POWER WINDOWS

If there really was a definition of the "very typical sound from the eighties" I could say that there are some "very typical albums from that age". I could define that typical sound with the next "ingredients": the use of heavy reverberation; the heavy use of digital keyboards; the heavy use of electronic drums; the very "digital bright and clear" production of the sound; a tendency for the music to sound somewhat "plastic"; the tendency of the music from some Prog Rock bands to sound influenced by Pop Rock Music...

This is one of those very typical eighties albums which also has all the "ingredients" that I mentioned above. Other albums that have the "eighties formula" from more or less the same period are: ELO`s "Balance of Power"; ASIA`s "Astra"; GTR`s album; YES`s "Big Generator"; GENESIS`s "Invisible Touch"; A-HA`s "Hunting High and Low"; PETER CETERA`S "Solitude / Solitaire"... The list is very big, in fact. It was like there was not really a diving line between musical genres. Many producers used the same "production formula" during those years, even in the Pop and Rock music from the Spanish language countries (I can mention one Pop album in that language which sounds very similar in the use of that "production formula": the debut album from a female singing trio called FLANS, very far from my musical tastes, but I recognize that the album, which was recorded in Europe, has an excellent very typical eighties production).

Another thing in those years was that many bands and soloists still recorded an album each year. So, they worked harder than many bands and soloists do in the present days to record an album per year and also dedicated a lot of time to touring. So, sometimes it was inevitable that they repeated some musical ideas which they used in previous songs in new songs for new albums. This happens in this album from RUSH. I can listen to some ideas being repeated like a tired formula from previous albums like "Grace Under Pressure" and "Signals", like the heavy isolated guitar chords and some keyboard sounds and arrangements and the use of some electronic drum parts. But the main difference between those albums and this "Power Windows" album is the even more heavy use of keyboards and reverberation, even in a saturated way, and the songs tend to sound more influenced by Pop Rock music than by Prog Rock music. So, the heavy reverberation, in my opinion, is the main feature of this album. Also, the album as a whole sounds very processed by many technological means, sounding musically "cold" like many albums from that period. In my opinion, RUSH sounds a bit tired in this album, trying to join the eighties fashion in musical style and sound. There is only one song that I really liked from this album, and it is called "Emotion Detector". So... sorry, but this is not an album which I would like to listen to again.