Shorter more focused albums

[losingit2k]

Do you think RUSH would have benefited from having shorter album after CD were introduce during the Hold Your Fire album and beyond. Many band once cds were introduced went "Time Happy" or more correctly - Time Crazy with their albums, contributing way to many songs that were mediocre or even substandard just to fill in the time. Album prior to Presto where much more focused and shorter due to the time limitation with vinyl. I believe RUSH fell into this trap as well. Imagine the following albums at shorter length.

 

Hold Your Fire without (Tai Shan or High Water)

Presto without (Red Tide, Anagram for Mongo and Hand over Fist)

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Speed of Love and Everyday Glory)

Test for Echo without (Dog Years, Virtuality or Carve away the Stone)

Vapor Trails without (Nocturne or Out of the Cradle)

Snakes And Arrows without (Good News First or We Hold On)

 

Now I'm not say these songs are bad, I'm just saying their particular albums would have benefitted without their inclusion. Rush could have kept them on ice as bonus tracks for box sets like Sectors or something.

 

What do you think?

Edited July 30, 2013 by losingit2k

[ShlappinDahBass]

Some think there are a few/most on this list that are mediocre to bad songs. And there's a vice-versa to that argument. I feel the soul and passion in every one of these songs is there. It's a different strokes for different folks. So they're not for nothing.

 

In other words: No.

[ReRushed]

I agree. Quality over quantity. I'm pretty sure all my favorite Rush albums are under or around 40 minutes long.

[drbirdsong]

I lot of groups went a bit nuts with the longer CD format and a lot of filler was thrust upon the world. I don't put Rush in that category, but these days you can make playlists on your favorite device or burn your own CDs so it all evens out in the end.

[Mika]

Take 'Everyday Glory' off Counterparts? Are you nuts?!

 

:P

 

But seriously. I don't like breaking Rush songs into 'killer' and 'filler', as it were; I think every song has something to offer. I would be very bereft without some of the songs you mentioned, most notably 'EG'. This is one of the songs that really sold me on Rush, and is among probably the top five Rush songs nearest and dearest to my heart.

 

I understand the thinking of condensing albums, but back in the day when albums were shorter... well, albums were shorter. Just think how things might have been different if records held the 80 minutes that cds do; can you picture a few more songs added to 'Moving Pictures'? Would they have been filler, I wonder, or would they have been classics as the album is generally regarded as being?

 

Some of the songs you mentioned are kind of at the bottom in my opinion, but I don't think I would want to remove them - I've developed a strong liking for some albums and couldn't picture them being the same with a few songs missing. Of course, if I didn't know they were there in the first place, if the albums had originally been recorded without those songs and they never existed.... I guess we get used to what we know, and it's hard to picture things altered.

 

Interesting notion, though. But negative points for being mean to 'Everyday Glory'! :P :P

[Cyclonus X-1]

Do you think RUSH would have benefited from having shorter album after CD were introduce during the Hold Your Fire album and beyond. Many band once cds were introduced went "Time Happy" or more correctly - Time Crazy with their albums, contributing way to many songs that were mediocre or even substandard just to fill in the time. Album prior to Presto where much more focused and shorter due to the time limitation with vinyl. I believe RUSH fell into this trap as well. Imagine the following albums at shorter length.

 

Hold Your Fire without (Tai Shan or High Water)

Presto without (Red Tide, Anagram for Mongo and Hand over Fist)

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Speed of Love and Everyday Glory)

Test for Echo without (Dog Years, Virtuality or Carve away the Stone)

Vapor Trails without (Nocturne or Out of the Cradle)

Snakes And Arrows without (Good News First or We Hold On)

 

Now I'm not say these songs are bad, I'm just saying their particular albums would have benefitted without their inclusion. Rush could have kept them on ice as bonus tracks for box sets like Sectors or something.

 

What do you think?

 

Yeah, but the problem is everyone has different ideas as to what the "expendable" songs are. I'd keep almost every tune you listed and jettison other tracks.

 

If Rush had cut these albums down before releasing them, I bet they'd have chosen to dump some tracks that I really like. They were disappointed with how Emotion Detector turned out, and that's my favorite tune on Power Windows—wouldn't want to imagine the album without that one.

[rugen]

I agree, for example, CA has only 40 minutes of really good songs.

[lerxt1990]

I owuldnt mind seeing a shorter, more focused, more stripped down album.

[rushgoober]

Do you think RUSH would have benefited from having shorter album after CD were introduce during the Hold Your Fire album and beyond. Many band once cds were introduced went "Time Happy" or more correctly - Time Crazy with their albums, contributing way to many songs that were mediocre or even substandard just to fill in the time. Album prior to Presto where much more focused and shorter due to the time limitation with vinyl. I believe RUSH fell into this trap as well. Imagine the following albums at shorter length.

 

Hold Your Fire without (Tai Shan or High Water)

Presto without (Red Tide, Anagram for Mongo and Hand over Fist)

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Speed of Love and Everyday Glory)

Test for Echo without (Dog Years, Virtuality or Carve away the Stone)

Vapor Trails without (Nocturne or Out of the Cradle)

Snakes And Arrows without (Good News First or We Hold On)

 

Now I'm not say these songs are bad, I'm just saying their particular albums would have benefitted without their inclusion. Rush could have kept them on ice as bonus tracks for box sets like Sectors or something.

 

What do you think?

 

It's a nice idea, but it would only work sometimes.

 

For example, HYF would indeed have been perfect without High Water & Tai Shan.

 

Everyday Glory is indeed the weakest link on CP. It's not a bad song, just easily the weakest song on the album. The album would have benefited slightly without it, but it's still a pretty uniformly excellent album regardless.

 

S&A definitely could have benefited with a little trimming. if the album got rid of Bravest Face, Faithless, The Larger Bowl, Good News First and We Hold On it would have still been close to 40 minutes and would be a far (cry) better album. Even still it's a great work.

 

Other albums like Presto & RTB would have need to have far too many songs removed to make them good albums. Even if you combined the really worthy songs off both; The Pass, Chain Lightning & Dreamline - you still don't have even close to an EP, much less an LP.

 

And there's not one great or even good song on T4E or VT.

 

CA only needs to jettison BU2B2 as it's truly an EXCELLENT album almost all the way through. I could also live without Halo Effect, but it's not TOO bad.

 

Still, it's a nice idea and there are places where trimming the fat would have been beneficial.

Edited July 30, 2013 by rushgoober

[theanalogmiddleagedman]

I was actually just thinking about this the other day. I can't figure out which songs I would leave off though. I like all the ones the OP mentioned, and as someone else mentioned, each Rush song has something to offer.

For example, I was listening to HYF on the way into work this morning after the posts from last week. I actually like High Water and enjoy Tai Shan. The song I am not crazy about is Open Secrets, mostly because Alex is missing from it. But then the solo section kicks in and he has an awesome solo and Geddy's bass is flying and Neil has a great fill at the end - every song has it's moments.

[Rod in Toronto]

I fully agree that the CD format added pressure on all bands to write more material. And I don´t think the last song on each album were necessarily the ones that were added due to record company pressure. From memory, Force Ten was the last one written for HYF, and it´s awesome. All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without. Could you imagine taking anything off of Hemispheres or Moving Pictures on the other hand?

[Jaminbenb]

Tough to say...Some people might actually like those tunes...but the fact that some were written last and ended up being good songs is the issue....Look at what Dream Theater did a few years back when Derek Sherinian was in the band (well they might have done more later, but that's when I was really following them, haven't been as much of a fan since Rudess came on board) and had a lot of extra tunes that they pulled out for their compilation albums, and unplugged shows. But since Rush seemed to use everything, don't you think that the leftovers would have made it on the next album?

[losingit2k]

I fully agree that the CD format added pressure on all bands to write more material. And I don´t think the last song on each album were necessarily the ones that were added due to record company pressure. From memory, Force Ten was the last one written for HYF, and it´s awesome. All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without. Could you imagine taking anything off of Hemispheres or Moving Pictures on the other hand?

 

No, and thats my Point all together. The time restrictions to record on Vinyl worked in their favor. The CD format just gave them too much time and ideas that would have been forced to be focused on and developed or dropped out all together were just left alone to become another mediocre RUSH song. I feel Clockwork Angels was a slight return to that previous more concise and focused recording style of the 70's and early 80's and it worked extremely well for them. I honestly think they and many other bands shouldn't go pass 45 minutes of Recording time for any given CD.

 

:codger:

[Rod in Toronto]

Another great example of this is Iron Maiden...in their streak of awesome albums in the 80´s, none of them had more than 9 songs - some of them have 8 songs only, like Somewhere in Time. Then Fear of the Dark came up, and they started to either increase the quantity of tracks in each album, or increase them in length.The Angel And the Gambler, from Virtual XI, has its chorus repeated almost 50 times - that´s not a joke, count them!

[Del_Duio]

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Everyday Glory)

 

What do you think?

 

I think I'm glad you weren't their producer back then, I like both of those songs especially!

[JohnnyBlaze]

Maybe the process of making sub-par Rush songs helped them to make better songs on subsequent albums. Personally, I can think of several bad choices I've made (even if they weren't total disasters) that helped me to make better choices in the times following those periods.

So yeah, I'll take the shit (as if I even have a choice in THEIR creative process) of You Bet Your Life, Speed of Love, and Neurotica if those songs eventually helped lead to the crafting of say, Clockwork Angels.

[losingit2k]

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Everyday Glory)

 

What do you think?

 

I think I'm glad you weren't their producer back then, I like both of those songs especially!

 

You would have heard them eventually as the (Unreleased tracks) of a Box Set. I thinkthose waker songs would have worked better as stand alone tracks than as part of an Album. They just soun like fillers to me.

 

[drbirdsong]

Can you imagine the debates around here if some of those songs were left off the albums and later showed up in a box set? Blows would be exchanged and there would be bellows of rage for leaving such masterpieces off the album they could have been on. :P

[tas7]

Agree with the comments, classic rock albums were maximum 45 minutes. The only band that went over this was Genesis and there was a rumour that was a ploy to prevent people copying them to cassette. The last few Rush albums before Clockwork Angels are way too long but then so are most albums these days. Counterparts, Test for Echo, Vapor Trails and Snakes and Arrows are hard work to get through although I personally thought Snakes and Arrows was an improvement.

[Pause Rewind Replay]

Imagine the following albums at shorter length.

 

Hold Your Fire without (Tai Shan or High Water)

Presto without (Red Tide, Anagram for Mongo and Hand over Fist)

Roll the Bones without (You Bet your Life)

Counterparts without ( Speed of Love and Everyday Glory)

Test for Echo without (Dog Years, Virtuality or Carve away the Stone)

Vapor Trails without (Nocturne or Out of the Cradle)

Snakes And Arrows without (Good News First or We Hold On)

 

Now I'm not say these songs are bad, I'm just saying their particular albums would have benefitted without their inclusion. Rush could have kept them on ice as bonus tracks for box sets like Sectors or something.

 

What do you think?

 

In making this suggestion, You Bet Your Life that if we ever meet in person I'll have forgotten this topic :madra: :bang bang:

 

"Just another day.. in the path of a speeding train" :hockeygoon:

 

:P .... maybe

[Pause Rewind Replay]

All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without.

 

I just love it when some pontificating blowhard appoints himself the arbiter of what "We Rush fans" should or should not like.

[Pause Rewind Replay]

Yeah, but the problem is everyone has different ideas as to what the "expendable" songs are. I'd keep almost every tune you listed and jettison other tracks.

 

If Rush had cut these albums down before releasing them, I bet they'd have chosen to dump some tracks that I really like. They were disappointed with how Emotion Detector turned out, and that's my favorite tune on Power Windows—wouldn't want to imagine the album without that one.

 

Said it better than I did. HYF without High Water? Presto minus Red Tide?? RTB without You Bet Your Life? CP lacking Everyday Glory ?!? VT without Nocturne and S&A without We Hold On? The horror... the horror...

Edited July 31, 2013 by Pause Rewind Replay

[Rod in Toronto]

All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without.

 

I just love it when some pontificating blowhard appoints himself the arbiter of what "We Rush fans" should or should not like.

 

Wow, dude...take it easy! I for one could live without those songs, and am pretty sure a lot of "us Rush fans" could as well. I respect the fact that you disagree with me, but calling me a "pontificating blowhard" when we´ve never even discussed any other topics here is a bit much.

[rushgoober]

All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without.

 

I just love it when some pontificating blowhard appoints himself the arbiter of what "We Rush fans" should or should not like.

 

Wow, dude...take it easy! I for one could live without those songs, and am pretty sure a lot of "us Rush fans" could as well. I respect the fact that you disagree with me, but calling me a "pontificating blowhard" when we´ve never even discussed any other topics here is a bit much.

 

Yeah, I'm FAR more of a pontificating blowhard than Rodrigo could ever be! :P

 

And I could easily live without all those songs, except I like Speed of Love.

[JohnnyBlaze]

All that said, Bet Your Life, Tai Shan, High Water, Speed of Love, Out of the Cradle, Good News First are songs that we Rush fans could definitely live without.

 

I just love it when some pontificating blowhard appoints himself the arbiter of what "We Rush fans" should or should not like.

 

Wow, dude...take it easy! I for one could live without those songs, and am pretty sure a lot of "us Rush fans" could as well. I respect the fact that you disagree with me, but calling me a "pontificating blowhard" when we´ve never even discussed any other topics here is a bit much.

 

Yeah, I'm FAR more of a pontificating blowhard than Rodrigo could ever be! :P

 

And I could easily live without all those songs, except I like Speed of Love.

I agree goobs, you ARE far more of a pontificating blowhard than Rodrigo.

But I too might belong to the PBG (Pontificating Blowhard Guild) since: I strongly dislike YBYL and Speed of Love and I can live without Good News First and Out of the Cradle. However, I do like High Water and Tai Shan is ok.