Rush: How did they conquer the 80's with integrity
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Topic: Rush: How did they conquer the 80's with integrity
Posted By: SteveG
Subject: Rush: How did they conquer the 80's with integrity
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 09:07
| Rush's most popular albums Moving Pictures, Permanent Waves and Signals, which were released in the eighties, incorporated musical motifs from popular groups at the time from the Police to Ultravox incorporating synths, electronic drums and reggae into thier sound. Why did Rush's music remain so authentic while music produced by Progressive artists at the same time like Yes and Genesis were viewed as commercially compromised? |
Replies:
Posted By: WrytXander
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 09:26
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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.
Rush also always kept an eye out for recent musical movements and incorporated those into their sound. You can definitely notice some of the reggae influence on the 1980 masterpiece Natural Science. 1981's Moving Pictures was definitely a commercial-friendly prog rock album. Their sound was still hard and heavy, which may have led a lot of teenagers to believe they were a hard rock band. Hell, I never noticed the odd time signatures and the proggy atmosphere in that album back when I was first getting into them; they all sounded like amazing hard rock songs! Add incredible musicianship and great songwriting to the equation, and voila! A commercially successful prog rock band. This may be a somewhat shallow view on the topic, but I meant it as a "general elements" list anyway... ------------- 20+ prog bands discovered and explored in 3 years, still going strong... |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 09:27
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I think at the time, Rush's embrace of 80s sounds was viewed pretty negatively, at least I was a bit turned off by it (especially when Power Windows came out, I thought they had gone too far with that one). The difference is really how well it has aged. With the passage of time, the Rush 80s stuff has held up very well. I think this may have to do with the the fact that their music, even when heavily synthesized, was not done so in a trivial or superficial way. The arrangements still had the same depth and sophistication they had before, maybe even more depth. In 1985, all I heard was "KEYBOARDS! AAUGH!" but now I hear it as creative orchestration. Yes, on the other hand (not to pick on them, but just using your example), used 80s sounds in a much more "novelty" oriented way. It didn't feel as genuine and as well integrated into the musical ideas like Rush's did. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 09:42
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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. -------------   
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Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 09:50
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Speaking of music videos, I fondly recall Rush's video for "Distant
Early Warning" - with a kid riding on a cruise missile like it was an
amusement park ride. That was a pretty effective image. And there was a
video for "Big Money" too, but all I remember about that one was seeing
a drum stick falling through the air in slow motion.
------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 12:12
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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. At the time I really liked much of the 'commercialized' Prog, Genesis Abacab, Yes 90125 (not Owner of a Lonely Heart but I liked a lot all the rest of the album), Asia debut etc, so contemporary Rush were even better than all those.
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Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 14:34
As for Mad Man Moon reflecting some kind of "pop side," FOOEY! The song is perhaps the proggiest number on A Trick of the Tail, argueably Collins' finest vocal performance on record, and the band's greatest epic since the departure of the Gabe-Meister. |
Catcher10 wrote:Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 18:10
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The members of Rush have always been savvy enough to connect to the popular trends of music at any one time. This allows them to put a production sheen on their songwriting, which in turn makes the album sound like a product of its times. Since we are talking about popular music, the passages of these times in incredibly fast. Yet, they maintain a sophisticated and skilled approach to songwriting, both in terms of lyrics and music, so the listener hears a nice balance between timelessness and timeliness. The 80s was not the only time they did this. Roll the Bones followed the recent ascendance of rap in popular music, while Test for Echo was grungey. Perhaps the two most egregious examples, but they bring the practice out in the open. ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 19:51
Don't know about proggiest but certainly very prog. The interlude is incredible, layers and layers of music blending seamlessly, classic Genesis. Maybe Catcher referred to that verse and especially the way Collins renders it.
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 09 2014 at 22:47
Everyone here knows that Genesis is my #2 all time favorite band...behind Rush. I love all eras of Genesis, its brilliant music..prog or no prog, I'm not that stuck up on that point. That song can easily be a FM radio friendly song, meaning a pop song, because of how Phil Collins delivers it. Unlike a Rush song say like Losing It or Different Strings, which I have never heard on the radio and would never make a radio playlist, they have no pop flavor to them. Certainly Mad Man Moon is not the progiest song on that album. And I am not sure I understand, you say the song is their greatest epic since the departure of Peter Gabriel??  Maybe I misunderstand that part.... -------------
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Posted By: Jeffro
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 07:04
I think I felt like you back then. I remember spinning Signals the first time in my neighbor's bedroom and being shocked by the synths. When I listen to that era now, I'm amazed by how much lack of synth some of the the songs have.
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Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 08:55
How all perfectly smug. And Mad Man Moon is played to death on FM radio, second only to Bad Company's Rock and Roll Fantasy. And what is the proggiest song on 'Tail', hmm? I'd love to hear your answer. Also, name your post-Gabriel epic for the band-I'm all eyes. |
Posted By: Horizons
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 09:08
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Tail is bad in general. Either of the first songs on Wind and Wuthering is better than anything on Tail. In either the scope of progressiveness or just honest song quality. ------------- Crushed like a rose in the riverflow. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 09:17
I'm good thanks.....this is a Rush thread not a Genesis thread. You can go and start a Genesis ATotT thread if you want to find out peoples opinion of that album. -------------
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Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 11:33
| In the late seventies and early eighties Rush were viewed by many as a hard rock and heavy metal band. They had a prog following also but I'd say a lot of people who were fans of heavier stuff also were fans. This meant that they had to please more than one kind of fan. However, RUSH were and still are very much their own band and did what they wanted to do. They were open to new ideas and experimenting with different textures, themes and sounds. RUSH didn't do the same album twice like a lot of bands seem to do. Because they were able to take control of themselves without worrying about what the record label thought they didn't have to put out hit singles. Why were they able to do this when Genesis and Yes weren't? I'm not really sure and I don't think there is a definitive answer to that. It might have something to do with the fact that bands who are heavier or at least have a reputation of being heavier aren't expected to be commercial sounding or have hits. How many hits did Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest have in their early days? Even Led Zeppelin weren't exactly known as a top forty band. |
Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 11:42
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[How all perfectly smug. And Mad Man Moon is played to death on FM radio, second only to Bad Company's Rock and Roll Fantasy. And what is the proggiest song on 'Tail', hmm? I'd love to hear your answer. Also, name your post-Gabriel epic for the band-I'm all eyes.] Well I don't know where you live but I have NEVER heard "mad man moon" on FM radio. Maybe you are thinking of "follow you follow me." That is the one that gets over played. As for favorite post Gabriel epic my vote might go to Dukes Travel's/Dukes End although there are a few. At one point "home by the sea/second home by the sea" was my favorite Genesis song period. Now it's lucky if it makes my top twenty. Anyway, how did we get on the topic of Genesis. I thought this was about RUSH. 
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Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 12:09
The topic of Genesis was breached when the Rush guy wrote that Mad Man Moon reflected Phil Collins' "pop side." And, no, I've never heard Mad Man Moon played on regular rotation FM radio either (that was facetiousness). Mad Man Moon, in fact, was the grand statement of a classically great album (their best post-Gabriel one, IMHO) that graced our ears at just the right time. |
Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 15:59
| Ok. Well your sarcasm went over my head. Maybe because you didn't use any winkies. ;) Yeah, let's stick to RUSH for this thread. :) |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 10 2014 at 22:18
"Night guy"..Did you pay attention to the OP?? He specifically mentions both Genesis and Yes...You took it to another level by asking people what their fav song on ATOtT is and also post Gabriel song, sorry Gabe-Meister My points in using Genesis and Yes were to reply to Steve G.....read the OP again, I think you should "night guy". -------------
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Posted By: King Crimson776
Date Posted: September 11 2014 at 01:00
| Yes and Genesis wrote great complex music, followed by overall decent pop-prog music. Rush wrote inadequate 'complex' music, followed by good streamlined prog tunes. So part of it is that the former bands fell quite a ways whereas Rush got better. There's also the fact that Rush's style of prog was suited to the 80's, and that they never got as outright 'poppy' as albums like Genesis, 90125 etc. |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: September 11 2014 at 09:36
Let it go, Catch', let it go. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 11 2014 at 10:28
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^ I am not holding on to anything as there is nothing you posted worth holding on to...so I am good. -------------
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Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: September 11 2014 at 11:57
Long live RUSH! 
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Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: September 11 2014 at 14:36
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This is obviously some definition of conquer which I am heretofore unaware.
------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow">  https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 11:50
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I think it all come down to the kind of Prog. Is was mainly the Symphonic prog, that got out of fasion by the end of the 70's. So Bands like Yes Genesis and Gaint,was more "outdated" at the time, than Bands like Rush Floyd Jethro, because they had allways been more rooted in Rock, and Rock was not "outdated". The transition was easier for them, if it was better music, is a matter of taste. Personaly im not the biggest fan of : Grace Under Pressure, Hold Your Fire. Presto i dont know. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 11:55
 So you are saying : The did not, U2 did ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: ghost_of_morphy
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 13:55
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Until they sold out. *cough* The Joshua Tree *cough* ------------- 
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Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 14:36
That ENO nerd, spoils everything ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 15:30
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Posted By: Metalmarsh89
Date Posted: September 12 2014 at 18:33
Was? ------------- Want to play mafia? Visit http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com" rel="nofollow - here . |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 09:23
"Doing the right thing is never superfluous." |
Posted By: Metalmarsh89
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 10:27
I'm just being obnoxious like a few others in this thread.  No I think you're right. The 80's was indeed their hayday. That said, they were able to ride that train into the 90's and beyond better than any other 60's/70's band, and not because they were rehashing old stuff or releasing streamlined music. ------------- Want to play mafia? Visit http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com" rel="nofollow - here . |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 10:29
| Anything after Moving Pictures leaves me utterly cold. It all smacks of "sell out" to me. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 11:19
Interesting...can you expand your thoughts. Its very rare someone calls Rush 80's forward as sell out, or any sell out. There is no pop music sound, no ballads  , no 3 minute songs...Most complain of the synth sound, hence the "synth era" as a problem or just dislike.-------------
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Posted By: Metalmarsh89
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 11:53
By this logic, they've been a sell-out since before that. They started out playing heavy blues rock in the vain of Led Zeppelin and the Who. The music was popular, so they played it. By 1975, prog was gaining some popularity on this side of the pond, so Rush began releasing some proggy albums. This continues on through the synthy, new wave era of the 80's. I think Rush took popular sounds and styles and just incorporated it into their own, rather than completely transitioning. Also, Geddy knew how to play piano before Rush was even formed, so to him, the synths and other various were probably really exciting new toys for him to play with, rather than taking them up to streamline their sound. ------------- Want to play mafia? Visit http://www.mafiathesyndicate.com" rel="nofollow - here . |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 13:39
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Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 13 2014 at 19:43
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Given the state of prog in that decade, Rush was not so much the conqueror of the 80s but more like the fly on top of the sh*t. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 14 2014 at 04:47
| Hi Steve, you're right, there are no 3 minute songs, etc. However, it all seems so "designed to please a crowd", ie product rather than music. Other posts here have noted that Rush indeed did play to an audience. I think my dislike of 80's Rush is more a dislike of the music of that period in general. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: September 14 2014 at 06:14
| As for how Rush conquered the 80s etc, well, the mistake people make is to lump them with the other, and older, prog rock bands of the time. Rush were a bigger influence on prog metal rather than prog rock and even some out and out metal bands like Iron Maiden were influenced by them (especially Somewhere in Time phase). 80s was the heyday of metal so Rush's music comfortably fitted in with the music aesthetics of that time whereas the older prog rock bands found their trademark instruments and tones sounding outdated and out of fashion and were forced to make an adjustment that wasn't very comfortable for most of them. King Crimson could, but only by completely changing their style to the point where it had almost nothing to do with their 70s output and also including artists like Adrian Belew in the fold who actually knew what to make of the 80s. Rush were younger than the likes of Yes or Genesis and being a little more on the metal side could make the adjustment more easily. Even Iron Maiden wrote some really long, though not necessarily prog, tracks in that period so the rules of mainstream rock and pop did not apply to metal. Same goes for Queenrsyche whose most ambitious phase fell square in the mid-late 80s. |
Posted By: Intruder
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 11:46
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Rush was a hard rock/heavy metal band that had prog leanings.....think Zep on Houses or the Sabs on Tech Ec. They streamlined their sound in the 80s but it really wasn't a giant leap away from what they were doing. In fact, a lot of Hemispheres and Farewell hint at that streamlined sound that started with Moving. Similarly, Crimson streamlined their 80s sound, but, man, the jump from Red to Discipline is vast.....like Evel Knievel jumping the Grand Canyon.
------------- I like to feel the suspense when you're certain you know I am there..... |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 11:52
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Clever usage of the ol Trojan horse is my guess. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 11:55
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Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 12:15
I don't read that...Rush have always been about what they want to do as a band. Not really what fans and certainly the record companies want. If they played and designed to please a crowd, we would have seen more releases like 2112, Hemispheres and AFTK. The vast majority of Rush fans progressed along with their musical progression into that 80's sound. Their concert crowds and popularity continued to grow during this time and it is when they went to an "Evening with Rush" concert format as fans wanted to hear more, so rather than the 1.5hr show with opening act it is now a 3hr show. Its fine to dislike that period but I don't believe it is because they designed a sound to please the fans.....That is when bands fall apart, I doubt that ever happens to them. -------------
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 18 2014 at 13:33
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^Sometimes I think that the eighties to people, and I include myself with this group at times, regrettably, is automatically seen as a poor time in rock music and dump eighties era Rush with the rest of the trash. I think it's important to keep in mind that eighties artists like KC and Peter Gabriel (The Last Temptation soundtrack) were doing some incredible stuff at that time and that Neo-prog, even though it's not a favorite genre of mine, put out incredible albums from Marillion's Script to Soltice's first album (a personal favorite from that era.) Perhaps we all need to get over the eighties and get just on with it. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 13:46
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Rush: How did they conquer the 80's with integrity with some comedy...oooooohh, scarrry! LOL -------------
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 25 2014 at 19:25
^Still a classic! Two thumbs up! 
------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |