🎧 Rush, "Red Stars (Playlist)". I'm a big music nerd and RUSH was my introduction into the world of prog. All the guys I hung out with in HS were into them and I just didn't get it. Then one of the older guys played Moving Pictures for me and it just clicked. I'm rocking a playlist of mostly "latter day" tracks from the post 80's era. I miss the "boys" very much.
@MPCavalier oh man, my love for Rush knows no bounds.
It seems only recently that the 4-album stretch between Signals and Hold Your Fire finally got some respect from die-hard fans. I understand them having issues with the various interesting directions the band took : Rush made a lot of different flavours of rock over their career. Still, all I can say to them is: "Jack, relax."
@mPony
It's funny - when me and my friends decided we were "good enough" to actually try playing Rush songs - those were the albums we looked to. We did passable versions of "Countdown", "Hold Your Fire", "Mission", probably half of the Grace Under Pressure album, "Marathon" and others. We LOVED that stretch of albums. It's all good, Roll The Bones notwithstanding 😉
@MPCavalier my very first on-purpose exposure to Rush was the opening chord of The Big Money. I wish someone had taken a photo of my face at that moment. Learning that my new favourite band had a massive and widely varied back catalog was gobsmacking. when Hold Your Fire was released I was in love with it. When Presto was released I was less in love but still found more than half the album was pretty great. that was about 1/3 for Roll The Bones ;)
@mPony
So, when you went back thru the catalog, and listened to albums like 2112, Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures for the first time, what were your impressions?
@MPCavalier I'm really trusting my memory here. I wasn't immediately in love with everything I heard. I think my favourite of all the albums upon first listen was Permanent Waves. I just loved everything about it. I mostly loved Moving Pictures (natch) and Hemispheres. I also really liked Fly By Night because it was really energetic (and wasn't keen on Rivendell right away). I just couldn't get over how much the band changed over time. Little did I know they weren't nearly done changing.
@mPony
Man...I remember vividly buying Hold Your Fire (on vinyl) the morning of its release along with Floyd's "Momentary Lapse" which came out the same day. It was at Tower in Greenwich Village - I went all the way there from Brooklyn because they were the only record store that opened early in the morning (9am). One of my core music memories! Ged's bass lines on "Turn The Page", damn. I loved that they kept moving forward.
@MPCavalier man, HYF is such a great album. Time Stand Still is one of the most perfect pop songs of the 1980's (nobody else agrees but I'm right about this). I remember an interview where Geddy admitted he didn't really think about how he would play that bassline and sing the melody at the same time - it's gotta be hard on the head to do that.