album flaws.

[liddybuck01]

With all of these threads about individual albums, made me think that we should have one thread discussing each albums flaws/problems/issues/where they went wrong.

 

Just go down the line and write your problems with each album.

[the masked drummer]

1st album - wrong drummer

[Scars]

Signals...Such an amazing album!!!1! Losing It is so touching, Subdivisions speaks to me, every song kicks ass except Countdown! The only problem is that Geddy uses synthesizers now. Where are the 10 minute+ songs? Oh, did I forget to mention the album isn't that good?

 

GUP...Not enough guitars!11! This is when they went commercial and I stopped listening to them. The only decent song is Afterimage, the rest is forgettable.

 

PoW...Marathon is good, the rest is bubble-gum pop garbage. But bring back Middletown Dreams on the tour!

 

HYF...Should have dropped those last two shitty songs! The remaining 8 are still too synth-heavy, easily one of their worst. Worst...tour...ever.

 

Presto...I can't hear anything!11!!!!!11 Why isn't Geddy slappah da bass? Why isn't Alex shredding for 8 minutes straight? Whole thing sucks based on mastering alone.

 

RTB...Whole thing sucks except for Bravado.

 

Counterparts...Nobody's Hero sucks, The Speed of Love Sucks, Everyday Glory sucks...still think it's an amazing album. No synths for the win and Alex permanently on distortion!!

 

TFE...Entire f***ing thing sucks. Has their two worst songs on it (Dog Years, Virtuality). The only thing good was the tour (2112 in it's entirety!!!).

 

VT...

 

S&A...Acoustic guitars suck, Neil is way too preachy, stop with the Geddy chorus, it's way too long, none of the songs are memorable. Go back to Terry Brown, please.

[Cosy Toes]

Every album after has the wrong drummer.

[Rushman14]

Presto has a song called Anagram.

[USB Connector]

Snakes and Arrows has all of those songs after Far Cry.

[Tarkus406]

Let's see if I can do this. I don't know if I can....

 

 

1. Rush: wrong drummer/crappy lyrics

2. Fly by Night: The bass could have been a little higher in the mix.

3. Caress of Steel: could have been longer

4. 2112: Can't think of anything

5. A Farewell to Kings: It would have been nice if Geddy's voice had a touch of effects, sounded a little dry to me (except for Cyg X1)

6. Hemispheres: Can't think of anything

7. Permanent Waves: could have been longer

8. Moving Pictures: Can't think of anything

9. Signals: Can't think of anything

10. Grace Under Pressure: Can't think of anything

11. Power Windows: REALLY Can't think of anything

12. Hold Your Fire: Guitar was a tad tinny, but it worked

13. Presto: Loved it, can't complain

14. Roll the Bones: still loved it

15. Counterparts: perfect album

16. Test For Echo: the only thing wrong with it is the fact that it gets no recognition

17. Vapor Trails: just needs a good remix to clean it up

18. Snakes and Arrows: Could cut out one or two geddy voices, but good

19. Caravan/BU2B: Perfect

[Perchance to Dream]

To me, the only flaw that comes to mind turned out to not be a flaw. Confused?

 

At the very beginning of Distant Early Warning, there is a scratchy sound, like a short or something, heard for only a second or so. I was convinced that I had bought a damaged copy.

 

It took me a while to realize that it was done on purpose.

[StellarJetman]

WARNING: A HUGE POST STANDS IN YOUR WAY. BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS, ALL YOUR BASE, ETC.

 

Also, I don't necessarily dislike any of these albums because of what I mention here - this thread is specifically about discussing their flaws, not their strengths.

 

Rush - Still haven't gotten around to listening to it.

 

Fly by Night - Technically weak, even compared to the next album. What's up with the two minutes of nothing in "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"? "Rivendell" is like a bad practical joke at the expense of Tolkien fans.

 

Caress of Steel - A weird, incoherent mess without any kind of consistent tone. The music itself is nice enough, but it doesn't work too well as an album - whose idea was it to go straight from "Lakeside Park" to "The Necromancer"? Awful, awful narration; couldn't they have at least gotten one of their dads to say it? "The Fountain of Lamneth" is as much a song as my keyboard, monitor, speakers, and power cord are a computer.

 

2112 - Silly, but really fun. Or fun, but really silly. Either way, it's hard to ignore the fact that the 20-minute-long progressive opus of a title track is about a kid from the future who finds a guitar, has a dream about how awesome life would be without those priests lording it over everyone, and then kills himself because the world doesn't happen to be that way. "Tears" is basically the Rush equivalent of "Feelings", and that's not a good thing at all.

 

A Farewell to Kings - I know that I'm probably some kind of heretic for saying this, but I can't stand this album. It's basically 37 minutes of Rush disappearing up their collective rectum and trying to be as "prog" as they could get. Nice title track, but everything else is infuriatingly self-indulgent. No fun anywhere.

 

Hemispheres - Weirdly, this one's probably my favorite Rush album ever. I guess that the worst that I can say about it is the title track is a bit too self-important for its own good and that Geddy's singing almost ventures into Van der Graaf Generator territory ("Foso menny, trubbledyeeahz..."), but everything else is ace. (Shame about the artwork, though.)

 

Permanent Waves - A nice album, but the choppy melodies from A Farewell to Kings have returned with a vengeance. "Science, like nature, must also be tamed with a view toward its preservation"? "Given the same state of integrity, it will surely serve us well"? Whaaat?

 

Moving Pictures - Overrated; Permanent Waves is a much better album. This one does have "Limelight", though, which is probably the definitive Rush song. Aside from that, it's nice, but not the peerless paragon of Rush albums that it's constantly made out to be - "The Camera Eye" is a major disappointment, both as a follow-up to "Natural Science" and as a final extended track for Rush as a whole, and "Tom Sawyer", revered as it is, has some great moments, but it never really coalesces into a cohesive song for me. The rest are good, but nothing that I'd put on a top ten list.

 

Signals - I really don't get the fascination for this one. The keyboards are muddy and overbearing, even on the remaster, and some of the songs - especially "Chemistry" and "Countdown" - are just too cheesy for their own good. I stand by my position that "Subdivisions" is the musical equivalent of reading a whiny, self-important teenager's LiveJournal.

 

Grace Under Pressure - A tinny, lifeless cornucopia of dated synthesizers and dubious lyrical quality. "Afterimage", "Red Sector A", and the cover art are nice, though.

 

Power Windows - This is one of my favorites; the only problems with it are its intense '80s-ness (although that's more of a matter of taste than it is an actual flaw) and its pop-ish tracks like "Marathon" and "Emotion Detector". "Grand Designs" would be on that list, too, but the chorus has so much Peartian dorkiness ("Life in two dimensions is a mass production SCHE-EME!") that I can't help but love it.

 

Hold Your Fire - Meh. Probably the softest, gentlest, pop-est Rush album in existence. "Force Ten" and "Open Secrets" do possess a commendable amount of energy, but "Time, Stand Still" and "Prime Mover" have too much pop in them for their own good. "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electric Boogaloo", although that's probably what I like about it. Everything else just blurs together in a sea of slow pacing and murky synthesizers.

 

Presto - Where's the beef bass? Was Rupert Hine trying to protect people from hurting their ears if they played the album too loud? "War Paint" and "Hand Over Fist" have rather questionable lyrics ("BOIS AND GIRLS TOGETHAH, PAINT THE MIRRAH BLA-ACK!"), and "Scars" apes "Territories" in the same way that "High Water" imitates "Mystic Rhythms". Power Windows may be a good album, but it doesn't need to be recycled like that.

 

Roll the Bones - I already articulated my thoughts about this album in its thread. Must I relive the pain?

 

Counterparts - Rush does an album about the ladies, or something. The songs run the gamut from cool ("Leave That Thing Alone", "Cold Fire") to annoying ("Stick It Out", "The Speed of Love") to almost comically "alt" ("Animate", "Cut to the Chase"), and I could definitely do without the latter two categories. The silly, faux-noir monologue in "Double Agent" practically ruins the song - didn't these guys learn anything from "The Necromancer" and "Roll the Bones"? And I refuse to believe that Peart needed outside help to come up with the chorus to "Between Sun and Moon". "Ah, yes to yes to ah, ah to yes - why the sun, why the sun?" indeed.

 

Test for Echo - Ugh. This album just sounds ugly, and that's not even getting into the lyrics. "Time and Motion" is an auditory Pontiac Aztek. The less said about lines like, "Put your message in a modem and throw it in the cyber sea," and, "I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos or a span of geological time," the better - if there's ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 for rock music, it will feature tracks from this album.

 

Vapor Trails - If you can get past the ear-shredding production (or just download a fan remaster), it's actually a pretty good album. There's a certain haphazard feel to it, though, which detracts from its overall quality, and the lyrics, while hardly bad, don't feel too much like Rush at all. The onomatopoeia can also be annoying, especially when Geddy flat-out "doo-doodoodoooo"s in the middle of "Freeze"'s chorus.

 

Snakes and Arrows - Interesting, but inconsistent. The instrumentals do an admirable job of showcasing the members' individual skills, but "Hope" feels unfocused - like Test for Echo's "Limbo", but bereft of that song's powerful auditory presence - and "Malignant Narcissism" sounds incomplete, like a solo extracted from a "real" song. There's none of Vapor Trails's frantic energy here, either, aside from the driving "Far Cry" - most songs fairly trudge along to their conclusions, with Geddy's singing taking on a bizarrely wailing tone, especially on songs like "Good News First". The infamously preachy lyrics ("I don't have faith in faith; I don't believe in belief...") don't help, either.

 

Clockwork Angels - From the singles that have been released, it seems like it'll be Snakes and Arrows, but with slicker production and stranger melodies. Snakes and Arrows wasn't a bad album, but I'd definitely welcome a second take.

[Rushman14]

^^^^^ you didn't warn me your wall of text was a complete was of my time.

 

btw, I think Im Going Bald doesnt go straight into Necromancer. there's a little ditty in between called Lakeside Park.

[StellarJetman]

QUOTE (Rushman14 @ Apr 25 2011, 05:42 PM)

btw, I think Im Going Bald doesnt go straight into Necromancer. there's a little ditty in between called Lakeside Park.

D'oh! You're right; I have no idea how that happened.

 

Post amended, but the comment still applies.

[ColdFireYYZ]

Rush - very good album, but they hadn't developed their own sound

Fly By Night - another good album, but it just doesn't flow well. While songs like Best I Can and In The End are good, they sound like they belong on the debut.

Caress of Steel - not too familiar with the album, but The Necromancer is overblown andd the narration ruins it.

2112 - Cheesy lyrics, but its still awesome. Otherwise, no flaws

AFTK - no flaws

Hemispheres - no flaws

Permanent Waves - no flaws

Moving Pictures - Camera Eye is essentially the same song twice, but its awesome so I don't mind hearing it twice.

Signals - no flaws

GUP - scratching sound as someone else pointed out

POW - no flaws

HYF - Tai Shan & High Water prevent it from being a perfect album.

Presto - overall production is too thin, but it works at times.

RTB - Where's My Thing sounds unfinished, and Heresy is one of my least favorite songs.

CP - The Speed of Love is the weakest track on it, and the lyrics for Nobody's Hero sound clunky in the begnning (still a good song).

T4E - muddy production, and many poor tracks. Lyrics for Virtuality and Dog Years are weak.

VT - Production is bad, but otherwise its a good album with a few clunkers that's really growing on me.

S&A - Too long and drawn out.

[liddybuck01]

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011, 06:35 PM)

WARNING: A HUGE POST STANDS IN YOUR WAY. BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS, ALL YOUR BASE, ETC. Also, I don't necessarily dislike one of these albums because of what I mention here - this thread is specifically about discussing their flaws, not their strengths. Rush - Still haven't gotten around to listening to it. Fly by Night - Technically weak, even compared to the next album. What's up with the two minutes of nothing in "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"? "Rivendell" is like a bad practical joke at the expense of Tolkien fans. Caress of Steel - A weird, incoherent mess without any kind of consistent tone. The music itself is nice enough, but it doesn't work too well as an album - whose idea was it to go straight from "Lakeside Park" to "The Necromancer"? Awful, awful narration; couldn't they have at least gotten one of their dads to say it? "The Fountain of Lamneth" is as much a song as my keyboard, monitor, speakers, and power cord are a computer. 2112 - Silly, but really fun. Or fun, but really silly. Either way, it's hard to ignore the fact that the 20-minute-long progressive opus of a title track is about a kid from the future who finds a guitar, has a dream about how awesome life would be without those priests lording it over everyone, and then kills himself because the world doesn't happen to be that way. "Tears" is basically the Rush equivalent of "Feelings", and that's not a good thing at all. A Farewell to Kings - I know that I'm probably some kind of heretic for saying this, but I can't stand this album. It's basically 37 minutes of Rush disappearing up their collective rectum and trying to be as "prog" as they could get. Nice title track, but everything else is infuriatingly self-indulgent. No fun anywhere. Hemispheres - Weirdly, this one's probably my favorite Rush album ever. I guess that the worst that I can say about it is the title track is a bit too self-important for its own good and that Geddy's singing almost ventures into Van der Graaf Generator territory ("Foso menny, trubbledyeeahz..."), but everything else is ace. Permanent Waves - A nice album, but the choppy melodies from A Farewell to Kings have returned with a vengeance. "Science, like nature, must also be tamed with a view toward its preservation"? Whaaat? Moving Pictures - Overrated; Permanent Waves is a much better album. This one does have "Limelight", though, which is probably the definitive Rush song. Aside from that, it's nice, but not the peerless paragon of Rush albums that it's constantly made out to be - "The Camera Eye" is a major disappointment, both as a follow-up to "Natural Science" and as a final extended track for Rush as a whole, and "Tom Sawyer", revered as it is, has some great moments, but it never really coalesces into a cohesive song for me. The rest are good, but nothing that I'd put on a top ten list. Signals - I really don't get the fascination for this one. The keyboards are muddy and overbearing, even on the remaster, and some of the songs - especially "Chemistry" and "Countdown" - are just too cheesy for their own good. I stand by my position that "Subdivisions" is the musical equivalent of reading a whiny, self-important teenager's LiveJournal. Grace Under Pressure - A tinny, lifeless cornucopia of dated synthesizers and dubiously good lyrics. "Afterimage", "Red Sector A", and the cover art are nice, though. Power Windows - This is one of my favorites; the only problems with it are its intense '80s-ness (although that's more of a matter of taste than it is an actual flaw) and its pop-ish tracks like "Marathon" and "Emotion Detector". "Grand Designs" would be on that list, too, but the chorus has so much Peartian dorkiness ("Life in two dimensions is a mass production SCHE-EME!") that I can't help but love it. Hold Your Fire - Meh. Probably the softest, gentlest, pop-est Rush album in existence. "Force Ten" and "Open Secrets" do have a commendable amount of energy, but "Time, Stand Still" and "Prime Mover" have too much pop in them for their own good. "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo", although that's probably what I like about it. Everything else just blurs together in a sea of slow pacing and murky synthesizers. Presto - Where's the beef bass? Was Rupert Hine trying to protect people from hurting their ears if they played the album too loud? "War Paint" and "Hand Over Fist" have rather questionable lyrics ("BOIS AND GIRLS TOGETHAH, PAINT THE MIRRAH BLA-ACK!"), and "Scars" apes "Territories" in the same way that "High Water" imitates "Mystic Rhythms". Power Windows may be a good album, but it doesn't need to be recycled like that. Roll the Bones - I already articulated my thoughts about this album in its thread. Must I relive the pain? Counterparts - Rush does an album about the ladies, or something. The songs run the gamut from cool "Leave That Thing Alone", "Cold Fire") to annoying ("Stick It Out", "The Speed of Love") to almost comically "alt" ("Animate", "Cut to the Chase"), and I could definitely do without the latter two categories. The silly, faux-noir monologue in "Double Agent" practically ruins the song - didn't these guys learn anything from "The Necromancer" and "Roll the Bones"? And I refuse to believe that Peart needed outside help to come up with the chorus to "Between Sun and Moon". "Ah, yes to yes to ah, ah to yes - why the sun, why the sun?" indeed. Test for Echo - Ugh. This album just sounds ugly, and that's not even getting into the lyrics. "Time and Motion" is an auditory Pontiac Aztek. The less said about lines like, "Put your message in a modem and throw it in the cyber sea," and, "I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos or a span of geological time," the better - if there's ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 for rock music, it will feature tracks from this album. Vapor Trails - If you can get past the ear-shredding production (or just download a fan remaster), it's actually a pretty good album. There's a certain haphazard feel to it, though, which detracts from its overall quality, and the lyrics, while hardly bad, don't feel too much like Rush at all. The onomatopoeia can also be annoying, especially when Geddy flat-out "doo-doodoodoooo"s in the middle of "Freeze"'s chorus. Snakes and Arrows - Interesting, but inconsistent. The instrumentals do an admirable job of showcasing the members' individual skills, but "Hope" feels unfocused - like Test for Echo's "Limbo", but bereft of that song's powerful auditory presence - and "Malignant Narcissism" sounds incomplete, like a solo extracted from a "real" song. There's none of Vapor Trails's frantic energy here, either, aside from the driving "Far Cry" - most songs fairly trudge along to their conclusions, with Geddy's singing taking on a bizarrely wailing tone, especially on songs like "Good News First". The infamously preachy lyrics ("I don't have faith in faith; I don't believe in belief...") don't help, either. Clockwork Angels - From the singles that have been released, it seems like it'll be Snakes and Arrows, but with slicker production and stranger melodies. Snakes and Arrows wasn't a bad album, but I'd definitely welcome a second take.

so, do you even like Rush???

 

 

 

 

 

lol

[HemispheresserehpsimeH]

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011, 06:35 PM)

WARNING: A HUGE POST STANDS IN YOUR WAY. BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS, ALL YOUR BASE, ETC. Also, I don't necessarily dislike one of these albums because of what I mention here - this thread is specifically about discussing their flaws, not their strengths. Rush - Still haven't gotten around to listening to it. Fly by Night - Technically weak, even compared to the next album. What's up with the two minutes of nothing in "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"? "Rivendell" is like a bad practical joke at the expense of Tolkien fans. Caress of Steel - A weird, incoherent mess without any kind of consistent tone. The music itself is nice enough, but it doesn't work too well as an album - whose idea was it to go straight from "Lakeside Park" to "The Necromancer"? Awful, awful narration; couldn't they have at least gotten one of their dads to say it? "The Fountain of Lamneth" is as much a song as my keyboard, monitor, speakers, and power cord are a computer. 2112 - Silly, but really fun. Or fun, but really silly. Either way, it's hard to ignore the fact that the 20-minute-long progressive opus of a title track is about a kid from the future who finds a guitar, has a dream about how awesome life would be without those priests lording it over everyone, and then kills himself because the world doesn't happen to be that way. "Tears" is basically the Rush equivalent of "Feelings", and that's not a good thing at all. A Farewell to Kings - I know that I'm probably some kind of heretic for saying this, but I can't stand this album. It's basically 37 minutes of Rush disappearing up their collective rectum and trying to be as "prog" as they could get. Nice title track, but everything else is infuriatingly self-indulgent. No fun anywhere. Hemispheres - Weirdly, this one's probably my favorite Rush album ever. I guess that the worst that I can say about it is the title track is a bit too self-important for its own good and that Geddy's singing almost ventures into Van der Graaf Generator territory ("Foso menny, trubbledyeeahz..."), but everything else is ace. Permanent Waves - A nice album, but the choppy melodies from A Farewell to Kings have returned with a vengeance. "Science, like nature, must also be tamed with a view toward its preservation"? Whaaat? Moving Pictures - Overrated; Permanent Waves is a much better album. This one does have "Limelight", though, which is probably the definitive Rush song. Aside from that, it's nice, but not the peerless paragon of Rush albums that it's constantly made out to be - "The Camera Eye" is a major disappointment, both as a follow-up to "Natural Science" and as a final extended track for Rush as a whole, and "Tom Sawyer", revered as it is, has some great moments, but it never really coalesces into a cohesive song for me. The rest are good, but nothing that I'd put on a top ten list. Signals - I really don't get the fascination for this one. The keyboards are muddy and overbearing, even on the remaster, and some of the songs - especially "Chemistry" and "Countdown" - are just too cheesy for their own good. I stand by my position that "Subdivisions" is the musical equivalent of reading a whiny, self-important teenager's LiveJournal. Grace Under Pressure - A tinny, lifeless cornucopia of dated synthesizers and dubiously good lyrics. "Afterimage", "Red Sector A", and the cover art are nice, though. Power Windows - This is one of my favorites; the only problems with it are its intense '80s-ness (although that's more of a matter of taste than it is an actual flaw) and its pop-ish tracks like "Marathon" and "Emotion Detector". "Grand Designs" would be on that list, too, but the chorus has so much Peartian dorkiness ("Life in two dimensions is a mass production SCHE-EME!") that I can't help but love it. Hold Your Fire - Meh. Probably the softest, gentlest, pop-est Rush album in existence. "Force Ten" and "Open Secrets" do have a commendable amount of energy, but "Time, Stand Still" and "Prime Mover" have too much pop in them for their own good. "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo", although that's probably what I like about it. Everything else just blurs together in a sea of slow pacing and murky synthesizers. Presto - Where's the beef bass? Was Rupert Hine trying to protect people from hurting their ears if they played the album too loud? "War Paint" and "Hand Over Fist" have rather questionable lyrics ("BOIS AND GIRLS TOGETHAH, PAINT THE MIRRAH BLA-ACK!"), and "Scars" apes "Territories" in the same way that "High Water" imitates "Mystic Rhythms". Power Windows may be a good album, but it doesn't need to be recycled like that. Roll the Bones - I already articulated my thoughts about this album in its thread. Must I relive the pain? Counterparts - Rush does an album about the ladies, or something. The songs run the gamut from cool "Leave That Thing Alone", "Cold Fire") to annoying ("Stick It Out", "The Speed of Love") to almost comically "alt" ("Animate", "Cut to the Chase"), and I could definitely do without the latter two categories. The silly, faux-noir monologue in "Double Agent" practically ruins the song - didn't these guys learn anything from "The Necromancer" and "Roll the Bones"? And I refuse to believe that Peart needed outside help to come up with the chorus to "Between Sun and Moon". "Ah, yes to yes to ah, ah to yes - why the sun, why the sun?" indeed. Test for Echo - Ugh. This album just sounds ugly, and that's not even getting into the lyrics. "Time and Motion" is an auditory Pontiac Aztek. The less said about lines like, "Put your message in a modem and throw it in the cyber sea," and, "I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos or a span of geological time," the better - if there's ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 for rock music, it will feature tracks from this album. Vapor Trails - If you can get past the ear-shredding production (or just download a fan remaster), it's actually a pretty good album. There's a certain haphazard feel to it, though, which detracts from its overall quality, and the lyrics, while hardly bad, don't feel too much like Rush at all. The onomatopoeia can also be annoying, especially when Geddy flat-out "doo-doodoodoooo"s in the middle of "Freeze"'s chorus. Snakes and Arrows - Interesting, but inconsistent. The instrumentals do an admirable job of showcasing the members' individual skills, but "Hope" feels unfocused - like Test for Echo's "Limbo", but bereft of that song's powerful auditory presence - and "Malignant Narcissism" sounds incomplete, like a solo extracted from a "real" song. There's none of Vapor Trails's frantic energy here, either, aside from the driving "Far Cry" - most songs fairly trudge along to their conclusions, with Geddy's singing taking on a bizarrely wailing tone, especially on songs like "Good News First". The infamously preachy lyrics ("I don't have faith in faith; I don't believe in belief...") don't help, either. Clockwork Angels - From the singles that have been released, it seems like it'll be Snakes and Arrows, but with slicker production and stranger melodies. Snakes and Arrows wasn't a bad album, but I'd definitely welcome a second take.

Here's evidence that opinions can be wrong.

[Ancient Ways]

Rush - too much like a lot of other music at the time.

FBN - Nice move in another direction By-Tor overated.

CoS - almost perfect, Necromancer a little cheesy.

2112 - Neil didn;t write all of the lyrics.

AFTK - Closer to the Heart is too short.

Hemispheres - Nothing wrong here.

PeW - Jacob;s Ladder too long.

MP - nothing wrong here.

Signals - shocking when released.

GuP - really dark in a good way, nice one.

PoW - damn good album, nothing really wrong here.

HYF - Tai Shan - beginning to see them get bored here.

Presto - lackluster effort, not a fan of much on this album

RTB - the rap in title song makes most put blinders on how good this is especially after Presto and HYF.

CP - Speed of Love (wasn;t that written by that dog Brian?)

T4E - succeeds where last one didn't except Dog Years.

VT - too long, terrible sounding.

Feedback - WTF?

SNA - lyrical content mind boggling, like listening to the opposite of an insane street preacher.

CA - don;t know.

 

[Good,bad,andrush]

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011, 06:35 PM)

WARNING: A HUGE POST STANDS IN YOUR WAY. BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS, ALL YOUR BASE, ETC. Also, I don't necessarily dislike one of these albums because of what I mention here - this thread is specifically about discussing their flaws, not their strengths. Rush - Still haven't gotten around to listening to it. Fly by Night - Technically weak, even compared to the next album. What's up with the two minutes of nothing in "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"? "Rivendell" is like a bad practical joke at the expense of Tolkien fans. Caress of Steel - A weird, incoherent mess without any kind of consistent tone. The music itself is nice enough, but it doesn't work too well as an album - whose idea was it to go straight from "Lakeside Park" to "The Necromancer"? Awful, awful narration; couldn't they have at least gotten one of their dads to say it? "The Fountain of Lamneth" is as much a song as my keyboard, monitor, speakers, and power cord are a computer. 2112 - Silly, but really fun. Or fun, but really silly. Either way, it's hard to ignore the fact that the 20-minute-long progressive opus of a title track is about a kid from the future who finds a guitar, has a dream about how awesome life would be without those priests lording it over everyone, and then kills himself because the world doesn't happen to be that way. "Tears" is basically the Rush equivalent of "Feelings", and that's not a good thing at all. A Farewell to Kings - I know that I'm probably some kind of heretic for saying this, but I can't stand this album. It's basically 37 minutes of Rush disappearing up their collective rectum and trying to be as "prog" as they could get. Nice title track, but everything else is infuriatingly self-indulgent. No fun anywhere. Hemispheres - Weirdly, this one's probably my favorite Rush album ever. I guess that the worst that I can say about it is the title track is a bit too self-important for its own good and that Geddy's singing almost ventures into Van der Graaf Generator territory ("Foso menny, trubbledyeeahz..."), but everything else is ace. Permanent Waves - A nice album, but the choppy melodies from A Farewell to Kings have returned with a vengeance. "Science, like nature, must also be tamed with a view toward its preservation"? Whaaat? Moving Pictures - Overrated; Permanent Waves is a much better album. This one does have "Limelight", though, which is probably the definitive Rush song. Aside from that, it's nice, but not the peerless paragon of Rush albums that it's constantly made out to be - "The Camera Eye" is a major disappointment, both as a follow-up to "Natural Science" and as a final extended track for Rush as a whole, and "Tom Sawyer", revered as it is, has some great moments, but it never really coalesces into a cohesive song for me. The rest are good, but nothing that I'd put on a top ten list. Signals - I really don't get the fascination for this one. The keyboards are muddy and overbearing, even on the remaster, and some of the songs - especially "Chemistry" and "Countdown" - are just too cheesy for their own good. I stand by my position that "Subdivisions" is the musical equivalent of reading a whiny, self-important teenager's LiveJournal. Grace Under Pressure - A tinny, lifeless cornucopia of dated synthesizers and dubiously good lyrics. "Afterimage", "Red Sector A", and the cover art are nice, though. Power Windows - This is one of my favorites; the only problems with it are its intense '80s-ness (although that's more of a matter of taste than it is an actual flaw) and its pop-ish tracks like "Marathon" and "Emotion Detector". "Grand Designs" would be on that list, too, but the chorus has so much Peartian dorkiness ("Life in two dimensions is a mass production SCHE-EME!") that I can't help but love it. Hold Your Fire - Meh. Probably the softest, gentlest, pop-est Rush album in existence. "Force Ten" and "Open Secrets" do have a commendable amount of energy, but "Time, Stand Still" and "Prime Mover" have too much pop in them for their own good. "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo", although that's probably what I like about it. Everything else just blurs together in a sea of slow pacing and murky synthesizers. Presto - Where's the beef bass? Was Rupert Hine trying to protect people from hurting their ears if they played the album too loud? "War Paint" and "Hand Over Fist" have rather questionable lyrics ("BOIS AND GIRLS TOGETHAH, PAINT THE MIRRAH BLA-ACK!"), and "Scars" apes "Territories" in the same way that "High Water" imitates "Mystic Rhythms". Power Windows may be a good album, but it doesn't need to be recycled like that. Roll the Bones - I already articulated my thoughts about this album in its thread. Must I relive the pain? Counterparts - Rush does an album about the ladies, or something. The songs run the gamut from cool "Leave That Thing Alone", "Cold Fire") to annoying ("Stick It Out", "The Speed of Love") to almost comically "alt" ("Animate", "Cut to the Chase"), and I could definitely do without the latter two categories. The silly, faux-noir monologue in "Double Agent" practically ruins the song - didn't these guys learn anything from "The Necromancer" and "Roll the Bones"? And I refuse to believe that Peart needed outside help to come up with the chorus to "Between Sun and Moon". "Ah, yes to yes to ah, ah to yes - why the sun, why the sun?" indeed. Test for Echo - Ugh. This album just sounds ugly, and that's not even getting into the lyrics. "Time and Motion" is an auditory Pontiac Aztek. The less said about lines like, "Put your message in a modem and throw it in the cyber sea," and, "I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos or a span of geological time," the better - if there's ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 for rock music, it will feature tracks from this album. Vapor Trails - If you can get past the ear-shredding production (or just download a fan remaster), it's actually a pretty good album. There's a certain haphazard feel to it, though, which detracts from its overall quality, and the lyrics, while hardly bad, don't feel too much like Rush at all. The onomatopoeia can also be annoying, especially when Geddy flat-out "doo-doodoodoooo"s in the middle of "Freeze"'s chorus. Snakes and Arrows - Interesting, but inconsistent. The instrumentals do an admirable job of showcasing the members' individual skills, but "Hope" feels unfocused - like Test for Echo's "Limbo", but bereft of that song's powerful auditory presence - and "Malignant Narcissism" sounds incomplete, like a solo extracted from a "real" song. There's none of Vapor Trails's frantic energy here, either, aside from the driving "Far Cry" - most songs fairly trudge along to their conclusions, with Geddy's singing taking on a bizarrely wailing tone, especially on songs like "Good News First". The infamously preachy lyrics ("I don't have faith in faith; I don't believe in belief...") don't help, either. Clockwork Angels - From the singles that have been released, it seems like it'll be Snakes and Arrows, but with slicker production and stranger melodies. Snakes and Arrows wasn't a bad album, but I'd definitely welcome a second take.

I know you're discussing flaws and all...but you're not discussing flaws. You're basically saying why each album is just okay or good, and sometimes how bad it is. And yeah, you've got valid points here and there. But you sound like a critic who just doesn't get rush but at least knows they're good. Do you get ?

 

[StellarJetman]

Re: "StellarJetman doesn't like Rush because he posted about their albums' flaws in a thread about their albums' flaws."

 

I'm obviously a Rush fan, or I wouldn't be on this site. The fact is that I originally had something to the effect of "but it's still good because of [quality]" after most of them, but I realized that they'd all just be capsule reviews of the albums with the focus shifted towards the flaws. What's the point of talking about what the albums do right in a thread that begins with, "Just go down the line and write your problems with each album"? Did I miss something there?

 

Read the second line in my post again. Then tell me that I don't "get" Rush. The fact is that you don't get the thread.

 

If someone does an "album strengths" thread, you can bet that my post there would be just as extensive.

[ioc]

[StellarJetman]

QUOTE (ioc @ Apr 25 2011, 09:00 PM)

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011 @  06:35 PM) "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo" That was meme-riffic. I've since edited my post to fix that typo and a few others. I had to get out the door quickly, so it was sloppier than usual.

[ioc]

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011, 10:30 PM)

QUOTE (ioc @ Apr 25 2011, 09:00 PM) QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011 @  06:35 PM) "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo" That was meme-riffic. I've since edited my post to fix that typo and a few others. I had to get out the door quickly, so it was sloppier than usual. Still funny though.

[Xanadu93]

QUOTE (Tarkus406 @ Apr 25 2011, 06:51 PM)

16. Test For Echo: the only thing wrong with it is the fact that it gets no recognition

It's not like it deserves recognition

[Xanadu93]

QUOTE (Scars @ Apr 25 2011, 05:05 PM)

Signals...Such an amazing album!!!1! Losing It is so touching, Subdivisions speaks to me, every song kicks ass except Countdown! The only problem is that Geddy uses synthesizers now. Where are the 10 minute+ songs? Oh, did I forget to mention the album isn't that good? PoW...Marathon is good, the rest is bubble-gum pop garbage. But bring back Middletown Dreams on the tour!

You're contradicting yourself, bro.

[Tommy Sawyer]

QUOTE (Ancient Ways @ Apr 25 2011, 09:10 PM)

Rush - too much like a lot of other music at the time. FBN - Nice move in another direction By-Tor overated. CoS - almost perfect, Necromancer a little cheesy. 2112 - Neil didn;t write all of the lyrics. AFTK - Closer to the Heart is too short. Hemispheres - Nothing wrong here. PeW - Jacob;s Ladder too long. MP - nothing wrong here. Signals - shocking when released. GuP - really dark in a good way, nice one. PoW - damn good album, nothing really wrong here. HYF - Tai Shan - beginning to see them get bored here. Presto - lackluster effort, not a fan of much on this album RTB - the rap in title song makes most put blinders on how good this is especially after Presto and HYF. CP - Speed of Love (wasn;t that written by that dog Brian?) T4E - succeeds where last one didn't except Dog Years. VT - too long, terrible sounding. Feedback - WTF? SNA - lyrical content mind boggling, like listening to the opposite of an insane street preacher. CA - don;t know.

Almost all of these I agree with. Except for TFE - that album rocks more than you give it credit for.

[savagegrace26]

Rush - too generic, weak lyrically

FBN - needs one or two more faster tempo songs

COS - too erratic and inaccessible

2112 - side b sounds like a side b

AF2K - could use a couple stronger songs

Hems - a tad too short

PWaves - pretty much flawless

MPics - ditto

Sigs - guitars could be more upfront

P/G - the body electric disrupts the flow

PWins - gets a tad repetitive soundwise

HYF - could be a little shorter

Presto - mix could be improved

RTB - somewhat weak songwriting

CPs - middle of the album doesn't flow well

T4E - songs blend together a little too much, more diversity needed

VTs - poor production, track order doesn't flow well, too long

S&A - doesn't sustain itself as well as it could

[Rushman14]

QUOTE (Good,bad,andrush @ Apr 25 2011, 06:36 PM)

QUOTE (StellarJetman @ Apr 25 2011, 06:35 PM) WARNING: A HUGE POST STANDS IN YOUR WAY.  BE ATTITUDE FOR GAINS, ALL YOUR BASE, ETC. Also, I don't necessarily dislike one of these albums because of what I mention here - this thread is specifically about discussing their flaws, not their strengths. Rush - Still haven't gotten around to listening to it. Fly by Night - Technically weak, even compared to the next album.  What's up with the two minutes of nothing in "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"?  "Rivendell" is like a bad practical joke at the expense of Tolkien fans. Caress of Steel - A weird, incoherent mess without any kind of consistent tone.  The music itself is nice enough, but it doesn't work too well as an album - whose idea was it to go straight from "Lakeside Park" to "The Necromancer"?  Awful, awful narration; couldn't they have at least gotten one of their dads to say it?  "The Fountain of Lamneth" is as much a song as my keyboard, monitor, speakers, and power cord are a computer. 2112 - Silly, but really fun.  Or fun, but really silly.  Either way, it's hard to ignore the fact that the 20-minute-long progressive opus of a title track is about a kid from the future who finds a guitar, has a dream about how awesome life would be without those priests lording it over everyone, and then kills himself because the world doesn't happen to be that way.  "Tears" is basically the Rush equivalent of "Feelings", and that's not a good thing at all. A Farewell to Kings - I know that I'm probably some kind of heretic for saying this, but I can't stand this album.  It's basically 37 minutes of Rush disappearing up their collective rectum and trying to be as "prog" as they could get.  Nice title track, but everything else is infuriatingly self-indulgent.  No fun anywhere. Hemispheres - Weirdly, this one's probably my favorite Rush album ever.  I guess that the worst that I can say about it is the title track is a bit too self-important for its own good and that Geddy's singing almost ventures into Van der Graaf Generator territory ("Foso menny, trubbledyeeahz..."), but everything else is ace. Permanent Waves - A nice album, but the choppy melodies from A Farewell to Kings have returned with a vengeance.  "Science, like nature, must also be tamed with a view toward its preservation"?  Whaaat? Moving Pictures - Overrated; Permanent Waves is a much better album.  This one does have "Limelight", though, which is probably the definitive Rush song.  Aside from that, it's nice, but not the peerless paragon of Rush albums that it's constantly made out to be - "The Camera Eye" is a major disappointment, both as a follow-up to "Natural Science" and as a final extended track for Rush as a whole, and "Tom Sawyer", revered as it is, has some great moments, but it never really coalesces into a cohesive song for me.  The rest are good, but nothing that I'd put on a top ten list. Signals - I really don't get the fascination for this one.  The keyboards are muddy and overbearing, even on the remaster, and some of the songs - especially "Chemistry" and "Countdown" - are just too cheesy for their own good.  I stand by my position that "Subdivisions" is the musical equivalent of reading a whiny, self-important teenager's LiveJournal. Grace Under Pressure - A tinny, lifeless cornucopia of dated synthesizers and dubiously good lyrics.  "Afterimage", "Red Sector A", and the cover art are nice, though. Power Windows - This is one of my favorites; the only problems with it are its intense '80s-ness (although that's more of a matter of taste than it is an actual flaw) and its pop-ish tracks like "Marathon" and "Emotion Detector".  "Grand Designs" would be on that list, too, but the chorus has so much Peartian dorkiness ("Life in two dimensions is a mass production SCHE-EME!") that I can't help but love it. Hold Your Fire - Meh.  Probably the softest, gentlest, pop-est Rush album in existence.  "Force Ten" and "Open Secrets" do have a commendable amount of energy, but "Time, Stand Still" and "Prime Mover" have too much pop in them for their own good.  "High Water" is basically "Mystic Rhythms II: Electic Boogaloo", although that's probably what I like about it.  Everything else just blurs together in a sea of slow pacing and murky synthesizers. Presto - Where's the beef bass?  Was Rupert Hine trying to protect people from hurting their ears if they played the album too loud?  "War Paint" and "Hand Over Fist" have rather questionable lyrics ("BOIS AND GIRLS TOGETHAH, PAINT THE MIRRAH BLA-ACK!"), and "Scars" apes "Territories" in the same way that "High Water" imitates "Mystic Rhythms".  Power Windows may be a good album, but it doesn't need to be recycled like that. Roll the Bones - I already articulated my thoughts about this album in its thread.  Must I relive the pain? Counterparts - Rush does an album about the ladies, or something.  The songs run the gamut from cool "Leave That Thing Alone", "Cold Fire") to annoying ("Stick It Out", "The Speed of Love") to almost comically "alt" ("Animate", "Cut to the Chase"), and I could definitely do without the latter two categories.  The silly, faux-noir monologue in "Double Agent" practically ruins the song - didn't these guys learn anything from "The Necromancer" and "Roll the Bones"?  And I refuse to believe that Peart needed outside help to come up with the chorus to "Between Sun and Moon".  "Ah, yes to yes to ah, ah to yes - why the sun, why the sun?" indeed. Test for Echo - Ugh.  This album just sounds ugly, and that's not even getting into the lyrics.  "Time and Motion" is an auditory Pontiac Aztek.  The less said about lines like, "Put your message in a modem and throw it in the cyber sea," and, "I'd rather be a tortoise from Galapagos or a span of geological time," the better - if there's ever a Mystery Science Theater 3000 for rock music, it will feature tracks from this album. Vapor Trails - If you can get past the ear-shredding production (or just download a fan remaster), it's actually a pretty good album.  There's a certain haphazard feel to it, though, which detracts from its overall quality, and the lyrics, while hardly bad, don't feel too much like Rush at all.  The onomatopoeia can also be annoying, especially when Geddy flat-out "doo-doodoodoooo"s in the middle of "Freeze"'s chorus. Snakes and Arrows - Interesting, but inconsistent.  The instrumentals do an admirable job of showcasing the members' individual skills, but "Hope" feels unfocused - like Test for Echo's "Limbo", but bereft of that song's powerful auditory presence - and "Malignant Narcissism" sounds incomplete, like a solo extracted from a "real" song.  There's none of Vapor Trails's frantic energy here, either, aside from the driving "Far Cry" - most songs fairly trudge along to their conclusions, with Geddy's singing taking on a bizarrely wailing tone, especially on songs like "Good News First".  The infamously preachy lyrics ("I don't have faith in faith; I don't believe in belief...") don't help, either. Clockwork Angels - From the singles that have been released, it seems like it'll be Snakes and Arrows, but with slicker production and stranger melodies.  Snakes and Arrows wasn't a bad album, but I'd definitely welcome a second take. I know you're discussing flaws and all...but you're not discussing flaws. You're basically saying why each album is just okay or good, and sometimes how bad it is. And yeah, you've got valid points here and there. But you sound like a critic who just doesn't get rush but at least knows they're good. Do you get ? He lost me with his discription of AFTK. He can't stand it but then states Hemispheres is his favorite. Those two couldnt be anymore like sister albums.   FAIL.