Rush

A little silly at times, but everybody has to come from somewhere, I guess. I like this CD overall.

Every dumb guy who knows about this album has to make a dumb comment about what drummer John Rutsey gave up by leaving the band. But more albums like this—two or three, tops—is really all he gave up.

(1975)

Welcome, Neil Peart. I like all these songs except "Rivendell".

Starting with this album, new drummer Neil Peart has written the majority of Rush's lyrics. But bassist Geddy Lee wrote the lyrics to "Best I Can" and "In The End", the latter being my favourite from this album.

Who played the "Making Memories" guitar solo, Joe Walsh?

Owls are cool.

(1975)

I basically like the whole CD, though I often skip "Lakeside Park".

Enter the art rock: this was the first of three Rush albums featuring only a multi-song suite on one side of the LP, "Fountain of Lamneth" in this case. Each is just one track on its CD.

I really miss Alex Lifeson's Gibson-playing days. The guitar solos in "I Think I'm Going Bald" and "The Necromancer" just light me up.

(1976)

"2112" is, well, "2112". Beyond that, I only really like Alex Lifeson's "Lessons" and sometimes Geddy's "Tears".

(1976)

The band's first live album. They have released one live album after every fourth new studio album plus 2003's Rush in Rio.

I love this perfomance of "Anthem", mostly for Alex's guitar intro.

The remastered edition of the CD includes a performance of "What You're Doing". I need that edition, too, because the original CD mastering sounds like crap in my car.

(1977)

Good CD. I don't care for "Madrigal". "Closer to the Heart" is cool but almost annoyingly popular. Geddy wrote the lyrics to "Cinderella Man" and has taken up keyboards (or at least started playing them with the band) with this album.

(1978)

The "Hemispheres" suite and "Circumstances" really don't do much for me. "The Trees" is good; "La Villa Strangiato" is top-notch and may well be my favourite Rush song.

(1980)

Good stuff. The grammar nazi in me doesn't like Neil's "...for you and I..." in "Entre Nous", even if he did it on purpose (which I don't know to be the case). Geddy wrote the "Different Strings" lyrics.

(1981)

One of my favourite Rush albums, and the first one I owned. I like all the songs.

(1981)

Good live album, though I prefer the studio versions of most of the songs.

Rush made a video of "Tom Sawyer". "Graphics by Kenner", as MST3K's Tom Servo would say.

(1982)

Did Rush trade Geddy's bass guitar and Alex for bass pedals and a synthesizer? Well, it's a good CD anyway. "The Weapon" is really cool; "Digital Man" gets skipped.

(1984)

As usual, a good CD with a couple songs I don't care for ("Body Electric" and "Red Lenses"). "Red Sector A" and "Between the Wheels" are great.

The "Red Sector A" music reminds me of Blondie's "War Child".

(1985)

Not as enjoyable as the last few. I'm pretty lukewarm about it all, really. Well, I guess I like "Marathon" a fair bit.

(1987)

I used to like this a lot more than I do now. The songs are OK, but when I'm in the mood for Rush, there are plenty of better albums I can listen to. But "Time Stand Still" is still as good as everyone says.

(1988)

Live. I'd rather listen to this than the two previous studio albums if I want to hear those songs.

(1989)

Hmmm. I like "The Pass" and "Available Light". A couple others are OK. Forget the rest.

(1991)

I don't like a couple of these, but I can never remember which ones until they start playing. "Heresy" might be one. The rest are OK to good—"Neurotica", "Dreamline", "The Big Wheel", maybe others.

(1993)

I like most of this one. "Cut to the Chase", "Alien Shore", "Double Agent", and "Leave That Thing Alone" are cool; "Between Sun and Moon" and "The Speed of Love" are not.

(1996)

Not as good as the previous. "Driven", "Dog Years", and "Limbo" are the highlights for me. You can always count on Rush for a good instrumental.

"Net boy, net girl"? Please kill me.

(1998)

Does "Closer to the Heart" need to be on every live album?

Anyway, holy 3-disc set, Batman!

(2002)

I'm glad Neil made it through his life rot and stayed with Rush. This is a really good album.

It's a tough call, but I think "Vapor Trail" is probably my fave. "Peaceable Kingdom", "One Little Victory", and "Earthshine" are all pretty close.

You'd think, what with Rush's being Canadian and all, that the album would have been titled Vapour Trails. Oh, well.

(2007)

Not as good as the previous, though I do like that there are three instrumentals. My main problem is that Geddy took his self-harmony style from "Peaceable Kingdom" on Vapor Trails and used it in seemingly at least half of these. To me, that constitutes "overdoing it", "too much of a good thing", or what have you.