Is Rush your favourite band?

[jamie]

They have been for the last 10 years. Sabbath, Ghost, Primus and Melvins are my other top 5. 

[Alex’s Amazing Arpeggios]

Rush No.1 for me  

Closely followed by ..

Van Halen , Toto, Journey , Zep, Queen 

[Texas King]

Not No 1, but probably in my top 5. 

[NoahLutz]

I have a couple of bands which rotate as my favorite, but Rush is always up there.  

[grep]

Was number 1 for a long time.  But not anymore. 

Not sure I have a favorite anymore.  A bunch of bands just kind of cycle in and out of my playlists these days.  Depends on the mood I'm in too. 

[Malignant Narcissist]

Have a group of favourites and Rush is among that group. If there is a fave at the time then it's down to what I'm in the mood for and haven't listened to for a while. 

Rush is one of the bands that I love where I've had to have all their albums.

I sometimes get fixated on 1 band or artist and have to get everything by them. As others have said, the band rotates in and out.

 

 

 

[TheAccountant]

For me its easy that Rush is #1.  The interesting thing is that I may go many months between listing to them but the moment I do I am entranced by their songs.  So its not like I listen to them all the time.  But the moment i start listening I am swept up by their music.

 

If it was a foot race Rush would be so far out in front nobody would be in sight of them and they could just stroll across the finish line.  Which they basically did.  For me CA basically starts with Halo Effect.  Prior to that the album is not worth listening to.  After that there is only one song I skip (BU2B2).  All the rest are enjoyable.  S&A is brilliant but there are a couple of songs that I will skip.  But most of the songs are wonderful.  VT - ugh.  The original mix I can't even listen to.  It just gives me splitting headaches -even if I turn it way down.  The remix, thankfully, does not do that but it does demonstrate how bad the album is.  At least for me.  There are 2 songs I sort of like (note - I said sort of) and perhaps one other that is barely tolerable.  The rest of the album is terrible - to my ears.  Before that you have T4E which is decent.  Its got some good songs (Resist & Carve Away the Stone) a bunch of decent, solid, enjoyable songs and a few terrible songs (Dog Years and Virtuality).  So basically their last 4 albums (excluding Feedback - which is decent but I prefer original Rush) include 2 that are ok, decent, solid (with some real terrible parts), one great album and one terrible part.  Sort of a mixed bag.  Prior to that its one great album after another.   That work alone puts them way ahead of everybody else.  

 

Second place in the foot race would belong to Nightwish.  They would be so far out in front of the 3rd place band that again nobody would be in sight of them.  For 3rd place it would be a big pack of bands including (but not limited to) CCR, Bob Seeger, The Who, Journey, Def Leopard, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Judas Priest, Savatage, Accept & Helloween.

 

Let me put it another way.  Look at the groups that have put out complete and total albums.  A complete and total album is an album that once you start listening to it you basically never skip a song.   For me I can think of the following groups having one such album:

 

Boston

Heart

Led Zeppelin (Zep IV - but I am not really a Zep fan  & I will point out that might be the best album of all time) 

Styx

Dokken

CCR

Queensryche

Dio

 

Then there are the groups that put out 2 such albums:

 

Twisted Sister

Def Leopard

Journey

Helloween

Savatage

 

Then there are the groups with 3:

 

Iron Maiden

The Who

Accept (interesting that their great songs came early in their career but their complete albums have come very recently & late in their 

 

Then there are the groups who put out 4 such albums:

 

Ozzy

Judas Priest

 

Nightwish put out 5 such albums.  Rush put out 9 such albums.  Plus they put out several albums where I only skip 1 or 2 songs.  Thats insane domination - for my taste obviously.  Obviously not all such albums are created equal.  Thats why Nightwish is so far ahead of Priest & Ozzy.  Nightwish's albums are much greater then the Ozzy albums.  Its closer with the Priest albums but Nightwish still has the quality edge. Rush's albums have a significant quality edge as well on all the other groups I mentioned.  Just insane.

 

The interesting wildcard is The Warning.  I am in a honeymoon stage with them but so far they have 3 albums I just don't want to skip any songs from.  Since I recognize I am in a bit of a honeymoon stage with them I am not ranking them but they could easily wind up in the pack.  High praise given how young they are.  If they keep writing and recording songs as they have been (and growing musically as they have been) it will be interesting to see where they wind up.  Perhaps they will challenge Nightwish - only time will tell.  But it would take a long time and many great albums for them to even get close to Rush.

 

 

[Texas King]

Rush is probably #4, behind Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

 

[Sonatine]

Some 40 years ago a day didn't go by without me listening to PW, ESL, MP, Signals, PW, HyF and even the much maligned (by some) GuP. No other band came close, not even Halen, Maiden, The Who or Sabbath at the time.

 

Therefore, up until about the turn of the millennium they were my No 1 band no question. Although having said that their 90s output was a little hit and miss and I never really fell in love with their 00s albums other than perhaps VT.

They still rank in my top 5, but only for their 70s and 80s output by and large.

[treeduck]

They're in my top 5 along with Sabbath, Priest, Tull and Purple.

[condemned2bfree]

Who? Are they any good?

[malm_51]

Yes!

[BigMontanaSKY]

Um yup.......................................................................

[spaceaudity11]

Rush has been consistently in my life since I have any real memories of listening to music thanks to the influence of my father and I have always loved them, went to my first concert at age 7 yadayada. I think they have always been my favorite band, but I have listened to their music at varying frequencies over time and there are many bands that I love and listen to about as much. 

[YYZ Working Man]

Absolutely #1  favorite . never to be surpassed.  

(I bet 300 years from now if you had to rank the best bands that ever played rock-prog music and the best musicians in their respective instruments and to play as a band, and their career  just 3 guys ..., without a doubt for sure  Rush would still be in the top 5 or 10 . )

[New_World_Man]

#3. I don't really do favorites much anymore but I'll just go by what I considered my favorites in the past. Rush was (and I guess still are) number 2 for me behind Yes. Yes will probably always be number one even though they kind of lost their way a while ago. Rush at least knew when to hang up the hat and call it quits.