What decade does Permanent Waves really belong in?

[Narps]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

It's a seventies album that was released on January 1, 1980. :rush:

Purposely of course and we all know what most everything comes down to... $

 

I wish I could find the Ray interview where he gives the reason why. I thought it had something to do with grammy awards, but I'm probably remembering wrong.

And ultimately $ somehow...

[Lorraine]

Perseverance wins the day again!

 

I found the interview.

 

Will return with the lowdown from the engine that moved Rush when I find the part. It's a long interview.

Edited October 12, 2015 by Lorraine

[EagleMoon]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

You and I lived parallel lives in a lot of ways. I heard the Permanent Waves material live before I had the album as well, (though the album was released by the time I saw the show, I just hadn't bought it yet).

So obviously you didn't attend the tour in 79' like I did? We do have many parallels btw I do agree. You aren't as old as I am though are you?... :codger:

 

I saw the tour in '79 so as a consumer, it existed for me then. Though it existed for the guys way before that when they created it.

[JARG]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

You and I lived parallel lives in a lot of ways. I heard the Permanent Waves material live before I had the album as well, (though the album was released by the time I saw the show, I just hadn't bought it yet).

So obviously you didn't attend the tour in 79' like I did? We do have many parallels btw I do agree. You aren't as old as I am though are you?... :codger:

 

Not quite. I turned 50 in Feb of this year.

[Lorraine]

Ok, he doesn't specifically mention PerW, but he tells why he wanted albums released in January. Of course, the reason I thought I remembered was....................wrong. :laughing guy:

 

Hypothetically, I would put a record out in January because a chart position was important, and the tour wasn’t starting until April. They (the U.S. label) would insist that they wanted it in the 4th quarter (of the past year) because that’s the biggest quarter (of music sales). I would say. “That’s great. The record will be over in four weeks.” And they thought, “It makes our year, our quarter, and it is probably going to sell as much in that quarter as it is going to sell anyway” blah blah blah. I’m like “no.” To this day, I still try to build this band. If I wanted to go out January or February, and do a release to coincide with the tour so that the record would be in the stores for 6 months rather than 6 weeks, I didn’t care ultimately if it sold the same amount. I ultimately cared that it built the band. Keep in mind, at every American label we were at, we ended up with people who hadn’t signed us. Who didn’t care about us. Who didn't love us. Yet, in Canada we have had the consistency of doing things on our own, and with a label (Anthem Records, distributed by Universal Music Canada) which was right for the band, and not what was right for the label.

[Narps]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

You and I lived parallel lives in a lot of ways. I heard the Permanent Waves material live before I had the album as well, (though the album was released by the time I saw the show, I just hadn't bought it yet).

So obviously you didn't attend the tour in 79' like I did? We do have many parallels btw I do agree. You aren't as old as I am though are you?... :codger:

 

Not quite. I turned 50 in Feb of this year.

Not quite . I will turn 55 on Saturday. Close enough I guess...

[JohnnyBlaze]

18 pages? 80's album folks.

 

It's a 70s record if you think, as I do, that music conceived, written, recorded, mixed, mastered, and packaged in the 1970s, and which has the smokin' Rush 70s sound for the most part, belongs in the 70s.

 

It's an 80s record if you think that just because it was released on Jan 1 1980 and there were people who didn't hear the songs until they bought the record (i.e. the listening public "consumed it"), it belongs in the 1980s, even though they had played some of the material in 1979 and at any rate the damned thing was produced, manufactured and shrink-wrapped in the last months of the 70s.

 

Does the meal belong to the cook, or to the eater?

 

When the cook is cooking the meal it belongs to him, when the bell rings and the order is picked up it belongs to the server, then once the food is on the table it belongs to the eater.

 

Thus, Permanent Waves is an 80's album.

 

BAM

 

And then the food belongs to the toilet.

It isn't food at that stage, it's Justin Bieber.

[JohnnyBlaze]

The next big "hit" after Distant Early Warning that I remember hearing a lot was Dreamline. I listened to whatever was available in the NYC area on the FM.

In my hometown, between the DeW and Dreamline years, radio played Big Money, and Show Don't Tell. MTV played Big Money, Mystic Rhythms, and Show Don't Tell a lot. Not sure what constitutes "a hit" but those 3 songs got a lot of play (without my doing) in my world in the mid-late 80s.

[graxxus]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

I would say yes. The album is the sound recording and not the tour. Though I really wish I could have seen that.

[EagleMoon]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

I would say yes. The album is the sound recording and not the tour. Though I really wish I could have seen that.

 

I think it depends on whether you view the music as being strictly your possession or actually the property of the band.

[Lucas]

need some love

 

http://www.therushforum.com/index.php?/topic/96217-another-300-leftovers-from-your-top-album-list-etc/

Edited October 13, 2015 by Lucas

[Blue J]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

I would say yes. The album is the sound recording and not the tour. Though I really wish I could have seen that.

 

I think it depends on whether you view the music as being strictly your possession or actually the property of the band.

 

That leads to an interesting discussion (completely tangential to the question of which decade an album 'belongs' to) about intellectual property.

 

When we say something like "I have that record", we're talking about possessing a medium by by which we get to enjoy the music on that record. But the music itself is property of the band. Savvy?

[Ged Lent's sis]

When we say something like "I have that record", we're talking about possessing a medium by by which we get to enjoy the music on that record. But the music itself is property of the band. Savvy?

 

If the band or their management were savvy enough to arrange such a deal. In most cases, still today, the standard contract of a record deal entails the company retaining ownership of the music – more specifically, rights to its licensing. Compositional and performance rights and royalties notwithstanding, most artists who end up owning their own music have had to litigate for it or purchase it outright, often from a body who'd purchased it from their defunct label. For every branded artist we are aware of who managed to own their own songs from the outset, there are far more who have not. Now that's savvy.

[Blue J]

When we say something like "I have that record", we're talking about possessing a medium by by which we get to enjoy the music on that record. But the music itself is property of the band. Savvy?

 

If the band or their management were savvy enough to arrange such a deal. In most cases, still today, the standard contract of a record deal entails the company retaining ownership of the music – more specifically, rights to its licensing. Compositional and performance rights and royalties notwithstanding, most artists who end up owning their own music have had to litigate for it or purchase it outright, often from a body who'd purchased it from their defunct label. For every branded artist we are aware of who managed to own their own songs from the outset, there are far more who have not. Now that's savvy.

 

True; agreed.

 

That's another component to it; even the composers and performers often do not own the rights to their own creations.

 

That's the good ol' music industry for you...

[EagleMoon]

When does the album come into being? Is it in the writing process? The tracking of the instruments? The mixing of the songs? The mastering process perhaps? Or is it the first time you consume it (or have the chance to)? I think it has to be that, because the origins are too nebulous. There is no eureka moment when the song just suddenly exists. It's the culmination of everything they ever learned, practiced and experienced up until that point in time. Then it is slowly crafted into shape over a very lengthy process.

Cool. Every piece of music that's ever been created has been done so in my lifetime. AND Permanent Waves is still a 70s album.

 

Not even sort of what I said...

 

It's the logical conclusion of what you did say, though. You answered the question "When does the album come into being?" with that it "has to be" "the first time you consume it".

So does that mean the Permanent Waves tour I saw before the album was officially released would be considered "consuming it" or did I actually need to have the vinyl in my grubby little hands ?...

 

I would say yes. The album is the sound recording and not the tour. Though I really wish I could have seen that.

 

I think it depends on whether you view the music as being strictly your possession or actually the property of the band.

 

That leads to an interesting discussion (completely tangential to the question of which decade an album 'belongs' to) about intellectual property.

 

When we say something like "I have that record", we're talking about possessing a medium by by which we get to enjoy the music on that record. But the music itself is property of the band. Savvy?

 

Right and the other thing to consider is that even if we're talking about a recording, there would have been bootlegs of the '79 shows so technically the music existed in a tangible recorded form previous to 1980.

[MadTheDJ]

A few thoughts on this, as I was recently discussing this very topic with a friend.

 

The album was recorded in 1979, but *intentionally released* at midnight, January 1st, 1980. Neither of these facts are in dispute, so is what we're really discussing actually the band's' intention for the work? They wanted the album to herald in the '80s and I think that's a very important detail to keep in mind, because Rush is a band who puts a great deal of care and attention to detail into their work, into every aspect of their work. They don't always step in and dictate release dates, but in this instance they did. I think it goes beyond simply being a marketing gimmick (first album released in the '80s). They were radically, deliberately, altering their craft, doing away with side-long epics of the Fountain/2112/Cygnus X-1 variety and streamlining their sound. They dropped the planned "Sir Gawain And The Green Knight" epic because it did not fit the more modern sensibilities of the rest of the material they were recording, and that was a quarter of the album they were dropping and had to replace later (with "Natural Science," which in a way also says something about the direction they were choosing, dropping a song about knights and replacing it with a song looking at science, nature and evolution). This was a new Rush sound they were presenting to the world, a more contemporary one from all sides, and they decided to put it out at the start of the new decade. I don't think it would change anything if PW was released January 15th instead of 12 AM, January 1st. The intention would seem to be that the band wanted this updated Rush positioned in the 1980s. Or put another way, they deliberately created an album for the '80s at the very end of the '70s.

 

That's how I see it, anyway.

 

Permanent Waves is very much an '80s album

Edited October 22, 2015 by MadTheDJ

[JohnRogers]

SEIZE HIM!!!

[Ged Lent's sis]

Permanent Waves is very much an '80s album

 

"Marty! Ya gotta get Broon to hold the release until midnight! Otherwise everyone will think Permanent Waves is from the seventies!"

[Lorraine]

Just another opinion. But we'll seize him anyway!

[LeaveMyThingAlone]

Haven't read through all 20 pages but has anyone has asked the critical question of "what's the difference"?

[Lorraine]

Yes. A few times. But thanks for asking it again. :)

[AnEggplant]

Honestly, it's neither a 70s nor an 80s album

 

Compositionally, it had both the longer, proggier material common to the 70s (Jacob's Ladder, Natural Science), and the shorter, more radio friendly songs that would become commonplace afterward (Spirit of Radio, Freewill).

 

Vocally, it still had high octaves, but it also had more level singing that would follow.

 

Time wise, it's half and half. It was made in the 70s and released in the 80s.

 

With all these points in mind, I truly believe it was neither just a 70s album nor just an 80s album. It's both. It marks a transition.

[Digital Dad]

Honestly, it's neither a 70s nor an 80s album

 

Compositionally, it had both the longer, proggier material common to the 70s (Jacob's Ladder, Natural Science), and the shorter, more radio friendly songs that would become commonplace afterward (Spirit of Radio, Freewill).

 

Vocally, it still had high octaves, but it also had more level singing that would follow.

 

Time wise, it's half and half. It was made in the 70s and released in the 80s.

 

With all these points in mind, I truly believe it was neither just a 70s album nor just an 80s album. It's both. It marks a transition.

 

That is very true. But it came out in the 80's so......

 

 

 

[AnEggplant]

Honestly, it's neither a 70s nor an 80s album

 

Compositionally, it had both the longer, proggier material common to the 70s (Jacob's Ladder, Natural Science), and the shorter, more radio friendly songs that would become commonplace afterward (Spirit of Radio, Freewill).

 

Vocally, it still had high octaves, but it also had more level singing that would follow.

 

Time wise, it's half and half. It was made in the 70s and released in the 80s.

 

With all these points in mind, I truly believe it was neither just a 70s album nor just an 80s album. It's both. It marks a transition.

 

That is very true. But it came out in the 80's so......

 

Made in the 70s, released in the 80s. That's a 50-50 to me.

[toymaker]

70s. Has to be. When you get to know your record store guy really well, sometimes he'll sell you an album that hasn't officially been released yet ("but don't tell anyone"). I'm sure people had the thing in their hands a few days before New Years. And even if they didn't, the thing was wrapped up - and shrink-wrapped - before Jan. 1. Also, it's far too righteous an album to be associated with the 80s. :outtahere: