Rush: How did they conquer the 80's with integrity

Rush 80's music was great, even if I had discovered them with A Farewell To Kings, then Hemispheres, Caress of Steel etc, I never felt let down by the turn they took at the turn of the 80's, I embraced it quite readily. First of all it was quite gradual, slowly progressing with each album to a more accessible and yet elaborated sound. And yes, they went into a more accessible territory but they never fell into the easy pop-sounding verse-chorus format. Rush was the example of how to get accessible while not compromising the music quality. I also have the impression that they did never seek explicitly for pop-hits, while other bands clearly did. Rush seeked for some airplay and popularity but never at the expense of doing crap.

I think Genesis departed more from their 70's roots than Rush did. Loosing two main members, it seems Genesis had to do something to keep going. We all know Phil Collins has a pop side to him (More Fool Me, Mad Man Moon, Follow You Follow Me) and he took over as the flavor of Genesis, but they did it well enough to attract another legion of fans.

To me Yes with 90125 and Big Generator, were closer to what Rush did but Yes were more commercially accepted, by that I mean on the FM radio. Rush still did not dominate the FM radio waves, but only with Tom Sawyer and Spirit of Radio, the rest of the success was still via album sales and droves of under ground fans, mainly the prog community.

Back then it seemed if you dominated the FM dial PLUS music videos on MTV, you were a commercial pop success. Gosh, I remember seeing the Yes videos played over and over and over...Rush not into music videos.

Bottom line I think Rush incorporated the "new wave 80s" sound into their music just enough to keep it fresh but not fall off the edge like people view Genesis and Yes did. Rush lyrics were still based on albums like Hemispheres, AFTK and 2112....whereas Genesis and Yes were writing more about love and feelings, emotions and relationships.

The Police and these other new wave bands had that in their lyrics, but Rush picked up on the music side, the sound that they were making and incorporated that into their 80's albums. The progressive and hard rock/metal fans obviously liked it and made them some of their best selling albums....There is some amazing music on those albums.

I'm no expert, but I'd have to assume that their early Led Zeppelin-esque hard rock sound coupled with the success of 2112 were effective. 2112 had a 20-minute prog epic, yes, but it also had such radio songs as Passage to Bangkok, Lessons, Tears etc.