As the last post of my series on good music by cliche-ishly popular bands, I have to briefly mention Rush. Coming of age male in the 80s in the Northeast, listening to AOR radio, Rush was unavoidable. Anyone in the other gender (generally, but there have been exceptions) and with a different background, has a much less likely chance of "getting" Rush. Rush is a lot of musical punch from three guys who are virtuosos. It's rock and roll glory, of by and for introverted geeks. You have to spend a lot of time in your bedroom emulating this stuff to play like this (and armies of introverted guys have done this, even myself on keyboards occasionally). You have to have grown up in this lonely existence (or among fellow lonely travellers) to understand what Rush is about and to appreciate their music. This is the soundtrack to a certain type of existence. Rush (and their fans) take a lot of undeservered crap from people who have never been there (those people have other brands of patheticness in their backgrounds and have migrated to other music, which, in turn, Rush fans don't understand).
Here is a live version of my favorite Rush song, "Analog Kid". It gives a good look at how three guys can produce such a big sound onstage:
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3 comments:
I think I fit the Rush phenotype that you describe, but perhaps I am a bit too young. I have never liked Rush. I always found their music annoying. Here is why:
There bass sound always seems weakly mixed and the high pitched singing is unbearable to my ears.
I never understood all they hype.
Their so-called virtuoso abilities also never seemed to match up with their reputation.
Somebody trying to explain this to me once tried to play the song Tom Sawyer to convince me. It just didn't work.
How embarassing: There=their
I agree about Geddy Lee's voice.
I was a drummer before I was a keyboardist. So there was always Neil Peart semi-worship (although I think Stewart Copeland could probably drum NP under the table).
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