20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Power Windows

DAY ELEVEN: Rush, Power Windows, running time 44:44, released October 29, 1985

When I saw Rush in Chicago in 2012, I was surprised that the band played not one, not two, not three, but four songs from Power Windows.  An interesting choice, since this album is the antithesis of recent efforts that focus on a hard-edged, fuller guitar sonic landscape.  I suspect there were many in the audience who were less than happy about it.  I was thrilled to hear “Territories,” my favorite off the album, and maybe one more would have been fine.  Four seemed to be pushing it just a bit.

This is the album when Rush made a conscious decision not to worry about being able to reproduce things live.  From this point on, the band would lean more and more on prerecorded tracks, triggering them with foot pedals or synth keys, and their live performances became a little less live.  Even easy synth parts, like the beginning of “The Big Money,” are not played live by Geddy Lee.  I’m not sure why that is, but I suspect it has something to do with the band’s insistence of having their live tracks sound virtually identical as the studio versions.  This is a mistake in my mind.  Great bands like Zeppelin or The Who conquered the stage by doing just the opposite, with each performance unique and unpredictable (to a point).  Imagine seeing Rush perform a song and not knowing how different it might be than the night before?  It could produce some very interesting results.

Listening to Power Windows today, the opening songs – “The Big Money” and “Grand Designs” – sounded fresh and exciting, with more prominent guitar work than I remembered.  Sure, there are frilly synth sequences that kind of muck things up, but overall I enjoyed the experience.  The next two tracks, “Manhattan Project” and “Marathon,” are again good songs, but suddenly Alex becomes less and less important, and by “Territories” he all but disappears during the chorus.  From there, the album really breaks down for me.  The tracks vary so little in mood, tempo, rhythm and production, that by the time I get to “Middletown Dreams,” “Emotion Detector,” and “Mystic Rhythms,” I’ve simply had enough.  Each song sounds unpleasantly similar to the song that preceded it.  The album could have benefitted greatly from a tune featuring an acoustic guitar, a ¾ time signature or a less in-your-face synth sound – something to mix things up a bit.

Rush has said that if they could re-record an album, Presto would be it, but I think Power Windows would get my vote.  Each song might stand on its own merits, but having eight songs in a row with so little to distinguish them makes the listening experience bland and unpleasant.  It would be very cool to hear the band try some of these songs as a basic rock trio.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 6, Hemispheres, the last Rush album to offer a side-long song.  Talk about a different feel!  We shall see how it holds up.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Feedback

DAY TEN: Rush, Feedback, running time 27:08, released June 29, 2004

There are only two legitimate reasons to record a cover song: play it better than the original (The Pretender’s version of “Stop Your Sobbing”) or play it completely differently from the original (Manfred Mann’s covers from Springsteen’s debut album).  On Rush’s cover album, Feedback, they achieve neither of these objectives, as they plow through high-energy versions of songs by The Who, Buffalo Springfield, Edie Cochran, The Yardbirds, Loves and Cream (doing a cover of Robert Johnson).  The best of the lot is “The Seeker,” but it adds little, if anything, to the original by The Who. 

Kudos to Rush for trying something different, something that flies in the face if what many consider a pretentious band, but ultimately the question must be asked: what’s the point?

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 11, Power Windows, the pinnacle (or low point?) of Rush’s use of synthesizers.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Permanent Waves

DAY NINE: Rush, Permanent Waves, running time 35:35, released January 1, 1980

It’s funny that Rush’s first album of the new decade was considered such a departure from the lengthy prog-rock reputation they’d earned to that point.  Sure, Permanent Waves avoids the side-long track, but it has the same number of songs as 2112 and A Farewell to Kings (Hemispheres seems to be the one album that pushed the envelope with only four).  Furthermore, the tour to support this album only included two of its shorter songs: “The Spirit of Radio” and “Freewill,” and then two longer pieces – ”Jacob’s Ladder” and “Natural Science” – that would have felt at home on either of the previous two LPs.

Still, there’s a refreshing change with this album, starting with Neil Peart’s more-relatable lyrics.  We saw glimpses of this on previous albums (“Circumstances,” “Closer to the Heart”), but songs about radio, relationships and choosing one’s destiny are a far cry from the Cygnus X-1 epics.  The positive messages translate well to a more upbeat, accessible music.  Even “Jacob’s Ladder,” a longer piece that at first glance might be about something mysterious or supernatural, is about nothing more than sun breaking through the clouds.  Go figure.

Simpler lyrics, but the music still astounds in its deceiving complexity.  “The Spirit of Radio” may at its center be a four chord song with a blues riff, but try playing the opening 15 seconds in your garage band and get back to me.  It ain’t easy.  And even after thirty-four years, the drum part at 5:16 in “Jacob’s Ladder” continues to throw me.  The guitar is in 13/8 time, and then Peart comes in with a beat that seems to be on its own time signature, yet lands on the one beat to keep it all together.  Great stuff.  The instrumental break of “Free Will” continues to astound audiences whenever Rush plays the song live, and “Natural Science” is another song with great time signature challenges.

I also have to mention my favorite Alex Lifeson lead guitar part, coming at 1:34 as he begins his solo in “Jacob’s Ladder.”  Like David Gilmore, Lifeson is so good at creating a melody rather than just playing notes as fast as he can, and this part to me is absolutely perfect – a simple but effective motif that’s repeated three times.  For me, he could have repeated it ten times.

As for live representation, only three of the six songs have made it into a regular rotation.  Unless I missed it, “Jacob’s Ladder” hasn’t been played live since 1980, “Entre Nous” was only performed in 2007, and “Different Strings” has never been played live.  This is a bit surprising to me, as Permanent Waves is among Rush’s strongest albums (if not the strongest).  There simply isn’t a weak track on it.

The only potentially critical thing to say about the album is its production.  It sounds a little boxy to me, with the use of the stereo spectrum underutilized (and poorly utilized during the guitar solo of “Free Will”), and lacking in a rich, full low end.  If I had an engineer’s ears I could be more specific, but the album doesn’t sound as good as its successor, Moving Pictures.

Now, it’s important to note that at 35 minutes, Rush was able to avoid any filler on Permanent Waves, and I find myself asking the question: if I’ve been critical of many of Rush’s albums for being too long, is this album perhaps too short?  Or, at the very least, should it be regarded less positively because it’s easier to compose 35 minutes of good material than 50 minutes of good material?  After all, Presto easily has 35 minutes worth of excellent music.  That album’s only weak point for me was that it has about two songs too many.  So, should Presto be docked merely because the band was more prolific (or, more likely, that the band decided to accommodate the CD format vs. the album format)?

Good questions, I think.  But for me, Permanent Waves is near perfection.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 18, Rush’s cover album, Feedback.  I’ve never listened to this album before, so it’ll be the only review that I can say with certainty is without any preconceived notions.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Vapor Trails

DAY EIGHT: Rush, Vapor Trails, running time 67:15 (too damn long), released May 14, 2002

This is where Rush goes off the rails for me.  Vapor Trails, released after a six year hiatus due mostly to the personal tragedies suffered by Neil Peart, contains moments of brilliance, many wonder riffs, and some effective melodies, but it’s all too much.  Too many songs (who in his right mind thought that a 67-minute album was a good idea?), too many songs that go on forever without adding any forward momentum (listen to “Secret Touch” and tell me you’re not ready to call it a day after four minutes, but it goes on for another two and half), too many ethereal backup vocals that only muddy up the mix, too much clutter, too many busy bass lines, and too many unmemorable melodies (try singing the verses to some of the songs – “Nocturne” or “Freeze,” for instance – and it’s impossible.  The tunes, in effect, lack a tune).

This isn’t to say there aren’t great moments.  I actually love the way the album begins, with the full-throttled, blistering bombardment of “One Little Victory” followed by my favorite track, “Ceiling Unlimited.”  “Ghost Rider” isn’t perfect, but it’s such a personal song that it’s hard not to identify with what Peart is writing about.  And then it’s song after song (after song) with some good parts but way too many unsuccessful sections.  For me, there isn’t a single track beyond this point that works well from beginning to end. 

Take “How it Is,” what should have been a wonderful song.  The chorus is poignant and beautiful, but the verse is a mess, trudging through tuneless and meterless poetry that doesn’t lend itself well to a rock song.  That is what Rush is, after all.  A rock band that writes songs, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a “song” among these thirteen tracks.  “Freeze” also has one of the best, most melodic choruses in all of Rush’s history, but the verses, well…blow.  They’re a mess, stuck in a wall of sound, overly busy bass, tuneless melodies and unnecessary backup vocals.

Another item of concern is what I call the Elvis Costello Syndrome, whereby one tries to cram lyrics into a structure even if they don’t fit the structure well.  And that’s exactly what Rush is doing here.  Consider the following quote from Neil Peart (I got this off of Wikipedia):

Eventually Geddy began to sift through the vast number of jams they had created, finding a verse here, a chorus there, and piecing them together. Often a pattern had only ever been played once in passing, but through the use of computer tools it could be repeated or reworked into a part...once Geddy and Alex had agreed on basic structures, Geddy would go through the lyrics to see what might suit the music and "sing well," then come to me to discuss any improvements, additions, or deletions I could make from my end.

This is a very odd way to compose, and it explains a lot, I think.  Usually, one composes a tune and then writes lyrics to fit the tune, or one composes lyrics and comes up with a melody for the lyrics.  On Vapor Trails, Rush creates songs from jam sessions, and then they review the lyrics to see which ones might work with the verses and choruses. It's a Frankensteinian approach to making music.  Kudos to Rush for trying something different, but unfortunately it doesn’t work.  The result sounds exactly what it is: pieces of music spliced together with lyrics forced into the structure.

Geddy’s bass is incredible on this album, Exhibit A for what’s possible with this instrument, but it’s also Exhibit A on how to muck up a recording.  Too busy.  Too much.  And that pretty much encapsulates the entire album.  Too busy.  Too much.  Even the 2013 remix, which is a definite improvement over the original, suffers from a thwacking kick drum that’s way too hot.  It seems that even a remix couldn’t save this effort.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 7.  Rewind to 1980’s Permanent Waves.  It’ll be interesting to listen to an album that’s almost one half the length of Vapor Trails.  It’ll be a lot quicker, too.

20 Rush Albums in 20 Days: Counterparts

DAY SEVEN: Rush, Counterparts, running time 54:17, released October 19, 1993

Rush continued to explore heavier-guitar production in the 90s, and at the time I remember not caring for it so much.  Hearing "Stick it Out" for the first time, it seemed like a poor throwback, but now in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.  Rush has never isolated itself from musical trends, and as grunge had already taken hold of the airwaves, it’s not surprising that the sound of the times would have impacted the band's writing and production.  It’s probably a good thing that it did, because the result was increased sales and a new generation of followers.

Counterparts begins very solid, with “Animate,” “Stick it Out,” “Cut to the Chase,” “Nobody’s Hero” and “Between Sun & Moon” (the middle track sounding a lot like it belongs on Rush’s previous release, Roll the Bones – to me it’s reminiscent of “Face Up.”), but the album’s middle suffers by comparison.  The overall theme of relationships between men and women lends itself to a more personal, intimate lyrical approach that sometimes sounds a little too straight forward for Rush.  The opening of “Alien Shore, (“You and I, we are strangers by one chromosome”) is, to me, not the best way to begin a song, and the lines like “For you and me, sex is not a competition” from "Alien Shore" just don’t seem to work.

When I saw Rush at Minneapolis’s Target Center in 1994, my least favorite tune was “Double Agent,” and hearing it again today, I stand by my conclusion.  The spoken word section is embarrassingly bad.  When Geddy sings “so tight” and “at war” after speaking the words a moment before, it reminds me of Budweiser’s “Real Men of Genius” ad campaign.  Not good!  

Luckily, the album ends where it began, with three excellent tracks, the instrumental “Leave that Thing Alone” followed by “Cold Fire” and the uplifting “Everyday Glory.”  Why this latter track, or songs like “Cut to the Chase” and “Between Sun & Moon” haven’t made it into a regular concert rotation is one of those mysteries I’ll never understand.  All of these would be welcome replacements for the played-out live performances of “Force Ten” and “Dreamline.”  If Rush has a weakness, it’s the unwillingness to play a more varied setlist from tour to tour. 

As with all of Rush’s releases from 1987 on, this album is too damn long, but it’s still among their best efforts.  Subtract “Double Agent” and “The Speed of Love” and you’ve got a very solid 44 minute album.  Kill your children, artists!  Subtraction is addition.

Tomorrow, I’ll be listening to…drum roll, please…number 17: Vapor Trails.  I’ll go to the 2013 remix of the album, figuring I shouldn’t have to subject myself to an original mix that even the band was unhappy with.