not the last 2. The production is thin so I up the bass somewhat. I agree the drums are terrific but the synths are just too much. like many others have said, HYF would've been much better overall if they never recorded the last two tracks. I think in my whole Rush-fan career which started around 1991, I've only listened to High Water and/or Tai Shan all the way through maybe a total of 5 times. Even when I was getting into the band I knew these songs were filler. Same for Second Nature, this song is also too wussy.
  11. Despite the synth-heavy arrangments, HYF is still a really good sounding album with some great songwriting/lyrics/melodies/playing. That being said, I don't understand Geddy saying in one of the books, I think it's Contents Under Pressure, that HYF was the "perfect balance of keyboards and guitar" compared to Power Windows or Signals. Is he listening to the same album as us?? HYF has layers upon layers of keyboards, synths, triggered effects etc etc on almost every track, more so than any other Rush album in the history of the band! HYF is nothing BUT keyboard/synth heavy songs with thin sounding guitar mixed somewhere in the background on most tracks.
  12. jnoble

    Alen Shore

    QUOTE (Nate2112 @ Jun 10 2011, 05:53 AM) Its such a good song. I wonder why it doesnt appeal to some?? Same reason a lot of the songs on CP don't do much for me.....great sounding production but cheesy-ass lyrics. Even way back before I was a jaded 35 year old and was 17 in HS when Counterparts came out (the first ''new" Rush album to me as a new fan) the lyrics 'you and me, we'd elect each other president' and some of the others made me cringe. Too bad this music couldn't have been put to better words. I never really cared for the male/female lyrical themes of Counterparts.
  13. I like GUP. My only gripe is that, sonically, it sounds pretty flat and stale compared to how bright and alive Power Windows was one year later. Just goes to show what a good producer can do for you. Geddy's singing was better sounding too.
  14. QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Jun 17 2011, 04:36 PM) QUOTE (jnoble @ Jun 17 2011, 05:13 AM) Geddy's been losing range as early as the GUP tour. I'm not too familiar with that one (although I recall a contemporary interview in which he admitted as much), but on A Show of Hands, he can't quite hit the high part at the end of "Marathon", which he'd recorded only two years earlier. Makes me wonder what his range over the years would look like plotted out on a graph. it was obvious on ASOH that Geddy couldn't "screech" anymore even if he wanted to. I've never been crazy about his vocals on that one but to be fair to him, he and Alex were both sick for most of that tour with the flu or something. That all being said, I thought Geddy's singing on Presto was great and my favorite studio vocals on any of the post MP albums. Rupert Hine did a good job coaching him to sing better as the story goes.
  15. My favorite 'drum' album in terms of playing and the way the drums sound is always going to be FBN. I don't care that Neil is much more experinced and polished and mature and has better quality drums etc etc etc..... that album will always be my favorite.
  16. Geddy's been losing range as early as the GUP tour. It just didn't become very noticeable and cringe worthy until the Snakes tour IMO. Now he can hardly sing anything without straining badly. It's a shame.
  17. Here's the thing about HYF: Technically, lyrically, melodically,performance-wise...the songs are mostly very good. If this were almost any other band, this album might be considered their best work. That being said, this type of music: overproduced lush dramatic synth-pop wasn't what a three-piece hard rock band like Rush should've been recording. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy several of the tunes on HYF and was happy to hear a few of them brought back live... but overall it was Rush going too far in one direction away from what made them great. Tai Shan and Second Nature are the prime examples of how wussy and soft Rush's sound had gotten at the time.
  18. QUOTE (New Digital Man @ Mar 30 2011, 12:25 PM) I would add the entire Hold Your Fire album, every track is a bass players delight, Natural Science, and agree that Circumstances has a great bass part which is Geddy playing in his early trademark style, a style which he unfortunately left behind in the nineties to pursue this one-dimensional single finger back and fourth thing which now sadly dominates every performance of old material and new! unfortunatly I have to agree....I havn't really liked his change of style starting with Counterparts. Too many notes played too fast on almost every song.
  19. Neil's written some pretty awkward lyrics over the majority of his career with the band, but the ones I dislike the most are on CP and S&A. While I loved the return to a ballsy heavy rock sound, most of CP left me feeling cold or annoyed. I've never cared for the words to Animate or Cold Fire or Alien Shore or Speed Of Love ( ) . Double Agent was gimmicky at best. Nobody's Hero isn't BAD per se, but it seems to try too hard to be moving. Even Alex himself admitted that he didn't care for a lot of the lyrics they had to work with on that album. There's already entire threads devoted to why S&A sucks lyrically, so I don't need to repeat yet again here, but I will say that album is easily the lamest lyrically of Rush's entire career. (Yes, even the debut album is more fun and listenable than Snakes) Some have mentioned Tai Shan, even Geddy saying in retrospect that it wasn't a good idea. I actually think the lyrics to that song are pretty decent, it's just that the lite-FM wall of keyboards overproduced music Geddy and Alex put to them ruin it. It's not a terrible song, just not something a rock band like Rush should have had any business releasing. Of course many of you might say that about most of HYF, but that song in particular comes to mind.
  20. studio 'Ghost Of A Chance' was played on our local classic rock station today. I was pleasently surprised and then annoyed when the stupid DJ started yammering before it faded out.
  21. about 12 years ago I heard Cinderella Man on the local classic rock station. I was stunned. Sadly they've never played it again. Instead, it's just Spirit, TS, Limelight, etc etc etc.
  22. Glad you asked.... because today, on the Boneyard, they played Hemispheres, all 20 minutes of it! I was stunned, I've NEVER heard that song played on any radio station (even XM/Sirius) EVER in the past.
  23. jnoble

    Best Lyrics?

    favorite lyrics, favorite lyrics....let's see.... Anthem Something For Nothing Circumstances Entre Nous Emotion Detector Time Stand Still Marathon Mission Presto Available Light the bridge part of 'Face Up': "you get all squeezed up inside..." How It Is
  24. 'Workin' Them Angels' should be much lower. Such a draggy uninteresting song.
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