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"Least Glorious" to ???? - Round 14


toscanobarga
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What is your LEAST favorite album  

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  1. 1. Vote for your least favorite



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anyway, I voted 2112. it's got tears, which is the worst song on any of these records. the song 2112 is more exciting than all of signals but as an album signals obviously beats it. and signals is still very much a guitar album and the logical next step for the group after moving pictures.

 

old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers?

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What exactly are the problems people have with synths ?

 

The only true organic music is acoustic, anything you hear that is amplified is basically a processed electronic signal, whether it's just te volume, or Alex's effects pedals, etc.

 

Keys are no different in that regard.

 

1. diversity is scary

2. rush fans in the 70s probably got made fun of for being dorks. when rush started making music that "cool kids" could potentially like, I'm sure it was a big big turnoff (but, but, this actually sold COPIES! I can't listen to this), and thats why iron maiden and dio became the new official D&D soundtrack bands when signals came out.

3. the only keyboards acceptable in a rock song are swirling church organs...for some reason.

 

I'm being an ass, but surely you know the real reason why some people like the heavier stuff more than the synth stuff?

 

I prefer good synth over bad heavy

 

And good heavy over bad synth

 

The label/genre isn't meaningful to me, maybe because my music collection/listening habits aren't one dimensional ?

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"rush fans in the 70s probably got made fun of for being dorks. when rush started making music that "cool kids" could potentially like, I'm sure it was a big big turnoff."

 

Of course you are overstating the dorky vs cool split; plenty of cool people liked Rush, it just depended on who you thought was cool. If hipsters defined who was cool then they certainly weren't cool, but hipsters have always been an insular bunch important only to themselves. I saw MP as expanding Rush's supposed base from mostly "freaks" (long hair, baseball t's, herbal hobbies) to include "jocks" (you know the type, Van Halen's "Higher and Higher" is the most inspirational song ever, before AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" came along anyway). But like most Rush fans in actuality, I was neither a freak nor a jock so when Rush became liked by jocks after being mostly the supposed possession of the freaks (I am writing like life was a John Hughes movie) I hardly noticed or cared. My main reaction was being psyched that my favorite band was getting mainstream recognition. When MP went to #3 on the charts I couldn't believe it, it felt awesome. It was like in sports seeing a perennial underdog finally kick some *ss. You cheer for them, especially if they're your team. MP's success was great, like seeing your team win a championship. You also got to rub it in the face of the anti-Rush crowd. Good times.

Edited by Rutlefan
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"old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers? "

 

Did MP have 20 minute songs, or music that sounded like Led Zeppelin? That's a false dichotomy. I didn't expect an album with songs like Chemistry, Digital Man, and The Weapon which all kind of sounded similar to me in style and approach, unlike the diversity of YYZ, Limelight, and The Camera Eye.

Edited by Rutlefan
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Well, this vote is pretty painful. The vote is for.....signals. Signals is a great album, top to bottom. Normally that beats an album that is top heavy. However, the title track of 2112 is so epic that it wins.

 

I actually like the synth era, but CoS - Moving Pictures is cream of the Rush catalog

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What exactly are the problems people have with synths ?

 

The only true organic music is acoustic, anything you hear that is amplified is basically a processed electronic signal, whether it's just te volume, or Alex's effects pedals, etc.

 

Keys are no different in that regard.

 

1. diversity is scary

2. rush fans in the 70s probably got made fun of for being dorks. when rush started making music that "cool kids" could potentially like, I'm sure it was a big big turnoff (but, but, this actually sold COPIES! I can't listen to this), and thats why iron maiden and dio became the new official D&D soundtrack bands when signals came out.

3. the only keyboards acceptable in a rock song are swirling church organs...for some reason.

 

I'm being an ass, but surely you know the real reason why some people like the heavier stuff more than the synth stuff?

 

I prefer good synth over bad heavy

 

And good heavy over bad synth

 

The label/genre isn't meaningful to me, maybe because my music collection/listening habits aren't one dimensional ?

 

you asked, I answered. I can't tell you if your taste is one dimensional or not, but I figure since you said black sabbath had no melody (same group that wrote sabbath bloody sabbath, heaven and hell, etc) you might have pretty bad taste. who knows

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"when rush started making music that "cool kids" could potentially like, I'm sure it was a big big turnoff."

 

I think that dynamic holds for when a little-known but cool band becomes a mainstream success; the hipsters can't live with success. With Rush not ever being "cool" I was so psyched that my favorite band was getting mainstream recognition. When it went to #3 on the charts I couldn't believe it, it felt awesome. It was like in sports seeing a perennial underdog finally kick some *ss. You cheer for them, especially if they're your team. MP's success was great, like seeing your team win a championship. You also got to rub it in the face of the anti-Rush crowd. Good times.

 

that sounds like an exciting and fun thing to go through as a fan, and it's something that doesn't really happen today.

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"old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers? "

 

Did MP have 20 minute songs, or music that sounded like Led Zeppelin? That's a false dichotomy. I didn't expect an album with songs like Chemistry, Digital Man, and The Weapon which all kind of sounded similar to me, unlike the diversity of YYZ, Limelight, and The Camera Eye.

 

I didn't say MP had 20 minute songs or zep music, I was just asking if anyone actually expected to rush to venture back in time instead of, for better or worse, forward. I'm not sure how familiar you are with metallica's music, but it's kind of like when people call load and reload "sellout" albums when, as shitty as those records are, they seem like the logical next step after the black album, because clearly another super heavy super fast thrash record wasn't gonna follow the black album. even though I would've loved for metallica to just remake their 80s stuff over and over

 

and personally, I think all those songs sound different. and awesome.

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^ Looking at the progression from AFTK through MP I remember expecting an album with more and shorter songs. And when Signals arrived that's what I got. Understood why they were evolving in that direction but still didn't like it, just like I didn't like how The Clash had gone from Sandinista to Combat Rock in short order. Not that I expected The Clash to keep making Sandanista over and over, but that doesn't mean I can't think Combat Rock is shite compared to Sandanista. Edited by Rutlefan
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Yeah, it's easily my favorite Clash album but I accept that it's one lp too long. But the two lps worth that deserved to be released... To this day if Charlie Don't Surf gets in my head it will stay all day. And there it goes, d*mn.
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Having "discovered" Rush over a period from 1991-2004, I never had expectations of what the next album should be. All I knew was that I liked all the songs on Chronicles until Subdivisions, and then I didn't want to listen to them any more. I ended up buying all the albums from Rush-MP and added others when I saw them in used record stores. I have grown to appreciate the synth years and love a few of the songs on each album, but it is still their weakest period to my ears. It has nothing to do with what was popular or expected.
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Yeah, it's easily my favorite Clash album but I accept that it's one lp too long. But the two lps worth that deserved to be released... To this day if Charlie Don't Surf gets in my head it will stay all day. And there it goes, d*mn.

 

my clash opinions are pretty unpopular...my favorite of theirs is the first one!

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"old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers? "

 

Did MP have 20 minute songs, or music that sounded like Led Zeppelin? That's a false dichotomy. I didn't expect an album with songs like Chemistry, Digital Man, and The Weapon which all kind of sounded similar to me in style and approach, unlike the diversity of YYZ, Limelight, and The Camera Eye.

 

This is kind of hard to answer since you really needed to be there to really understand what was going on with music at that time. Looking back on it, you have their entire catalog of music and can see the progression (or regression however you want to see it) of their music over time. I came in when AFTK had just been released, so all I had to go on at the time was the first few albums. It was an uphill climb in awesomeness from there and then when Signals came out, it was like they went more mainstream. That album was more radio friendly and bland. Not that the songs weren't good songs, but they were definitely more ordinary. When the synths became more the focus than the guitar, it sounded more like the synth pop of the 80's. They went from hard progressive rock to sound more like the MTV one hit wonders. It was a HUGE change.

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Having "discovered" Rush over a period from 1991-2004, I never had expectations of what the next album should be. All I knew was that I liked all the songs on Chronicles until Subdivisions, and then I didn't want to listen to them any more. I ended up buying all the albums from Rush-MP and added others when I saw them in used record stores. I have grown to appreciate the synth years and love a few of the songs on each album, but it is still their weakest period to my ears. It has nothing to do with what was popular or expected.

 

You should be pretty happy with what's left in these polls, then.

 

It is all pretty much primal Rush.

Edited by Blue J
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Yeah, it's easily my favorite Clash album but I accept that it's one lp too long. But the two lps worth that deserved to be released... To this day if Charlie Don't Surf gets in my head it will stay all day. And there it goes, d*mn.

 

my clash opinions are pretty unpopular...my favorite of theirs is the first one!

 

They're like The Police, you can't go wrong with any of their albums, just depends what style you like.

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"old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers? "

 

Did MP have 20 minute songs, or music that sounded like Led Zeppelin? That's a false dichotomy. I didn't expect an album with songs like Chemistry, Digital Man, and The Weapon which all kind of sounded similar to me in style and approach, unlike the diversity of YYZ, Limelight, and The Camera Eye.

 

This is kind of hard to answer since you really needed to be there to really understand what was going on with music at that time. Looking back on it, you have their entire catalog of music and can see the progression (or regression however you want to see it) of their music over time. I came in when AFTK had just been released, so all I had to go on at the time was the first few albums. It was an uphill climb in awesomeness from there and then when Signals came out, it was like they went more mainstream. That album was more radio friendly and bland. Not that the songs weren't good songs, but they were definitely more ordinary. When the synths became more the focus than the guitar, it sounded more like the synth pop of the 80's. They went from hard progressive rock to sound more like the MTV one hit wonders. It was a HUGE change.

I know what you are talking about. Rush wasn't the only band that did that in the eighties.

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Having "discovered" Rush over a period from 1991-2004, I never had expectations of what the next album should be. All I knew was that I liked all the songs on Chronicles until Subdivisions, and then I didn't want to listen to them any more. I ended up buying all the albums from Rush-MP and added others when I saw them in used record stores. I have grown to appreciate the synth years and love a few of the songs on each album, but it is still their weakest period to my ears. It has nothing to do with what was popular or expected.

 

You should be pretty happy with what's left in these polls, then.

 

It is all pretty much primal Rush.

 

Well, I would rather see FBN and CoS in there and Signals gone, and I was a bit disappointed that the synth albums outlasted everything post 87...especially CA. I've come to accept that my views of RTB, TFE and VT are not shared by Rush fanatics.

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"old rush fans, did any of you expect more 20 minute songs after moving pictures? or a return to music that sounded like led zeppelin? I understand signals was probably a shock to hear at the time, but as someone who didn't hear it til 2010 does it really seem like synthesizer overload compared to moving pictures, which also had synthesizers? "

 

Did MP have 20 minute songs, or music that sounded like Led Zeppelin? That's a false dichotomy. I didn't expect an album with songs like Chemistry, Digital Man, and The Weapon which all kind of sounded similar to me in style and approach, unlike the diversity of YYZ, Limelight, and The Camera Eye.

 

This is kind of hard to answer since you really needed to be there to really understand what was going on with music at that time. Looking back on it, you have their entire catalog of music and can see the progression (or regression however you want to see it) of their music over time. I came in when AFTK had just been released, so all I had to go on at the time was the first few albums. It was an uphill climb in awesomeness from there and then when Signals came out, it was like they went more mainstream. That album was more radio friendly and bland. Not that the songs weren't good songs, but they were definitely more ordinary. When the synths became more the focus than the guitar, it sounded more like the synth pop of the 80's. They went from hard progressive rock to sound more like the MTV one hit wonders. It was a HUGE change.

 

Absolutely correct. I would go as far as to say that the change began with Permanent Waves. We've talked (and talked and talked) about how that album was a demarcation between what we call the "prog" era of Rush and the more mainstream direction they went after that.

 

They've said that after Hemispheres, they felt that they had taken the side-long epics about as far as they could. They were ready for some fresh ideas, and a change of direction. And from the opening salvo of The Spirit of Radio, you can hear that they were definitely going in a different direction. It sounded different from anything else they'd ever done. So it was more accessible, more radio-friendly. It does not mean at all that they were done with challenging themselves- Natural Science, YYZ, and The Camera Eye- and Freewill, too, whose solo section features some of the most brilliant interplay among the three of them- were all evidence that they were not resting on their laurels at all. But with the more accessible sound on the more mainstream tracks, they sold more records. And what musician doesn't want people to buy the fruits of their creations? There's nothing wrong with that.

 

When Rush made it big- with Permanent Waves, and especially Moving Pictures- they didn't just make it big; they made it HUGE.

 

There were lots of things about '80s society compared to the '70s that were similarly different- they were less indulgent and embodied a much more spartan economy. This is as true in music and art as it was in the consumer culture. As for Rush, at the same time that their compositional style was in rapid flux, a reflection of the times- Geddy also experimented more and more with the keyboard sounds. Changes and more changes- ever evolving...

 

I'm just taking the (very) long route in agreeing with what EagleMoon said. It was indeed a HUGE change.

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What exactly are the problems people have with synths ?

 

The only true organic music is acoustic, anything you hear that is amplified is basically a processed electronic signal, whether it's just te volume, or Alex's effects pedals, etc.

 

Keys are no different in that regard.

 

Even the stuff that is processed and amplified still has its origin in someone playing an instrument - wacking a drum or pressing the flesh of fingertips against strings and bringing various degrees of "attack" - the subtlety or intensity with which you strike strings. Your body is involved; your emotions are involved. I don't leave keyboards out of this as long as we're talking about chords and melodies played by a real person. You have to keep in time, you have to think about phrasing and all that stuff. It seems to me that there are two issues with synthesizers:

 

1. the sound of them. Some people seem to have no problem with the organ, the mellotron (in songs like Tears), the Moog (used on albums like Farewell to Kings), and a few other things because they are very unique sounds, and sort of representative of an era. Of course, the same is true of the 80s synth sounds, which probably get a bad rap because a lot of dance-pop bands were also using those same sounds; also, rather than being as unique as, say, the Moog synthesizer, it seemed like they were just really bad attempts to "sound" like horns or other instruments (the mellotron is sort of a bad attempt to sound like strings, I think, but it so misses the mark that it ends up sounding quite unique). To me, where the 70s synths (as well as the synthesizers used on Moving Pictures and Signals) have uniqueness and character, the 80s synths make me think of crap-pop bands. The same is true of the electronic drums. Neil is striking them with sticks, but because they are electronic, there's no sense of intensity or subtlety. If you hit it sort of softly, it goes "doof"; if you hit it hard, it goes "doof." And it's hard not to hear those sounds on a Rush album without thinking of Saga's "Wind Him Up" or Platinum Blonde's "Doesn't Really Matter."

 

2. Whether they are actually played, function as a sequenced/background sound, or are triggered somehow. I personally am most annoyed by those triggered sounds. Take Big Money for example. All the junk that starts to happen in the background at about 23 seconds into the song - those pre-programmed little bits of "color" or "interest," probably almost impossible to actually play, that completely take over, like a bunch of steroid-using knuckleheads laughing too loudly in a bar. If Lee actually plays keyboards, with his hands or with his feet (nothing cooler than watching him play bass and play melodies with his feet on those pedals), that's awesome. Then there are songs like The Weapon, Vital Signs, and a few other tunes. Those songs have the sequenced synthy thing happening in the background, sort of like a background wash in a painting. The band is playing in time with the pattern, and usually playing really inventive, cool stuff.

 

What I most admire about the band is their songwriting, technical proficiency, and just overall human decency. The synths I don't care for - generally speaking, the pre-programmed and triggered stuff - don't enhance the songs, don't demonstrate musicianship, and are so robotic that they distract from the human feeling. With apologies to all folks who make a living programming synthesizers and trigger pads.

Edited by toymaker
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I have to turn the sound down at the beginning of grand designs

 

I find Territories and Big Money to be cringeworthy in the "let's just throw some random sounds in here" department.

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