Which Rush album mattered the least?

[ucsteve667]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Jan 28 2012, 04:27 AM)

This was a very tough one to figure, and of course my answer is entirely subjective, as I couldn't rightly choose an album I thought was great. As I see it, every album from the first one through HYF moved the band ahead, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, and they all contained great music, so they were all significant. Presto I considered a let down lyrically, but as far as I'm concerned that DID matter - it mattered because it was their first real stumble. Roll the Bones was their chance at redemption, and it was another stumble, so that mattered as well. CP was significant because it was their return to form, them proving they could still make a great album. I guess I'll vote for T4E, since that was where I really fully decided they had lost their way, to an even greater degree than after RTB. Also, at that point it had been three years and Rush just didn't seem as relevant anymore. Their days of making a dependably great album every year or year and a half seemed long gone. I was very tempted to say VT, since it's my least favorite, but I could argue it was one of their most important, a return to action after devastating tragedy, and 6 full years later following up their worst to that point. The fact that it was much worse than T4E doesn't mean that it mattered the least. If anything, I saw it as their worst failure. By that point, the success of their tours (VT and R30) was really due to their legacy and historical significance, not because their new music was drawing in droves of new fans S&A was a great return to form again for me, so I could hardly vote for that. Yep, Test For Echo wins the prize.

I never listen to Roll The Bones, def my least fave. Id take half of T4E or VT over that full record any day

[Babycat]

IMHO, the debut album matters - Rush wouldn't probably exist, otherwise. There would be no Rush.

[greg2112]

Hold Your Fire. Completely nondescript.

[rushgoober]

QUOTE (Ovningskora @ Jan 27 2012, 03:58 PM)

The debut album because it's nothing like them at all and complete shit. Matters less than Feedback.

Couldn't disagree more.

 

First off, the debut is a total ass-kicking scorcher of a hard rock album - criminally underrated and ridiculously fun. It's what got them discovered, what broke them open. How can you say it matters the least? Feedback, by comparison, was a vanity project and a product to give them reason for the R30 tour without doing a full album of original material.

[ReRushed]

QUOTE (rushgoober @ Jan 28 2012, 09:08 AM)

QUOTE (Ovningskora @ Jan 27 2012, 03:58 PM) The debut album because it's nothing like them at all and complete shit. Matters less than Feedback. Couldn't disagree more.   First off, the debut is a total ass-kicking scorcher of a hard rock album - criminally underrated and ridiculously fun. It's what got them discovered, what broke them open. How can you say it matters the least? Feedback, by comparison, was a vanity project and a product to give them reason for the R30 tour without doing a full album of original material. Come on! Feedback did not give them the reason to tour for R30. Thirty years together fulfilled that reason. It was simply recorded so they can play a couple of "new" songs and acknowledge the influences that brought them together and inspired them to start the thirty years together in the first place. You're a pure latter day Rush cynic!   As for the debut album. It's good. If not for Alex's "Working Man" solo it would be a mediocre album.

[Stormtron]

Test for Echo. An album stuck between the return of hard rock Rush album and the obviously important comeback album, filled with mostly forgettable songs.

[goose]

Some of these opinions must be straight from the crack pipe...

 

 

Debut album mattered least! The album that broke the band and features their first and one of their most enduring hits?

 

Caress of Steel mattered least! The album that featured the band's first side-length epic, and drove the band to rage against the machine and produce their first mass-appeal epic?

 

It has to be one from the Presto-Bone-T4E era. Not because they are terrible, but because they are from the era when RUSH, having reached a pinnacle of sorts with MP, mattered least in the world of music. Presto did feature a return to a stripped-down sound, and T4E had Neil re-inventing himself as a drummer. Yet Bones featured a return of RUSH to radio play.

 

Screw it, I'll just say Hemispheres.

Edited January 28, 2012 by goose

[softfilter]

A tie between Roll The Bones & T4E, both had songs that are stuck in the time they were made dated themes. Although i do like to listen T4E on occasion, I can't listen to RTB at all... Edited January 28, 2012 by softfilter

[The K Man]

Gotta be Presto. They could have easily gone from HYF to Roll the Bones.

 

Test for Echo would be a close second, but considering that was the album where Neil changed his playing and the tour started the evening with sets, it then becomes more important than Presto.

[GeminiRising79]

QUOTE (goose @ Jan 28 2012, 10:27 AM)

Some of these opinions must be straight from the crack pipe... Debut album mattered least!  The album that broke the band and features their first and one of their most enduring hits?  Caress of Steel mattered least!  The album that featured the band's first side-length epic, and drove the band to rage against the machine and produce their first mass-appeal epic?  It has to be one from the Presto-Bone-T4E era.  Not because they are terrible, but because they are from the era when RUSH, having reached a pinnacle of sorts with MP, mattered least in the world of music.  Presto did feature a return to a stripped-down sound, and T4E had Neil re-inventing himself as a drummer. Yet Bones featured a return of RUSH to radio play. Screw it, I'll just say Hemispheres.

Hemispheres was the backbreaker for the epic....and led to the brilliant permanent waves album.

Edited January 28, 2012 by GeminiRising79

[Jaminbenb]

[New Digital Man]

I can see why Test For Echo is not so popular as their are some pretty lame tracks on here however the strength of just three great tracks, Driven, Time and Motion and Resist save the day in my opinion!

[laughedatbytime]

QUOTE (goose @ Jan 28 2012, 09:27 AM)

Screw it, I'll just say Hemispheres.

Yeah, WTF were they thinking with that one?

 

[Bonghitsforjesus]

Roll the Bones for me. T4E 2nd on the list. But saying that, there are some great songs on both those disks.

[alex533]

Probably hold your fire, I dont think it helped evolve their musical pallet.

[Jaminbenb]

QUOTE (New Digital Man @ Jan 28 2012, 12:59 PM)

I can see why Test For Echo is not so popular as their are some pretty lame tracks on here however the strength of just three great tracks, Driven, Time and Motion and Resist save the day in my opinion!

I neglected Resist because I didn't like the album version, but DID like the acoustic rendering of it... But Time and Motion and Driven were KILLER live!

 

 

Hold your Fire (to the person that mentioned that) isn't a great album as far as I'm concerned...but you see Force Ten almost EVERY tour...(and now they seemed to pull Time Stand Still out)

 

That era after Grace Under Pressure lost me! GuP was a great album, but IMHO, the next few were pretty bad...maybe one or two songs off each release were good.

 

I got tired of Power Windows rather quickly, HyF, I never really liked (Except Turn the Page), Presto had a moment or two, RTB only gave us Dreamline, I would venture a guess and say that RTB is the next least played album in my Rush collection next to T4E.

[The K Man]

QUOTE (Jaminbenb @ Jan 28 2012, 02:31 PM)

Hold your Fire (to the person that mentioned that) isn't a great album as far as I'm concerned...but you see Force Ten almost EVERY tour...(and now they seemed to pull Time Stand Still out)

Not in the last 10 years. Force Ten was played on every tour from 1987-1997, but has only been played on one tour since (R30). Getting Mission and Time Stand Still the last two tours has been great, but I'd love to see them dig deeper and give us Turn the Page or Prime Mover again, or maybe even reach way down deep and give us Open Secrets!

[Jaminbenb]

Yeah, you're right...I thought they DID do it more often since then...I never realized it.

 

But yeah, they had done at least something from it for the most part.

[circumstantial tree]

I still say Test for Echo mattered the least. There's not even any clear direction on that album. For those familiar with Yes' "Tormato", it's the Rush equivalent. The songs are all over the place with no clear direction or even a concept.

 

As far as the debut "Rush" goes, I'd say that one definitely matters. Donna Halper just happened to put it on and like it. And Cliff Bernstein at Mercury Records just happened to be the one to hear it and suggest sign them. Too much history with that first album to dismiss that one as irrelevant.

[Gilbertk]

QUOTE (circumstantial tree @ Jan 27 2012, 04:02 PM)

I'd say Test for Echo. Counterparts was a stronger album in their return to "earthy" type music. Test for Echo offered nothing to future music like Vapor Trails or Snakes and Arrows.

Maybe but a LOT did happen after that changed them before they got to Vapor Trails. I've always wondered what we would have heard had things gone differently and an album was released closer to T4E.

 

That being said, I can't deny that this album is forgettable.. Great tracks on it though. Test for Echo (the song) was the first Rush song I liked, I hated Tom Sawyer the first time I heard it. So I owe a lot to the album, but overall, it hasn't had that much of an impact on the band itself.

[Capt starman]

After Grace Under Preasure and Power Windows I started to fade a little with the albums that followed. Things also got complicated for me on a person level, so I relied on the past. I really enjoyed Feedback, R30, and Snakes & Arrows after that.

[Jaminbenb]

QUOTE (Capt starman @ Jan 28 2012, 04:55 PM)

After Grace Under Preasure and Power Windows I started to fade a little with the albums that followed. Things also got complicated for me on a person level, so I relied on the past. I really enjoyed Feedback, R30, and Snakes & Arrows after that.

Truthfully, the only two post GuP albums that hit my "personal" rotation with any frequency (besides live albums) are Counterparts and Snakes and Arrows.

 

The rest don't really hit me that hard.

 

 

[1 of the 7]

I'm going to concur with Test For Echo. It seemed like even as late as Roll The Bones, Rush was still out there in the public consciousness, though maybe only a little. I had a friend actively listening to Rush, going to a show, playing me the album, and I want to say I still remember radio play for a few of its songs. It was after this album that I lost track of the band; I do remember the Beavis & Butt-head episode with Stick it Out, but after that, I heard NOTHING about Rush until they came back here in 2010. Granted, I'd gone in different directions entertainment-wise, but the fact that nothing registered makes me think the band got buried by the grunge scene and was, from that point on, known only to its active followers. Now that the documentary is playing on VH1 Classic all the time, it's thankfully no longer true.

 

Then again, maybe Rush disappeared a lot earlier, and I'm misremembering they were still popular because I had a friend who was into them.

 

At any rate, now that I've caught up on all the albums since Counterparts, I can see that, while Test For Echo, Vapor Trails, Feedback, and Snakes were probably not widely known, Vapor Trails was significant as a comeback album, and Snakes as a new musical direction and their most recent album to date. I can't really say that any of those are true for Test For Echo (or Feedback, but I'll discount that).

[mjohnson30]

Interesting topic. I'll go with Caress of Steel followed closely by Hold Your Fire. They started showing hints of their Progginess on Fly By Night and going from that to 2112 minus CoS would have worked just fine for me. Hold Your Fire has some good songs but I think they had pretty much done all there was to do with the keyboard sound by the time they completed Power Windows. HYF really added nothing to this.

 

I can't go with Presto since that signaled their return to a guitar driven sound even if they held back quite a bit with it. Nor Roll the Bones since that's the album that was out when I discovered Rush. So it's plenty relevant to me. One could make a case for TFE and possibly S&A too, but I consider the mere fact that from 1996 onward they've still been making rocking music and outrocking most bands half their age is still plenty relevant, even if some of the albums don't quite measure up to their best.

[Silas Lang]

QUOTE (Bastille Dave @ Jan 27 2012, 06:57 PM)

My vote would be RTB. It seems like it made the least impact in the evolution of Rush.

It did have a significant impact. On the RTB tour, the band felt that the songs from the album sounded heavier and more aggressive live than on the record which influenced their thinking when it came to the production and sound of Counterparts.