HOSERDOME: Rush vs. not-Rush

From this weekend's Globe and Mail :

“It's easy to criticize what you don't understand,” [David] Fricke wrote in 1980, “which at least partly explains why Canadian power trio Rush have suffered so much at the hands of rock journalists since the band's debut album in 1974. Critics find bassist-lead singer Geddy Lee's stratospheric wails and drummer Neil Peart's lyrical excursions into philosophy, science fiction and fantasy easy targets, and usually dismiss Rush as a head-banger's Genesis.…”

It's time for FAT to decide, for once and for all. Rush: rocks or sucks?

I'm not a big fan of Rush but I'm not going to say they suck. I just don't get the love for them much of the time.

They're okay. They've got a few great songs, and several more good songs, enough to fill out an impressive Greatest Hits disc. I got their 2-disc Chronicles collection, and that was somewhat padded out with filler, including a lousy live version of Mystic Rhythms.

Hmm. I guess the only rule of Hoserdome is: one enters, two leave?

Tom Sawyer and Working Man is all they have. That's it. The guitarist is great, but that singer's voice is pretty much the anti-cool, IMO.

Prosecutor's Exhibit A: Look at the guy on the right, the singer. Does that guy look ANYTHING like David Lee Roth or Bonn Scott? No? SUCKAGE.


Prosecutor's Exhibit B: Look at the lead singer's bloody watch! It's a cheap-ass casio DIGITAL! No real rock star would wear that kind of watch!


Prosecutor's Exhibit C: There's no visible tattoos on any of them! How is that rock-star quality?


Vote: Rush sucks ass like prison punks, but without the grape jelly.

The prosecution rests.

I love The Trees.

I hate Tom Sawyer.

Mark me up as the "Don't hate them, but not understanding the love for them" group.

Aside from Tom Sawyer, I would be hard pressed to name another one of their songs.

Tom Sawyer is on the shortlist of "Songs I never need to hear again in this lifetime." It's not a prestigious list.

Vote: Not-Rush

This may be the first Trashdome whose tagline is "One enters, but is asked to leave."

Since everybody who's put out that much stuff has some redeeming feature, I'll say that "Red Barchetta" is pretty good.

Who ?

They rock, but not in a big rock star life look at us we're so awesome kind of way. They've never really been involved in any sex-drugs-'n-rock&roll high profile shenanigans and fuck-ups which the media and Motley Crüe so love.

They've always been rather low-profile, and fine with that. They're more intellectuals and prefer to stay out of the limelight than in your face. In the new documentary, Gene Simmons remembers he thought them weird because they'd rather go back to the hotel than come to the after show party when the opened for Kiss in the 70's.

And what's up with not liking Geddy's wail back in the 70's? Robert Plant had pretty the same thing going on. In fact in the early days (first album in 74) people thought those were original Zep tunes. He can't really reach those high notes anymore though, but that's aging for you (neither can Plant).

One of my favourite bands, a class act all the way.

superflytnt wrote:

Prosecutor's Exhibit B: Look at the lead singer's bloody watch! It's a cheap-ass casio DIGITAL! No real rock star would wear that kind of watch!

In 1978, when that photo was taken, metal-cased digital watches were THE BOMB. I'd bet that even Diamond Dave wore one back then.

I can't follow you down that path, Juniper. Spidel-banded casio digitals fall into the same category as the Casio Databank watches. Cool guys had little black books. Dorks had the Databank watches. One glance at a man's preferred method of storing chick's names (at the time) would indicate that the guy with the black book had entries like "Candy", "Tawny", and "Cheri", where the one with the databank was probably storing entries in it like "Proctologist", "Grocery Store Pharmacy", and "Grandma's Home".

Not saying it's not righteous, but calling Rush "cool" would be a stretch for me. I never much liked their music, although my older brother thought they were the shit. Note: That's the brother who joined the Air Force to become a cable repairman, then converted to Judaism because mom did it too.

It's hit and miss with Rush. Sometimes they're fucking awesome, sometimes they're lame as hell. "Anthem" is one of the best arena rock songs ever written, but for every "La Villa Strangiato" or "New World Man," there's a "Rivendell" or "Time Stands Still."

They are what they are. They're a nerd band for music nerds that like meter changes, weird chord voicings, and clever scale permutations. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's definitely a place for that in music. Comparing them to boot-knocking classic rock bands like Van Halen and Thin Lizzy is just dumb. It's two totally different styles of music.

Rocks, for the stretch of five studio albums spanning Moving Pictures through Hold Your Fire.

Thanks to this thread, I've had the song Limelight stuck in my head for the last hour.