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Rush- Metal or not?


Eel Yddeg
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86 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Rush Metal?

    • Yes
      11
    • Some Songs, but not as a whole
      44
    • No
      31


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Bytor and the Snowdog, 2112, T4E....:yes:

 

The garden, most of Hold Your Fire, Nobody's Hero...:no:

 

Some of Rush's music can certainly be considered metal. Grand Finale on 2112 is so metal, it will warp your brain! :haz:

 

But their catalog is so diverse, there is a lot of their material that doesn't even come close to be metal.

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Bytor and the Snowdog, 2112, T4E....:yes:

 

The garden, most of Hold Your Fire, Nobody's Hero...:no:

 

Some of Rush's music can certainly be considered metal. Grand Finale on 2112 is so metal, it will warp your brain! :haz:

 

But their catalog is so diverse, there is a lot of their material that doesn't even come close to be metal.

 

Test For Echo, really?

 

:huh:

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Bytor and the Snowdog, 2112, T4E.... :yes:

 

The garden, most of Hold Your Fire, Nobody's Hero... :no:

 

Some of Rush's music can certainly be considered metal. Grand Finale on 2112 is so metal, it will warp your brain! :haz:

 

But their catalog is so diverse, there is a lot of their material that doesn't even come close to be metal.

 

Test For Echo, really?

 

:huh:

You don't find T4E to have a harder sound? Same with Time and Motion.
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I think both T4E and Driven qualify. How many times have both songs been mentioned as returning to "metal roots"??? Both musically are as heavy as most Dokken songs.

 

The album has also been described as RUSH tapping into grunge.

Edited by JohnRogers
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Sorry. I don't remember you. :)

 

Well I remember YOU......stupidity like that is unforgettable :)

 

Banter with a Scot is largely...forgettable. :)

 

I should think you would forget whoever you bantered with.......

 

There's only room in your head for pig-headed opinions (which you see as fact) :)

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I ran into this guy at the mall and we got to talking, he says :rush: is heavy metal and the sweet one. Dude has a great voice so who am I to question?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0vZtfQLMW1c

 

"One last screw sweetie and we're done"

 

please don't tell me he just said that to his kid

With his tiny tool.

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BUMP!

 

Though it doesn't change my view, here's some excerpts from "Rush- The Illustrated History"

"The band soon had a U.S record deal and a hot-clocking metal album"

"Fly By Night represented a massive step forward, combining the grandeur, pretense, and science fiction/fantasy lyrics of prog rock with the quaking guitars, hair-whitening vocals, dense drumming, and roaring bass of heavy metal, giving birth to a new genre: progressive metal. "

"Rush would score a hit with the metal ballad "Fly By Night". Elsewhere the band exhibits flashy metal chops on songs like "Anthem", "Best I Can", and "Beneath, Between, and Behind".

"Caress of Steel would feature tracks like the speed metal history lesson "Bastille Day" and the ten minute epic "The Necromancer" has drifting psychedelica, slicing slabs of metal..."

"The critics saw everything they hated in 2112, such as heavy metal, prog rock, concept pieces, and an annoying vocalist"

"2112 and A Passage To Bangkok are among Rush's heaviest, but they showcase an unprecedented amount of catchiness while at the same time keeping metalheads happy"

"The fourth side of All The World's A Stage is the debut's three heavy metal songs"

"Tracks on A Farewell to Kings, such as the title track, "Xanadu", "Cinderella Man" and "Cygnus X-1" promised a Mensa metal future, with Alex stacking riff after riff on top of complex time signatures"

"Geddy Lee's Minimoog was the missing element that kept Rush on the heavy metal side of the divide."

"Jacob's Ladder makes amazing use of heavy metal's feel without being as heavy as songs like "By-Tor And The Snow Dog" or "2112", "The Spirit of Radio was Rush's first heavy single".

"1982 would see Rush eschewing the NWOBHM in favor of keyboards"

"Grace Under Pressure would be Rush's last heavy record until Counterparts"

Edited by Eel Yddeg
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Were Led Zeppelin heavy metal?Whole Lotta Love and Immigrant Song,YES.Thas the Way ,Going to California,All of My Love,NO.Black Sabbath.War Pigs,Children of the Grave,YES.Planet Caravan,Solitude,NO.Nothing annoys me more when people,especially in the media,label these bands HM and their fans as lower class bogans.I have been wearing my Rush t-shirt and some Elvis Costello look a like would sneer and accuse me of being a metal head.Yes i do like playing Slayer's Reign in Blood at full blast but also Vivaldi's Four Seasons or Johnny Cash.Rush lost their metal edge around Signals era both musically and visually and that was fine by me but apparently not for some.Rush had the unique position of having one foot in heavy music and the other in the 'new' music and much of it hasn't dated at all.I like artists who diversify but keep their identity and don't sell out.

Anthem,Something for Nothing,HM,YES

Rivendell,Madrigal,HM,NO.

As an afterthought does subject matter(lyrics)relate to HM without all the bombastic guitars,as in the case of Rivendell,Madrigal.Just because they are not a cleverly crafted Leonard Cohen love gone wrong song but instead are about slaying dragons they must be.

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I'd say Sabbath were a metal band early on, they lightened up around SBS or so.

 

The other two aren't metal though. Though they WERE considered metal back in the day, because they were heavier than other bands of the day. But now, they're hard rock, due to bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and Metallica definining the term more. Times change, definitions change.

 

For Zeppelin, "Whole Lotta Love" is heavy blues rock. "Dazed and Confused" is much closer to metal, IMO.

 

And for Rush, "Anthem" and "Something For Nothing" aren't that heavy. More on the metal side are stuff like "Working Man", "By-Tor And The Snow Dog", parts of "2112" and "Cygnus X-1", "One Little Victory", "BU2B" and maybe "Caravan".

 

"Rivendell" and "Madrigal" are NOT metal in the slightest. Lyrical subject matter doesn't play much of a role.

 

Rush never really had a heavy edge, they were always hard rock, and all traces of metal really disappeared around AFTK/Hemispheres.

 

Also, defining the terms, because it would help clear things up a bit more:

 

Hard rock music has a lighter sound than metal, often blusier, with more "happy", upbeat melodies. Alongside Rush, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, KISS, Deep Purple, Van Halen, and more are hard rock.

 

Metal, on the other hand, has a heavier, darker, sound, with no blues elements and more menacing melodies. Classic metal bands include Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Dio, and Rainbow.

 

Rush fall under hard rock. There's a big difference between, say "A Farewell to Kings" and "A Passage To Bangkok" and "Electric Funeral", "Aces High", "Stargazer", and "Exciter".

Edited by Eel Yddeg
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Black Sabbath.War Pigs,Children of the Grave,YES.Planet Caravan,Solitude,NO.

So you're saying, just because a band wrote some ballads, that means they can't be a metal band? That makes sense. Metallica wrote some quite soft ballads (Nothing Else Matters, Unforgiven 2, Mama Said), guess they aren't metal after all... Seriously, Black Sabbath is the definition of metal. They wrote the book. It was still in its rough, embryotic form, but very clearly metal in retrospect, if you're familiar with the genre. You can hear Sabbath's riffs in so many bands that came afterwards, it's not even funny. They even spawned a whole subgenre called doom metal, which consists of many bands that pretty much just copied their (early) sound.

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I agree with most of what you say Eel,but i was about nine when i heard Whole Lotta Love on the radio and i distinctly remember the anouncer saying'Those are the heavy sounds of....!After that anything that had long hair and stack of Marshalls was called Heavy Metal.Hell i even recall Wishbone Ash being called HM with a review of their Argus album.Which brings me to the point of lyrics.Argus was a based on medieval times.HM is all about dark ,rebellious,mystery,fantasy or generally having a good but dirty time.And sometimes the music doesn't fit the HM genre.Rivendell,Warrior(Wishbone Ash),Can't Stop Loving You(Van Halen,yes i have heard that one called HM).
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That was back in the 1970s, though. And back then, since there wasn't much heavy metal music, they used the term to define bands like AC/DC, KISS, Van Halen, Rush, Zep, Purple, and Queen, who are now considered hard rock due to later bands. Edited by Eel Yddeg
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I love heavy music been into it since the early seventies.Heavy Metal back then WAS Zep,Purple,Budgie,Uriah Heep,Rush and of course Sabbath.I remember being given when i was about twelve Master of Reality and Volume 4 and suddenly my love of the Shadows dimmed(btw Iommi cut his teeth on old Hank).What i am trying to say is that these bands could also play ballads,blues,jazz(have a listen to Purple's Lazy or Sabs Wicked World) but still be lumbered with HM tag.To me heavy metal/rock has produce some of the most technically gifted and diverse musicians of any genre and not accepted or given credit by the media or general public.Now they are falling over themselves to give them awards as per Rush hof.Enough of my rant.Are Rush HM.Early on yes but there is still plenty of heavy stuff in them to the present day.
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I don't recall the term Prog being used in the 70s,not over here in OZ anyway.It was called widdly up your arse music and my music collection was universally hated by my friends,girlfriends,parents,neighbours and my goldfish(they died).
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