Rush

Top 5 Rush Albums/Next Band

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MrK said:
There we have it, my random Rush speed run is complete!

Final rankings (stealing @Jer's idea here since I think it's nice):

01. Moving Pictures - 9.2 >
02. Permanent Waves - 9.0 >
Excellent​
03. Grace Under Pressure - 8.7 >
04. Clockwork Angels - 8.5 >
05. Hemispheres - 8.5 >
06. Signals - 8.1 >
07. Counterparts - 8.0 >
Great​
08. A Farewell to Kings - 7.8 >
09. Power Windows - 7.8 >
10. Hold Your Fire - 6.9 >
11. Snakes & Arrows - 6.8 >
12. 2112 - 6.6 >
Good​
13. Roll the Bones - 6.4 >
14. Fly By Night - 6.2 >
15. Presto - 6.1 >
16. Vapor Trails - 6.0 >
17. Test for Echo - 6.0 >
OK​
18. Rush - 5.7 >
19. Caress of Steel - 4.8 >
Not Good​
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Aw, shucks. One thing I did differently was treat the qualitative rating as rounded to the nearest integer value, so for example everything from 8.5 to 9.4999 would be Excellent, 7.5 to 8.4999 would be Great, and so on.

Funny thing is, the overall shape of your album rankings isn’t all that different in the end (minus a few egregious outliers!); it’s often your individual song ratings that are head-scratchers for me.
 
Jer said:
Aw, shucks. One thing I did differently was treat the qualitative rating as rounded to the nearest integer value, so for example everything from 8.5 to 9.4999 would be Excellent, 7.5 to 8.4999 would be Great, and so on.
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That's much more scientific. I just based those qualitative ratings on vibes. :D
 
The CD+Blu-Ray Grace Under Pressure box set is now roughly $250 with free shipping on Walmart.com. Still too rich for my blood ($50 per disc!), but maybe not for someone else.
 
Over the past month or so I’ve listened to Rush’s ‘90s and 2000s efforts extensively and I like most of them quite a bit. I’ll do individual write-ups like @MrK and @Diesel 11 have done at some point, but a few quick observations:

- Surprisingly, I find Roll the Bones to be more consistent than Counterparts. There isn’t one song on Roll that I dislike; even tracks that many seem to loathe (e.g. Heresy, Neurotica) struck a chord with me. That rap section in the title track, though… ooof.
- Counterparts, on the other hand, is far less consistent. The great tracks (Animate, Leave That Thing Alone, and Cold Fire) are stronger than any one song on Bones, but a good third of the album just doesn’t click with me. The not-awful-but-overly-weird Double Agent and the dreadfully terrible Nobody’s Hero stick out like sore thumbs.
- Vapor Trails is bloated and at least three or four tracks should have been cut, but I enjoyed the rest more than I thought I would. I think the album would’ve been stronger if it had some tasteful keyboards, though.
- Snakes & Arrows is another terribly inconsistent record. It has some excellent tracks and some that I have no desire to ever hear again.
- Clockwork Angels is one hell of a ride, and a brilliant album for the band to have ended their career on.
- Test for Echo is not a very good record. I gave it many chances and outside of about three to four songs and a cool intro riff to an average song about making love to modems or some shit, it has few redeeming qualities. Just thinking about this album makes me angry. Also: Dog Years. WTF Neil?
 
Detective Beauregard said:
That rap section in the title track, though… ooof.
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I don’t really know why the rap gets criticized so much. To me it’s a fun experiment by a band that was always taking inspiration from the sounds of the evolving times. Like are we gonna go after all of the reggae stuff they did in the early ‘80s too?
 
Diesel 11 said:
I don’t really know why the rap gets criticized so much. To me it’s a fun experiment by a band that was always taking inspiration from the sounds of the evolving times. Like are we gonna go after all of the reggae stuff they did in the early ‘80s too?
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To me it’s not so much that it is rap, but rather that it’s just so cheesy. It seems too try-hard and out-of-place in my book.

The best part of that section to me is the cool eerie guitar stuff in the distant background.
 
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Detective Beauregard said:
To me it’s not so much that it is rap, but rather that it’s just so cheesy. It seems too try-hard and out-of-place in my book.
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See, that’s fair. Like I said, to me it’s a fun like novelty that they never repeated, but to each their own. I feel like a lot of the time people just dismiss it out of hand because it’s rap, not for any other reason.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
the dreadfully terrible Nobody’s Hero stick out like sore thumbs.
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Nobody's Hero is a 10/10. Brilliant song. My guess is you're just uncomfortable listening to a song about a gay man.

Detective Beauregard said:
To me it’s not so much that it is rap, but rather that it’s just so cheesy. It seems too try-hard and out-of-place in my book.
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Diesel 11 said:
See, that’s fair. Like I said, to me it’s a fun like novelty that they never repeated, but to each their own. I feel like a lot of the time people just dismiss it out of hand because it’s rap, not for any other reason.
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MindRuler said:
I guess it was a time thingy. Michael Jacksons Black Or White from the same year as Roll The Bones has it too.
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This is Rush, guys. All of these things can be true. The rap can be perfectly of its time and cheesy and dated and try-hard and out-of-place and a novelty and terrible and awesome!
 
MrK said:
Nobody's Hero is a 10/10. Brilliant song. My guess is you're just uncomfortable listening to a song about a gay man.
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Nah brah, I could care less about that; I have gay friends, too. But I also don’t feel the need to defend my masculinity with such cringe lyrics as Neil did. He didn’t even have to say that his friend was gay, but rather that they drifted apart and he was sad when he found out he died. But he had to take the social justice warrior route.

The second verse (about a girl from Neil’s hometown who was murdered) is stronger, but it’s really the song’s chorus that elevates the track to even higher levels of shithood. “Not the champion player, who plays the perfect game.” I like the lyrical concept, but these are just bad lyrics.

It’s a shame, too, since the band thought the song was good enough to throw strings into it and make it a big production. Although with that first verse, maybe it should’ve been a musical. :p
 
Detective Beauregard said:
Nah brah, I could care less about that; I have gay friends, too. But I also don’t feel the need to defend my masculinity with such cringe lyrics as Neil did. He didn’t even have to say that his friend was gay, but rather that they drifted apart and he was sad when he found out he died. But he had to take the social justice warrior route.
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This was the early ‘90s when AIDS was just starting to be taken seriously and gay rights still had a long way to go. Neil directly calling his friend a normal person and his death a tragedy is actually pretty fucking ballsy.

It’s not quite a 10/10 for me, but it is a strong 9.
 
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