wow, I cant believe all the bad reviews. I post all the time on 2 Rush forums and most of those are diehard Rush fans and most of them love this album. I personally didnt really appreciate this album until the 80's came and I realized that there were so few albums that Rush made in the 70's. The advent of the remastered version made me REALLY appreciate it and I dont understand all the complaining about production. Musically this album sounds like it was made 3 weeks after Fly By Night, to me not much difference sound and productions-wise.

I love the extended tracks The Necromancer and Fountain Of Lamneth. To me, this is where Rush excels. My favorite Rush tracks are all of the classic long prog-rock songs. As the years go by, I try not to compare the classic 70's Rush catalog album to album, I just take it for that whey were and enjoy them very much. I dont sit there while listening to them and think "this aint as good as that" or this was kinda weak and that was not as good as 2112 or whatever. There is nothing on this album I dont like, although "Panacea" kinda lulls me to sleep, but thankfully it is short and fits the suite well actually.

I dont consider myself the biggest Rush fan in the world probably because I dont go ga-ga over anything theyve done in the last 20+ years but as far as the '75 to '81 era, I dont think anyone loves that era of Rush as much as I do.

I love every era of Rush.

Like MB, I love just about every phase of Rush's career.

I find it interesting step cuz how much love this album, and I have to respect that. Like I said I actually like the album and I am listening to it as I type this up.

I feel it is a very transitional album and an album that sounds almost incomplete. Like they were rushed (no pun intended) to complete it and did not make the deadline and had to release it anyway.

Still despite my criticisms of the album, IMO it was a necessary album for them to make, this album was a building a block that allowed to move forward to their next album.

As I said, I will be disappearing from this thread after Moving Pictures.

IMO, discovering the synthesizer was the worst thing that could have happened to Rush. Once they started fooling around with the synth, they really indulged their prog tendencies and completely lost me.

However, Rush will always hold a warm spot in my musical heart because of their early material when I was a teenager. I just think it's a shame they morphed into what IMO is a less tuneful version of Yes.

Great coversations here! Just so you guys know, I definitely like Caress Of Steel, I just feel it's not quite up to par with the albums that surround it...partially because it sounds like it didn't cook long enough before being served.

In regards to "heaviest" Rush, I suppose from a musical perspective you could say the debut....but later material like Cygnus X-1 for example is WAY heavier both in the music and the lyrical content.

I'll give my opinions on later Rush down the road, but let me say that I love everything from 73-84...and quite alot of the albums since.

I got interested in other things more or less about the time "Signals" came around... LOts of great perspectives gettin' tossed around, really kewl

It's jumping the gun but Vapor Trails is an excellent album Toho. Have you listened to it?

C'mon with the next one already.

I want to be the first to wax poetic about one of the albums in my alltime favorites list. "Tears" notwithstanding.

Yeah, "2112" is a winner - that's for sure!

Detuned quiped:

"Patience Godzilla-boy"



?
wouldn't that be AKA "Godzookie"

ATTENTION ALL PLANETS OF THE SOLAR FEDERATION...WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL

2112 - (released April 1976)

Okay, 2112. Hard to come up with new things to say about this album. Pretty much everything about it is iconic. The album cover, the starman logo on the back, the music, etc. Suffice it to say that Rush finally achieved that statement album they had been seeking.

Before diving headfirst into the tracks, a brief thought on the creative leap Rush took between C.O.S. and 2112. Even though they had started to experiment with longer song structures, they were still at heart a improv/jam band. There was still a bit of looseness in the groove...2112 was the polar opposite (at least the title track). They shifted their focus towards polished precision, meticulously written out solos, etc. They definitely still jammed, but in well rehearsed fashion.

The title track is a sprawling 20 minute epic separated into movements, but unlike side two of C.O.S., this time it works as a unified whole. I still remember being absolutely BLOWN AWAY by Overture/Temples Of Syrinx when i first heard it...immediate fan...for life. I'm not going to jump into Ayn Rand inspired lyrical content, I'll leave that to someone else. But I will say that musically it's pretty much perfect, or as close as you can get to that. The mood shifts throughout the sections are very mature and miles ahead of their previous albums. By the time you get to the grand finale...WE HAVE ASSUMED CONTROL....you feel live you've just lived through an event.

onto side two

These days, this is the side I listen to most often, there are some prime Rush tracks that don't get discussed much on this puppy.

Passage To Bangkok is a rocking & humorous ode to traveling and toking. This was a crowd favorite throughout the rest of the 70's. I love this track! Listen closely for someone taking a "hit" right before the guitar solo....

The Twilight Zone is an interesting track, a very unique concoction for Rush and one that I wish they had played live. The mixture of acoustic and electric guitars on here is very nice. *note* - it sounds to me like they would later revisist the intro melody on the song Chemistry from Signals.

Next up is one of the most underrated songs in the Rush discography, Lessons. This is an Alex Lifeson penned track and MAN what a great song. This song is ridiculously hook-filled, it should have been released as a single. Just a fantastic straight-ahead rocker.

Tears is Geddy Lee's solo contribution to that album. This track is usually considered the nadir of the album...it's never bothered me, one of my ex-girlfriends loved it...got her "in the mood"...so I let her play it as often as she wanted.

Something For Nothing is a COMPLETEL CLASSIC. Flat out one of the most rockin' tunes they ever recorded. This could be the last true JAM track they would record during this era.

The record company had told them "no more epics" prior to the recording, they responded with the proverbial artistic middle finger and stuck to their guns. The public immediately responded to that honesty by giving Rush that hit they had been looking for. 2112 would get to 61 on the Billboard album charts and was the first Rush album to go Gold. By 1981 it had gone platinum.


Everyone should own a copy of this friggin' album, if you don't, be ashamed!

What an album !! it's simply one of my all-time favorites. You've got everything you could want from Rush here. An awesome 20 min. multi-part epic and a second half full of memorable rockin' hook filled songs. I don't listen to the title suite as often anymore since I guess I've been burned out a bit on it but it's still great every-time I re-visit it. It was certainly a concert going highlight to see them perform the suite in it's entirety on a few occasions. There's not a track that I don't like on this album, for me it's just about perfect.

detuned wrote:

I'm not going to jump into Ayn Rand inspired lyrical content, I'll leave that to someone else.

Peart certainly wasn't the first famous musician, politician, college professor, or well known comic book artist/creator for that matter to be enamored with Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism. I think it's a pretty shallow philosophy personally but like I've heard many times, Ayn Rand is just L. Ron Hubbard for slightly more respectable people.

Man, I'm behind.

Rush - Good early heavy metal album. An enjoyable listen, for sure.
Fly By Night - Songs are a bit more complex, but the melody is still there.
Caress of Steel - The transformation continues. Great stripped-down heavy metal songs and some awesome epics.
2112 - The transformation is complete. The first real prog metal band (or was that Uriah Heep). The title track is one of the greatest prog songs ever.

'2112' was my favorite Rush album for years and used to get regular spins on my turn table. One of the few concept (suites?) pieces where the story was easy to follow. I would also consider Rush the first progressive metal band, Uriah Heep had elements of prog rock but they never explored as fully as Rush did.

Every song on this album is a winner, well almost, the only reason I see the song 'Tears' to be included on the album was so detuned could get lucky.

As far as the lyrics, great lyrics and I had no idea who inspired them. When I was younger I had no idea who Ayn Rand even was. When I finally read her books, I felt they were pretentious steaming piles of sh!t, why Neil Peart so admired her writings is a big mystery to me. His lyrics are better then any book she ever wrote.

What can be said that hasn't been said? 2112 is an AWESOME album, Rush at their best.

"2112", the song, is one of the best tunes ever written. The opening instrumental and the early speed metal of "Temple of Syrinx" are both about as heavy, well-constructed, and progressive as rock could be. The part where the guy finds the guitar (I can't recall the real title) is beautiful, and really gives the impression that he's learning how to play it. It goes from him just plucking the open strings to playing some damn complex chord progressions that I still have no idea how to do. I also think this section shows what a great vocalist Geddy Lee could be when he wants to. When he isn't screaming at the top of his lungs, his high wail can be very gentle to listen to. Then of course is the meeting with the priest, and the return of the scream. It really does sound like two people arguing, with the heavy metal shriek of the priest rejecting the discovery and the gentle sounds from before defending it. The wah-drenched guitar solo, the dreamlike section of the dude finding out what really happened to the 'elder race' (which, coincidentally, is a dream sequence! Who woulda thunk it?) is very cool, and yet thoroughly depressing all at the same time, especially since the guy freakin' kills himself right after. But the best part is the end instrumental, with those iconic last words, and (presumably) the elder race returning to kick some ass!! And although I for the most part find Peart's lyrics to be pretty stupid, I really like them here. They tell a very vivid story that's open to a lot of interpretation and doesn't really have a coherent ending, which I like.

Oh yeah, and the rest is good too.