jnoble

Go to YouTube and listen to Armor & Sword on 1.25x speed. Give it a few minutes to get your ears used to it like that's the way it was originally recorded and should sound. Now go back to normal speed. Sounds like a walkman with dying batteries, doesn't it? That song is a friggin' SLOG WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

Scars is a song I've always liked but seemed like an odd type of arrangement for Rush. One reviewer said it sounded like The Fixx more than Rush

He's always held PW and RTB up as his personal favorites for many years

I noticed starting with the Signals tour, someone must have told Geddy to look more lively on stage or something. He had some pretty goofy moves and dances going lol

Since Neil wasn't in the band yet I consider not counting the debut album as a "real" Rush album for these types of lists

It stinks and I don't like it

I get why people like the lyrics of The Garden but I don't geek out and get reduced to tears by it. It's OK. Pleasant. But not the epic soul wrenching experience a lot of fans seem to have with it

I wouldn't say I ever broke up with the band but I found my enthusiasm waning after Test For Echo (the album not the tour) which was less than a great record and then Vapor Trails I was sort of back on board mostly even though it was three or four songs too long and I wasn't crazy about the too heavy sound but by far my biggest "WTF is going on with these guys?!?" was the stupid Snakes album. After all the usual pre-release hype of "this is our best work ever!" and the hardcore fans declaring it the best thing Rush ever did post Moving Pictures, I was so let down by the record aside from Far Cry and Mal Narsissm was like a mini-YYZ and a fun little instrumental. Part of it was the times we were living in. It was pretty negative at the moment, I was tired of hearing about the Iraq/Afganistan Wars and President Bush being the constant thing to bitch about in pop culture news and music at the time and Rush generally avoided politics. So here they are popping off about war and politics and the overtly negative songs which were all recorded in the most uninteresting unmemorable unexciting way possible with some of Neil's worst lyrics ever and Geddy's worst singing ever , no hooks or exciting parts like they always seemed to come up with, and I was livid. I came so close to tossing the CD out of my car window. My favorite band had let me down big time. I saw them on tour and the only songs I enjoyed was the revival of Circumstances, Entre Nous, Mission. The performing of the new album almost start to finish was the longest bathroom and beer run break ever. I only own the album to be a completeist (sp?) I also at the time was into younger hard rock bands like Jet, Wolfmother, Velvet Revolver which in comparison were way more exciting and uptempo than tired ol' Rush with their lethargic folk rock fusion flop album and classics which I had already heard 5 million times and before Lee's voice started to wear out. Saw Velvet Revolver live at PNC Arts Center that summer 2007 and they were awesome. By the time Clockwork came out I was already aware that their songwriting abilites and Neil's lyrics had been on a downhill slope since TFE so I only bought it out of a sense of duty and it's stil the most dense indigestable slab of mostly unlistenable noise (and again three songs too long) I ever bought. A lot of the riffs and parts are good but like someone else put it, it's like Rush was just scotchtaping a bunch of parts from the garbage bin together slathtering the lyrics on top with Geddy's creaky aged voice straining and yodeling and declaring it a "song"

I always thought Everyday Glory sounded like a leftover from RTB only recorded with beefier guitar & bass. I like the song well but its out of place lyrically on Counterparts. It's also noticeably louder than the other CP songs, I don't think I've ever not immediately reached to turn the volume down a couple notches whenever I have that CD playing in the car

The part in the middle of the title track where it sounds like Geddy was recorded talking over a cheap speaker phone ...WTF was THAT all about? Can anyone make out a single word of it? Lol

"Closer To The Dave'???...

I'm not going to win any friends saying this but Geddy's vocals on CA are what turn me off from the album and make it unlistenable. He doesn't sound good plus that horrid compressed mix. I can't make out most of the lyrics. If someone could strip out the vocals and remix some of the harder songs into instrumentals I'd listen to it more often than what we have now

Time & Motion has parts I like and I remember enjoying it when I saw them play it live early in the tour but it sounds disjointed and forced. Like Rush tried too hard to compose a proggy song

I haven't listened to MFH in forever. The only song I really liked was the first one. I thought the rest were pretty forgettable.

Clockwork Angels Snakes Rush TFE Signals Counterparts RTB Power Windows VT COS MP GUP Presto HYF FBN PewWaves 2112 AFTK Hemispheres

My friend said that sometimes the heat from an in dash CD player can separate the laminate off the surface

My 2011 HYF remaster skips starting with Prime Mover. I looked at the CD and its got two straight lines of something on the surface like a smudge but I don't know where these come from. It only goes from the cardboard sleeve into the CD player and I never touch the surfaces

Out Of The Cradle kind of stinks too. I like the optimism and spirit they were going for but like a lot of other VT songs its too abrasive

Thank you! My favorite part of playing the bass on it was popping the two harmonics between verses

I think I read Terry Brown saying the tape they used to record COS was defective and had bleedthrough or something that resulted in the album sounding a little thin. I also think Terry should've doubletracked Ged's vocals like on almost every song off FBN which sounded great. As it was they came off a little plain on even the harder songs. Imagine how much better the chorus to Bastille Day would've sounded for example with the vocals doubled.

Years ago (2003-4ish) myself and others recorded this song. I hadn't thought about in a long time. My buddy Steve the guitarist started a YouTube channel and remixed and uploaded it recently. I played the bass. Hope you enjoy and don't judge too harshly :-)

Good News First & Bravest Face need to be on the poll. I don't think I've ever made it all the way through either of those songs before jabbing the skip button

Geddy was never able to sing it live in any of the tours quite like he nailed it on the studio version when his voice was at its peak

Yes it got a lot of FM rock radio play in '02-'03. I remember my buddy Tom who was a casual Rush fab remarking that it was the only song at the time on FM format radio that really rocked hard

Out Of The Cradle is pretty bad