Rush vs. Rush

That is to say, which album made the band more vital and viable to their pantheon of fans and the multitude that followed.

Although it's far from being my fave of theirs, Id still say Moving Pictures, which also is the one I voted for. I do prefer A Farewell to Kings though - mostly because of Cygnus and Xanadu. The rest I can do without:-P

As the question is posed, clearly Moving Pics is the answer.  This isn't "which one do you like better?" 

Moving Pictures

Do people read the questions?

Horizons wrote: Do people read the questions? Obviously it is Moving Pictures.

Yeah, I am struggling to see how ATFK is winning this poll.

Finnforest wrote: HolyMoly wrote: From my perspective, it was Moving Pictures without a doubt.  I was on the brink of entering my teens and it was the first Rush album I was aware of.  So culturally and strategically, as you put it, it had an enormous effect on me and others in my age bracket.   A Farewell to Kings was just an "older" Rush album that I found out about later. This was my experience in school at the time.  Prior to MPics, Rush was only on the radar of a very small number of kids.  When Moving Pics dropped Rush quickly moved into the top tier on rock radio, and seemed suddenly to have as many fans as Zep or the The Who did.  I do recall some of the hard core Rush fans at the time really resenting Pics for that reason.  They liked their band being underground and long-winded.  They hated Tom Sawyer with fury.

I guess I needed to say at the beginning that I had little to no idea who Rush was when I first heard them. A few years earlier in high school, there was some nutty rumor going around that they were the house band at some bar down on Sports Arena Boulevard in San Diego, my hometown. Later in '77, a few Rush fanatics moved in down the street and played for me parts of Fly By Night. Lee's high register vocals struck me as odd, and I could take them or leave them. A Farewell To Kings promptly changed that opinion. Short songs - long songs - it all was magically good and dramatically showed how well these guys played and how firmly they had their fingers on the pulse of prog. Moving Pictures a few short years later only served to reaffirm my thoughts on the band, but it wasn't as pure as 'Kings. It probably did bring them a whole new legion of fans though.

Edited by Rednight - December 19 2014 at 13:22

Clearly Moving Pictures from my standpoint.  Tom Sawyer was all over the airwaves and brought the kind of exposure to Rush that AFTK never did.

I read a piece on Rush once that noted that every fourth Rush album seems to be a "culmination" of sorts, capping off an era of the band with a strong consolidation of their strengths to that point.  2112 was the first of these, tipping off their signature proggy phase, and then Moving Pictures was the next "culmination", pointing the way towards their synthesizer successes in the early 80s.  Hold Your Fire would be the next one - an album that inspires a divided opinion, but it's a favorite of mine, and I think of it as the their quintessential "synth" album, for better or worse.  The next such four-album landmark would be.... uh.. Test for Echo?  Their entry into the post-Desert Storm era?  Whatever.  That's what music journos are for.

HolyMoly wrote: Moving Pictures without a doubt.