Alice Cooper (Band)

Whilst procrastinating writing the Blake Shelton and Steeleye Span Discographies (seriously, I get about 2 sentences in and remember my musical vocabulary is so limited for the country and folk genres), I thought I might start one for the original Alice Cooper band, as I'm seeing them in mid-November (2017).

Now, I started off with an Alice Cooper greatest hits, then moved on to getting some of his 90s and 2000s albums (as well as Welcome To My Nightmare (1975), a classic concept album - and necessary to understand the 2011 follow up Welcome 2 My Nightmare). Then in mid-2016 I thought I'd give the albums from the original band a chance. I mean, they're the ones who did School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies and Elected. They must be pretty straight up rocky.

How wrong I was...

Alice Cooper was/is:

Vince Furnier/Alice Cooper - Vocals

Glen Buxton - Lead Guitar

Michael Bruce - Rhythm Guitar & keys

Dennis Dunaway - Bass

Neal Smith - Drums

Pretties For You (1969)

What. The Hell. Is this album. 

Dissonant sounds, weird effects, few actual 'songs'. This is mostly just noise. An attempt at making 'art' perhaps? But no, that's too much praise. Avant-garde, baroque, psychedelic; these are the only appropriate adjectives. Oh, and possibly: nonsense.

Fields of Regret is sort of a song. It's kind of the most listenable thing on the album. There's a riff, some solos, a discernible melody and lyrics. But it's all very noisey.

Reflected is also nearly a song. It even turns in to one on Billion Dollar Babies, as the completely rewritten 'Elected'. 

Apple Bush sounds almost normal, and is a nice respite from the rest of the album. 

Maybe another 2 or 3 tracks are bearable, but the other 6/7 offerings on this overlong 13-track album are just offensive to the ear.

Honestly, it's like they all listened to Revolution 9 off the White Album and went 'let's try and beat that'.

Ignore this album, start with the next one.

Easy Action (1970)

The first song off Easy Action is better than anything on Pretties. Mr and Misdemeanour is just good wordplay for a start, but it has a solid riff and keyboard part. Sure, it gets a bit shouty and crazed at the end, but it shows the evolution of the band's sound. 

In fact, there's quite a bit of a screamy, noisy overhang on a lot of tracks. Still No Air and Lay Down And Die, Goodbye are both very much successors to the difficult-to-listen-to feel of Pretties. But there's enough here to suggest a more listenable future.

Shoe Salesman is a completely out of place folky acoustic song. Laughing At Me is similarly folky, but with electronics. 

The rest of the songs sit uncomfortably between experimental and a (hard-)rock place. Refrigerator Heaven is relatively straight forward, and the title would return as a lyric for Alice's first solo album (Cold Ethyl on Welcome To My Nightmare). The long-ish (6.54) Below Your Means has slightly more progressive ambitions than the utter madness of Pretties, but has one of those outros which just drags and drags.

Return Of The Spider is a speedy rocker, but also runs on about a minute too long. 

Beautiful Flyaway is a bit of a hidden gem for me. A catchy melody and piano riff with build ups at the end of each verse which pay off. 

Very much a transitional album, this. 

Killer (1971)

Finally, we might have some songs you've heard of!

Under My Wheels and Desperado (allegedly about Jim Morrison) come from Killer. Both are classic rock staples and are still regularly played by Alice live. 

Be My Lover also turns up on compilations sometimes - an oddly simple song about a girl.

Then we get Halo Of Flies. In interviews and liner notes, the band has said that this was an attempt to show the world that 'We can do King Crimson-type stuff too!'. They'd spent much of the previous 2 albums in psychedelic experimental land, but could they mould and form that creativity in to a decent (8+ minute) prog-song?
Damn straight they could. I really like Halo Of Flies. But it's a bit of a bitter/sweet like. You know - a kind of 'if they could do this, why didn't continue?' or 'if they could do this, why were the previous 2 albums so crap?'. 
Either way, great song.

The final 4 songs on the album aren't particularly noteworthy. You Drive Me Nervous is fine. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah is completely forgettable. The title track, Killer, is a bit experimental but loses the plot about 2 minutes before it ends (and goes mental for the last 20 seconds).

And the final song to talk about: Dead Babies. What a title. The lyrics convey an anti-child abuse message, but only Alice Cooper would think that the main chorus line of shouting 'Dead Babies!' was a good idea. I actually quite like this song, the melody is easy to sing along to and the riff is dark and moody. Not one to play loud when not alone though...

Love It To Death (1971)

And so, following 3 strange and unsuccessful albums, Bob Ezrin took over as producer and - in effect - forced the band to learn how to play better and write 'better' songs. Where better means more straightforwardly hard rock.

I'm Eighteen is the main single from the album, and became an anthem for anyone around that age. The lyrics describe the anguish of being between a child/teenager and an adult, with no clue how to act. Although it's a decent enough song, it does feel relatively boring and simple compared to their previous catalogue...

Caught In A Dream, Long Way To Go and Is It My Body round out the 'simple rock songs' of the album. All have decent riffs, and are easy to listen to (which in itself is a huge improvement over previous albums!).

Hallowed Be My Name also comes in under this category, but I feel deserves singling out for its fun wordplay in the title, gritty rhythm, and generally blasphemous content.

Second Coming also has some odd (anti?)religious sentiments, but I'm not such a big fan of it musically.

In the middle of the album is the 9-minute length Black Juju. As Halo of Flies was a response to King Crimson, Black Juju is allegedly an attempt at 'doing a Pink Floyd song'. It's quite an experimental track, feeling more like a better written and produced outtake from one of the previous 2 albums. It's not bad, per se, but because it's mostly the same riff for the duration it does feel its length.

The Ballad Of Dwight Fry is another 'long song' at 6.33, but it's a much better one (and it has easy chords, so I can play it very slowly on guitar...). It has several sections and a really powerful chorus. The lyrics depict an inmate at a mental asylum. It's just great.

The album ends with a peculiar cover of Rolf Harris track Sun Arise... It could have been done as a sunny juxtaposition against the dark themes of the album. But that doesn't make sense post his conviction, and more pertinent is that it's just not worth listening to in general.

Overall, this is the first properly accessible Alice Cooper album. Other than Black Juju, it's pretty simple hard rock. 

School's Out (1972)

Here it is everyone! That song you know! The song that made Alice Cooper a worldwide, household star: School's Out. The anthem to every June/July period as schools and universities break up for the holidays. And what a song. 

Such a recognisable riff, with simple lyrics about finishing school and wanting to blow it up. With that classic line: 'We got no class, we got no principles, and we got no innocence... we can't even think of a word that rhymes!'. I would have gone with 'sense' myself...

The absolutely staggering, unbelievable thing about this album (to me, anyway), is that the title track is the only straight-up rock song on it. Despite Love It To Death's more mainstream direction, on School's Out the band seems to have funnelled all of its radio-friendly songwriting in to one amazing song, so that they could be left alone to carry on doing the weird experimental stuff elsewhere.

Luney Tune is another great bit of wordplay, and I really like the riff (and dat bass). It's almost a rock song, but something about the guitar sounds and ending breakdown make it slightly not-normal. Public Animal #9 also strays close to being a rock song, and probably gets closer than Luney Tune, but it's not what I'd describe as 'mainstream'... and certainly not in the same league as School's Out.

Gutter Cats vs. The Jets is a kind of theatrical piece with a hard-to-find double meaning... I think on the face of it it's meant to be about finding a beautiful girl in the gutter... But given the pseudo-concept over the album (and the following song called Street Fight), I think it's also meant to depict a fight between one school's sports team and another... Hmm. Maybe the girl is meant to be from the other team a la Romeo & Juliet? I don't know.

Later on we have Blue Turk, a kind of vaudeville-esque jazzy number. Echoes of the more swinging Tom Waits songs. 
My Stars is a weird song. I like the quick drum fill parts, and the general crescendo of the piano riff. But I'm quite sure it all fits together in to something listenable.

Alma Mater is a great melancholy song about leaving school for good. Thems were the good old days. 

Followed by the instrumental Grand Finale, which is fine but not particularly necessary.

Just a note on the album as a whole to finish off; there's definitely an air of 'concept album' around School's Out. Lots of the songs deal with school, leaving school, fights between schools. I stop short of calling it a full concept album, though, because songs like Luney Tune and My Stars don't quite fit in to the theme for me... But maybe they do and I can't see it. 

Overall, a weird, proggy, psychedelic album, with one of the biggest classic rock songs of all time shoved at the beginning to fool everyone in to buying it.

Billion Dollar Babies (1973)

The title of this album is a reference to the fact that School's Out projected Alice Cooper from a niche experimental, shock-rock band, to one of the biggest rock bands in the world. They were now Billion Dollar Babies (well, maybe million).

For some reason, BDB opens with a cover of a Judy Collins song: Hello Hooray. The original is quite quick with a really confusing melody line (literally listening to it for the first time while writing this... it's very strange). Alice Cooper slow it right down, add an air of theatrics and sinister undertones, and end up with a perfect song to open concerts with (as Alice still does).  

Raped And Freezin' (only the band who wrote Dead Babies could get away with that title in 1973) is a really catchy song about a young man who hitchhikes his way on to an older woman's lorry, who then tries, and ultimately succeeds, to have sex with him against his will. The lyrics are actually quite funny, and together with its catchiness the song was clearly meant to be a hard juxtaposition. Hey, I like it.

Elected! The re-lyric-ed and re-music-ed Reflected from Pretties For You. Elected is a great satire on politics: 'Everybody had problems, and frankly... I don't care!', and is also super catchy. 
The title track, I'm actually not a big fan of. Seemingly about being in love with a sex-doll (of course it is), I'm just not really in to the music of it.

Unfinished Sweet is a bit of a more experimental-ish song (6.18 minutes) about not wanting to see the dentist... It's fine.

No More Mr. Nice Guy and Generation Landslide are two of the highlights for me. The first is just a straight-forward rock song about a good man turned bad. The second is more complex lyrically, dealing with the different values and politics between parents and children in the 60s and 70s. I love it in particular for a harmonica solo which I can play reasonably convincingly. 

And back in to the experimental realm with Sick Things. Slow, moody, barely any instruments other than very deep bass and drums (and some orchestral parts). These lyrics are about Alice Cooper fans, whom he still refers to as his 'sick things'.

Before the big finale of I Love The Dead we have the completely-out-of-place Mary Ann. A ballad over a piano, with a possible twist that the girl in the song is a transvestite. Very risqué in 1973.

I Love The Dead is about necrophilia. And I think now Alice Cooper were realising that they had a niche, lyrically, and they were doubling down all through this album (Necrophilia would return on Alice's first solo album, Welcome To My Nightmare, on Cold Ethyl). Musically, I'm not big of I Love The Dead, it's a bit too 'musical' and outstays its welcome. 

On the whole, BDB is one of the most well-rounded Alice Cooper albums. The lyrics shock, the music rocks. Job done. 

Muscle Of Love (1973)

The last full album with the original Alice Cooper band together is an odd collection of songs, given the generally experimental and psychedelic nature of the band up until now. Sure, they'd produced the odd straight-forward radio hit (I'm Eighteen, School's Out, No More Mr Nice Guy), but all of the albums had a bit of the theatrical about them. Muscle of Love is a much less complex beast.

To be honest the opener, Big Apple Dreamin' (Hippo), isn't fantastic. It doesn't stand out to me at all. Whereas the second song, Never Been Sold Before, is much better and probably should have been placed as track 1. It's written as a girl's response to a her boyfriend suggesting she should prostitute herself to pay their bills: 'I'm really sick of streets, chicks and dicks, and I'm really sick of you!'. 

Working Up A Sweat is a fun fast-paced rocker with harmonica, what's not to love? Teenage Lament '74 is probably the highlight; following up on the teenage angst of School's Out, it's about not finding happiness trying to fit in with the latest trends and fads. 
Woman Machine rounds off the straight-up rockers, meant as a cynical exploration of what men would do if they had access to robots to fulfil the stereotypical female roles. 

Man With A Golden Gun was written as a Bond theme for the film of the same name (Lulu won, which apparently Christopher Lee was unhappy about). Honestly, it sounds like a Bond theme. It's got trumpets and a riff which sounds like a spin off of the standard Bond theme. Shame it wasn't chosen.
The title track I've never been able to get on with. Something about the music just doesn't hit me right, I can't really explain it. Lyrically it's about discovering masturbation, but it's no Walk This Way. 

The final two songs to mention are the outliers, musically. Hard Hearted Alice is possibly the only ballad the original Alice Cooper group ever recorded. A slow, emotional vocal over mostly synthy keys for the first 2 minutes, but the guitars don't rock it up much. Lyrically, your guess is as good as mine. Sounds to be about going crazy in isolation, but it might not be.
Finally: Crazy Little Child. A swinging, jazzy song, like Blue Turk from School's Out. It's interesting, but a bit weird. 

In all, Muscle of Love is good, but it's not great. It's all a bit safe. Not quite the extravagant, vaudeville-inspired Alice Cooper that they'd built up. 
After this album the Alice Cooper band split up, with Vince taking the name for himself and going solo. It wasn't an acrimonious split though.
The rest have sporadically been in bands and played around, though Glen Buxton died in 1997. 

Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011)
Paranormal (2017)

                                             

I wondered whether to include these, but thought why not?

So rumours spread around both in 2010 and 2015-16 that the original Alice Cooper band were getting back together to record an album. In actual fact, they did get back together but only to record a few tracks for Alice's solo albums. 

3 songs from Welcome 2 My Nightmare (the sequel to Alice's first solo album from 1975) are from the original band. A Runaway Train is a fantastically fast-paced song, which basically details the album's protagonist's descent in to a hellish nightmare on a train with 13 other despicable characters.  

I'll Bite Your Face Off, the album's single, is the second song. It's pretty simple and tame by Alice standards, even if it is about a liaison-gone-wrong when the female character bites the protagonist's face off. 

The third song is When Hell Comes Home. A slow, dark, heavy song that feels oddly out of place on this otherwise fun album. It's about an adult looking back on his childhood, where he had an alcoholic and abusive father whom he ultimately kills to save his mother. 

Looking at Paranormal's tracks is a tad more difficult. Although only the 2 'bonus tracks' are advertised as being the original band, if you read who played on each song then track 3 has Dennis on bass, and track 9 has the full original band playing - although they didn't write it. So I think I'll include 9 but not 3.

Track 9 is called Rats, and it's very short at 2.39. It's fast, energetic, and seems to be a dig at the American public who eat up anything they're given by the media or wherever they get their news. Topical!

Being totally honest, I don't really like either of the two bonus tracks... Genuine American Girl is a bit doo-wap and kitschy, though the lyrics are funny - it's about how being a 'genuine' American girl is to be as fake as possible. 

You And All Your Friends is quite rocky, and probably the better of the two bonus tracks. Another hard to decipher lyrics, but I'd interpret it as being about burning down the town, because what's the point any more? Ish. 

What was the point in me adding these two albums? I'm not sure. To show and evidence that the Alice Cooper group are still friends, are still writing, and can definitely still play! Which is good, because I'm seeing their reunion tour in 3/4 weeks...

-------------------------------------------------

I did not expect Alice Cooper (the band) to sound like they did, based on my experience of both Alice Cooper (the person) and the band's 'greatest hits'. I feel like in the world of 'classic rock', they're a bit of an oddity. They're not rooted in blues, like most of the 70s bands. They're not even explicitly prog most of the time. They're just a bit... weird. They're theatrical, they're shocking, they're rebellious. 

And they basically invented elaborate rock concerts and 'shock rock', so you've got to give them their dues. Even if a lot of the time they're not the easiest band to listen to. 

Rush

I wasn't going to do Rush. I'm half way through Blake Shelton and partly way through Steeleye Span. I should probably finish one of those instead of starting a new one, right? And Martin Popoff has done it again (well, he's done lots, but relevant to me is the one on BÖC) and basically done an album-by-album analysis of the band's career (called, imaginatively: Rush: Album By Album). So what can I add?

Well, I only got in to Rush in about April of this year (2017). Which is shocking for someone who claims to like 70s prog. But somehow I'd mostly avoided them. Sure I knew Tom Sawyer, and the whole of 2112 (the song) is on Guitar Hero 6, but I'd never been gripped. After streaming 2112 from Amazon Music for like the 30th time, though, I felt I owed it to the band to buy the damn album. Coincidentally, a few months earlier a 40th Anniversary edition of 2112 had been released, so I got that and Clockwork Angels as a punt. Well, I LOVE Clockwork Angels, and so I set upon the quickest completion of a discography I've ever done. I bought all of Rush's studio albums in a period of 2 months and have listened to almost nothing but them since (Alice Cooper has a new album out on the 28th of July, so that will break the chain). I also bought the aforementioned book by Popoff.

So I think what I can add is a fresh perspective. Some of the albums I have listened to a lot (Hemispheres has an average of about 32 listens), and some I haven't (Hold Your Fire and Signals average in at around 7-8 listens). But we'll see how I get on.

[Edit 18/02/19 - Geddy and Alex's solo albums have been added at the end]

Rush is:

Geddy Lee - Vocals and bass guitar

Alex Lifeson - Guitar

Neil Peart - Drums (1974-Present)

And also

John Rutsey - Drums (1968-1974)

Rush (1974)

Rush entered the scene in 1974 with their self-titled debut. The only album to feature John Rutsey on drums, who would soon after quit the band due to health issues, it didn't exactly set the world on fire. In fact it was barely played on radio at all for a while, before a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio thought that their working-class population would appreciate the album closer Working Man. That got the ball rolling and eventually the band were getting regular radio play over most of America.

So what is the only Peart-less Rush album like? Well I'm going to partly agree with almost every critic ever and say that it sounds like a Led Zeppelin tribute band. I don't really like it a whole lot...

Finding My Way is a fantastic speedy rocky opener, followed by the groovy Need Some Love. But then Take A Friend is a bit of a dull straightforward bluesy rocker, followed by the unjustifiably long Here Again which plods along, and along, and along. The next 3 songs are kind of fine but not spectacular (What You're Doing hints at a proggy future, but no more than hints).

We close with the song that made them: Working Man. To be fair, this is a good song. Slow, heavy openers and closers sandwich a speedy solo middle. What is noticeable, however, is the simplicity of the lyrics. Throughout the album, actually, the lyrics cover the same old rock staples of women, women and, uh, working hard? But they're not interesting to listen to.

On the whole, Rush is fine.

Fly By Night (1975)

Immediately, the opening 5 seconds of Anthem on Fly By Night punch you in the face in a way which their debut album wouldn't dare. The ferocity of the playing pulls back a bit for much of the rest of the song, but you can tell this is a different band. The lyrics as well are already on a higher plane, for the most part.

Beneath, Between & Behind is similar to the previous album musically, but elevated by the fantasy lyrics. This is then followed by Rush's first proper stab at a 'long song' (at 8.40 minutes) with By-Tor And The Snow Dog... Although one can appreciate the endeavour, this Snow Dog bit off more than it could chew. It's mostly coherent until about 4.30 where there is literally 2 full minutes of ambient sounds with chimes. This is allegedly meant to symbolise the aftermath of a big fight, but it doesn't half kill the buzz (and feel like filler).

Fly By Night is a pretty perfect Rush radio-song. It's upbeat, light and accessible. Hard to dislike.

The final 3 songs of the album kind of leave a bad taste for me personally. Making Memories would be ok as a (mostly) acoustic song to break things up, but it's then followed by the super soft Rivendell and In The End.

Rivendell is a slow, beautiful acoustic song which describes the elven land from the Tolkien books. But it's got no place on a Rush album. Would have sounded good coming from John Martyn, or perhaps Al Stewart, mind.

In The End has a good middle 2 minutes, but the looooong build up and repetitive outro do drag on. It very much feels its 6.47 length.

So Rush are improving. They're trying to progress and be more inventive, but they're still not hitting their stride.

Caress of Steel (1975)

Rush are very good at picking opening songs. In fact, almost every album opens with often the (or one of the) best song on the album - and this is allegedly on purpose according to Geddy in some interviews. Bastille Day is my favourite song on this album by a mile. It follows Anthem in having a blistering opening few seconds before settling in to the song proper, but it's still great and has some proggy turns at the end of the solo.

The second song splits people a bit: I Think I'm Going Bald. Written as a kind of jokey response to KISS's Goin' Blind, whom they were touring a lot with. Some think it's a bit too silly for these revered prog rockers, but I think it's fun.

Lakeside Park is alright. That's about all I have to say about that.

We end the album with 2 long songs. The first is The Necromancer (12.32), another Tolkien tribute. The middle section (called 'Under The Shadow') is a heavy Sabbath-like song, and I quite like it. But it's sandwiched by about 4 minutes of ambient noise with distorted spoken voice over at the start, and 4 minutes of jolly soft rock which is a bit meh.

The second long song is properly long: The Fountain of Lamneth (19.58). It's hard to describe or review Lamneth... it's kind of a mess. There's no real flow from each section/movement to the next. The lyrics often feel forced, and it's kind of hard to tell what the song's about. I'm in good company, though, as the band themselves don't look back very fondly on their first attempt at a properly long prog epic.

I do like parts of the opening and ending though.

Interestingly, Popoff believes that Caress might be the first ever 'prog metal' album. So even if on the whole it's not great, it's very significant.

2112 (1976)

Here we go, now we're talking. The title track, 2112, was Rush's second stab at a 20 minute song. This time, they got it spot on. Split in to 7 sections, 2112 tells the story of a dystopian future where music has been eradicated and forgotten. Our hero finds a guitar in a cave, and enthusiastically shows off his discovery to the rulers of the world: the Priests of Syrinx. The Priests are unimpressed, and our hero is left to ponder whether he should try and spread music amongst the masses against the Priests' wishes.

Every section is interesting, the instrumentation is impressive and compelling. I love this song. Plus, the final section rocks like hell.

The rest of this album often gets overlooked, including by me, but there's a lot of good stuff. A Passage To Bangkok is a fun ode to the green leaf. Lessons and Something For Nothing are reasonably simple rock songs which hark back to the sound of earlier albums.

To me, The Twilight Zone is neither here not there. The verses are ok, but the weird vibe they go for in the choruses loses me.

Tears is a gentle acoustic song like Rivendell, and like its predecessor sounds completely out of place. But unlike Rivendell I think Tears sounds ok coming from Geddy's voice. And also unlike Rivendell, Tears is surrounded by rock songs, and so it feels more like a break than an extension of punishment.

A Farewell to Kings (1977)

Recorded in my own back yard of South Wales, A Farewell To Kings is a properly prog album, though a tad less heavy that 2112 and Caress.

The opening title track seamlessly skips between several different movements, though I think this might be one of the only albums in Rush's history where the opener isn't quite a strong as it could have been. The problem, I guess, is that Cinderella Man is the only song on the album which doesn't start soft, but it's not quite good enough to warrant opening.

The second track is the fan-favourite Xanadu (11.07). 2 minutes of ambient noise intro lead in to a twangy guitar 7/8 section, followed by a more standard 4/4 band-wide rock out... with synthesisers! Although they'd been hidden in the background of 2112, they are front and centre on parts of this song (and album). 5 minutes in and we get the first vocals which focus on a quest for immortality. This is how to do an interesting and fun 10+ minute song. Eat that Necromancer and By-Tor.
Also, when played live Alex and Geddy both play double-necked guitars (Ged's has bass and guitar) and it looks ridiculous and brilliant.

The next 3 songs do feel a bit like filler to me, if I'm honest. Closer To The Heart is also a fan-favourite, and does just enough for me to reach the kind of level of Lessons from 2112, but I'm less convinced. Cinderella Man also fits in to that kind of 'yeah it's a Rush rock song' category. Madrigal, however, I always skip: slow synthy fantasy nonsense.

We close with a second 10+ minute song: Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage. This is the first part of a 30 minute piece which is finished on the next album. Book 1 tracks our protagonist who decides to explore a black hole (X-1) in the Cygnus constellation, and basically flies a spaceship straight in to it. The music, though, is fantastic. The changing time signatures keeps the listener on their toes, and I still haven't worked out what they're playing between 8.07 and 8.33. The last 3 minutes really help picture the pilot's experience as his body, mind and soul are ripped apart as he approaches the black hole. (Yes, liberties with the science of black holes are taken).

On the whole, the long songs rule this album, and the short songs are fine to break them up.

Hemispheres (1978)

Easily my favourite Rush album, Hemispheres has a whole 4 songs!

We open with Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres (18.08). Lyrically, going through the black hole has led us to Olympus where there is currently a great battle being waged between logic, led by Apollo, and emotion, led by Dionysus. Nice and simple, then. Book II isn't quite as... well, mad as Book I musically. Sure, there are still lots of time signature and tempo changes, but it's not as jarring or heavy. For my money, I prefer Book I, but because I group the two songs together I never really listen to one without the other.

Next is, coincidentally, both mine and Popoff's favourite Rush song: Circumstances. As he says in his book, the song is 'in a sleight-of-hand bend of the universe, somehow under four minutes long' (p54). The complexity and length of the riff, the synth breakdown in the middle, the solo... somehow all coming in at the length of a 'normal' song. It's heavy, and I just can't get enough of that riff man. Plus ça change.

The Trees is third. It starts of acoustic and slow, and has lyrics about a conflict between different types of trees (sometimes Neil, I wonder...) giving one an unease that we've got another Rivendell on our hands, but then breaks out in to a rock song. Phew. Solid Rush song, no complaints.

Closing the album is the instrumental epic La Villa Strangiato (9.35). This song allegedly took longer to record than the entire Fly By Night album, and you can tell. It's so intricate, so self-indulgent (the subtitle to the song is 'An Exercise in Self-Indulgence), and so brilliant in every way. You can't help but marvel at their technical prowess.

So yes. If you want Rush at their proggiest and best, get Hemispheres.

Permanent Waves (1980)

So this and the next album are Rush in a transition period, from prog rock/metal to synth-pop. There are still heavy-ish elements on this album, but on the whole this is a much softer affair than the previous few albums.

We're back to a 'first song is best' mentality with this album, as Spirit of Radio is just amazing. There's something about the riff used to transition between sections (at 0.15-0.20 and 3.35-3.40) that I just love. We get a bit of reggae influence at the end as well, which is interesting. Peart was listening to a lot of The Police around this time apparently, and we get more reggae nods in future albums too.

The second song, Freewill, is also pretty great, and acts as one of the two most explicitly 'atheist' songs Rush wrote (the other being Faithless on Snakes & Arrows). It describes the virtues of freewill, and that not making a choice is itself a choice.

Jacob's Ladder is the first long song, though it's a short one at only 7.29. I'm not a huge fan of this song. I like the outro, but it's a bit slow and plodding for a lot of its runtime. Entre Nous which follows falls in to that 'yep, that's a Rush rock song' category of being fine but not stand-out. Then Different Strings is an acoustic driven song which does nothing much for me.

Closing is the other long song, Natural Science (9.18). After what I'm just now realising is the usual ambient intro with some spoken vocals, the song proper starts about 1.45 in. There's some great 7/8 in there, and it's just generally quite a nice song to listen to. It never quite feels 'heavy' though, signalling the softer direction the band was going in.

This is a weird album for me. I love the opening two tracks, the final track is quite good, but the rest I never feel compelled to seek out. This was also the last album I had to get to complete my collection, so maybe it'll grow on me more (currently has an average play of 13, though Spirit skews the average up quite a bit).

Moving Pictures (1981)

The most popular Rush album, Moving Pictures shot the band into superstardom. If anything, this is slightly heavier than Permanent Waves (going in blind you might swap them around in terms of sound progression of the band).

What can I say about Tom Sawyer? Most people know this song as a classic radio rock song which, when you think about the amount of 7/8 in it, is kind of odd. Those drum fills tho.

Before listening to live versions, I didn't really like Red Barchetta that much. And to be honest, I still don't like the studio version that much... it just sounds a bit passionless to me for some reason.

If La Villa Strangiato is one of the best rock instrumental 'pieces' of all time, then YYZ is one of the best rock instrumental songs. Unlike a lot of instrumentals, YYZ genuinely feels like a song. Written as an ode to Toronto airport (which is the band's home airport), the musical skills on display by all 3 members are just astounding.

Another fan favourite, Limelight is pretty great. The lyrics are a response to Peart's unease at his fame, and how it intrudes in to his private life. If I'm being critical, it sounds a bit too radio friendly, but I like it.

For being the Rush's most famous album, I don't really care much for the final 3 songs. The Camera Eye is Rush's last ever long song (11.01), and takes a full 2.45 before anything exciting starts happening. I appreciate some of the latter parts of the song, but I rarely make it that far.

Witch Hunt is dark, slow and broody. Vital Signs has chop guitars throughout, giving a distinct reggae feel. Neither of these songs do much for me, though the latter is alright live.

So a mix. One of those occasions where I think the popular songs on the album are popular for a reason.

Signals (1982)

Seconds in to this album and you can already feel the layers of synthesisers and keyboards weighing down on you. As it happens although the opener, Subdivisions, barely has any audible guitar in it until the solo, it's still probably the best song on the album (and infinitely better live as well).

I feel for this and the next 2/3 albums I'm not going to have much interesting to say... You see, Rush are not merely a 'prog' band, they are literally progressive. That means experimenting. In the 80s, new technologies and ways of making music opened even more avenues for experimenting. Although Rush would eventually return to a more classically 'prog' sound, which I believe I'm right in saying most fans prefer, I think we would have been disappointed had Rush not continued trying to push the boundaries. (See a similar argument I make for Tull's Under Wraps)

So with that mini-speech out of the way... I kind of like New World Man and Countdown? The former sounds like a distant cousin from something off Permanent Waves, and the latter sounds like a similar relative of Moving Pictures.

The rest though, I can't say I like it. Popoff believes that this is the best of the 'synth' albums, and is much better than some give it credit for. He might be right about it being the best of synth, but I can't agree with the other half of that.

Grace Under Pressure (1984)

Umm... That artwork is pretty amazing isn't it? The water is so life-like and the way the storm clouds blend with the red inky patches is pretty lovely.
Oh the music? Right.

The opener, Distant Early Warning, is pretty good to be fair. I'd quite happily listen to that almost any time. The Enemy Within has a pretty catchy 80s chorus too. And Red Lenses has some fun 'Red Terror' lyrics.

I can't say I much care for this album though. Maybe it's one of those albums I'll rediscover in like 3 years and decide was actually genius. Who knows?

Power Windows (1985)

Not so keen on this artwork. Equally not keen on the music.

Once again, the opener Big Money is probably the best we get. Although Marathon has its moments.

A tangent: if you've read my Jethro Tull post then you may remember Under Wraps, the album where Tull when full synth-pop. I liked that album because although it was a huge left turn for Tull, it still sounded like Tull. For all of the stuff I don't like about Signals and Grace, they still sound like Rush. Power Windows does not sound like Rush. It sounds like 3 people on keyboards who are backed by Rush.

We still get some great bass (mainly Marathon) and Neil Peart is always great. Alex, however, may as well not be there.

Popoff thinks that Alex's guitars sound 'jagged', and I agree. Maybe reflecting his frustration with being side-lined?

As an 80s album, Power Windows is fine. As anything else, it's not.

Hold Your Fire (1987)

Somehow, not being content with the level of 80s Rush had achieved on the previous 3 albums, they decided to turn the 80s up even more. (By the way, Peter Collins produced this and the previous album. Of course he did.)

Although Power Windows has a weak claim to being synth-rock, Hold Your Fire is a synth-pop album through and through. The main single, Time Stand Still, and its accompanying video, are so 80s it hurts. But it's a decent pop song.

Nothing on this album has any bite though. Nothing grabs you and demands to be listened to. Worth mentioning is Tai Shan, an embarrassing attempt to sound a bit Chinese - it makes you cringe in the same way that Let Go by BÖC does.

Skip this album if the reason you like Rush (like me) is that you like the 2112 era stuff.

Presto (1989)

Almost out of the 80s. Unlike the last 4 albums which had each progressively dug Rush's synthy grave deeper and deeper, Presto feels like they realised what they were doing, threw away the shovel and began the slow process of clawing their way out. Only tentative steps, mind.  

Show Don't Tell right off the bat places Alex's guitars front and centre with an almost heavy intro into an almost rock song. Later on, Superconductor is also almost a rock song. I like these songs more than they probably deserve, if just because it feels like they're trying harder than songs on previous albums.

Honestly, the rest of the album is pretty synth-poppy though. Red Tide in particular over-synths itself. But I like this album so much more than the previous 4. The only way to explain this really is through the songwriting, which feels tighter, more focussed, and more interesting.

Anagram (For Mongo) is particularly fun, with each line of the lyrics involving anagrams of some sort.

I often like to listen to discographies in chronological order and experience the evolution. With Rush, the last two times I've done this I skipped Signals, Grace, Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, restarting with Presto.

Maybe this is sacrilege. But I just feel it's like skipping the Sam and Frodo bits in Two Towers and Return of the King.

Roll The Bones (1991)

I think you can call this a rock album, just about. It's pretty similar to Presto in all honesty. A couple of rock songs (Dreamline, Roll The Bones (sort of)) mixed amongst a lot of synthy pop.

Lyrical themes across the album are about taking chances, rolling them dice (bones). Peart is on form for the most part here.
My two stand-outs here are Roll The Bones and Where's My Thing? The former became a tad infamous for that rap verse. Yep, Rush made a song with a rap verse. Somehow, it's both awful and amazing at the same time. Where's My Thing? is an instrumental and, while not on YYZ level, is interesting for its funky sound.

Songs like The Big Wheel, Face Up and Neurotica showcase Rush's ability to write good 80s pop songs. Bravado, Heresy and Ghost Of A Chance slow things down and ask to be taken seriously.

Much like Presto, I feel like Roll The Bones is a step in the right direction. The songwriting had a vague concept to work around, and they were writing the songs with the assistance of technology rather than being guided by it.

Counterparts (1993)

I met a guy recently who had the nut and screw on this album cover tattooed on his arm. I called it out and he said that I'm the first person to 'get it' in 3 years. Odd.

Anyway, Counterparts continues the journey out of the synthy grave. The album has kind of been mythologised to an extent, as at the time it was seen as 'Rush are back to rock!'. But taking a step back, sure the guitars have been turned up but other than the opening two songs, Animate and Stick It Out, which are both reasonably heavy (relative to the rest of Rush's output since Moving Pictures), we're still kind of in Presto and Roll The Bones territory songwriting-wise.

Nobody's Hero is a pretty touching song about people who are everyday heroes, and The Speed of Love is a decent ballad. Alien Shore also deserves a mention as one of my favourite songs from the album.

It's often said that Counterparts feels a bit grungy, a bit indie, as Rush often draw on contemporary influences. I'm not as persuaded by this argument as some others, but some of the remaining songs do have an indie air about them. On the other hand songs like Everyday Glory are quite bright sounding, acting as a counterpoint(/part?) to the darker sounding songs.

But on the whole a solid album, if not quite as proggy or rocky as their 70s heyday.

Test For Echo (1996)

Sometimes I can't quite put my feelings towards an album in to words unless I read someone else's opinion. So it is with Test For Echo.

I like this album, I do. The opening, title, track is proggy and rocky. The second and fifth songs, Driven and Time And Motion, have some odd time signatures and are heavier than much of the last 10 years of Rush songs. Virtuality has a great riff which, had they thought of it 20 years earlier, would have made a better song.

But despite the heavy songs, it doesn't feel heavy. Popoff describes it as 'weirdly heavy on paper but softly appointed to death' (p142). He's right. The songwriting may have been right, but the production is just a bit too light, a bit too airy, a bit too glossy. But it's not just the production. Apart from, perhaps, Driven, it all feels a bit like the band are going through the motions. On autopilot.

Which is a shame, I think. This album needs revisiting. Steeleye Span did this with Now We Are Six (1974), rerecording it in 2011 as Now We Are Six Again. It might be too late given their eyes towards retirement (and fans' preference for new music), but I think it might be worth a second attempt.

Vapour Trails (2002) & Vapour Trails Remixed (2013)

This album can't be discussed without a bit of context, so for those that don't know Rush's history, in 1997/8 Neil Peart's only daughter and wife died (which is understating it). This led to a long hiatus period and uncertainty about the future of the band.
Eventually, Peart decided that he wanted to continue drumming, and so in 2001 Rush entered the studio. 14 months(!) later, they were done. Unlike every other Rush album ever, no songs were pre-written before entering the studio. Basically, the band would jam for hours and days at a time, recording as they went. Then they would listen back and try and pick out the good parts. Those good parts were then assembled and 'songs' were made.

Now, Popoff picks this album out as one of his favourites. I'm not as convinced. I agree with him that this was the only album they could have made in the circumstances. It was an album they had to make. You can feel the passion, the energy, the drive. And it's actually quite heavy - there are no synths at all... somehow.

But my god does it sound a mess. The songs feel unstructured, and don't really go anywhere. They sound very much the 'spliced together jams' that they are. Moreover, a lot of the songs feel very samey. When one of these songs come on at random, I usually think 'well this could be one of 3 or 4 songs from Vapour Trails'.

All of this is not to say that this album is bad. One Little Victory, Ghost Rider and Earthshine are all interesting songs. But this album isn't for me.

It also wasn't for a lot of people, originally. The original album was mixed 'hot', loud, and heavily used dynamic range compression. There was so much criticism, in fact, that Rush eventually commissioned a remix which was released in 2013. The difference is a bit staggering actually. The remix is much better in every way, but it doesn't change the songs.

Feedback (2004)

So... next for Rush was an album (well, a long EP? What do you call an album of 8 songs at <30mins?) of covers of rock classics... Rarely predictable, are they?

It's very strange hearing Rush just turn the volume up and do an all out rocking album. No weird time signatures here. It reminds me of the recent Hollywood Vampires album actually - taking old classics and making them heavier and louder.

I'm not particularly well qualified to talk about this album... I'd previously only heard of 2/8 of the songs before (The Seeker and For What It's Worth). So I'll make this one short: It's pretty good. It doesn't break new ground, but there's something weird and fun about hearing Rush play some 'ordinary' songs.

Snakes & Arrows (2007)

This album starts so intensely: Far Cry hits hard and fast. You get the impression that this album is a statement. Kind of 'Last time, we were finding out feet again. This time, we know exactly what we're doing'. There's a sense of purpose, of drive - but this time it's moulded and not just flailing wildly. The lyrics weave around themes of faith (well, a lack of) and one's place in the world: Rush are back, now what?

Honestly, this and the next album factor in to my top 5 Rush albums. Far Cry, Workin' Them Angels, The Way The Wind Blows, Bravest Face. They're all heavy (with a smattering of acoustic guitar) with proggy elements. And they all feel like songs.

As mentioned on Permanent Waves, Faithless is a relative of Freewill. A kind of atheist anthem to rival Imagine by John Lennon, and one of Geddy's favourite Rush songs apparently.

Although Rush often had a token instrumental on their albums, this one has 3! The Main Monkey Business has a La Villa Strangiato feel about it (though not as complex), Hope is an Alex solo venture on acoustic guitar, and Malignant Narcissism is a grammy-nominated song inspired by Team America on which Geddy plays a fretless bass... Cool.

There's so much to like about this album. It's not nostalgia driven, or particularly backward facing. But it evokes the Rush of the late 70s period.

Clockwork Angels (2012)

And here we are, somehow with Rush's first ever concept album. Sure, the long songs were always concept songs but, given their status as prog legends, it beggars belief that it took until album 20 for the entire record to be a concept.

So, what's this about? Well, it's set in a sort of steampunk world ruled over by the Watchmaker - a sort of detail obsessed dictator. Our protagonist goes on an adventure after being labelled an anarchist. It's about the battle between chaos and order. Though ultimately our protagonist rejected both camps and goes away to live his own free life. So not a million miles away from 2112 in the 'pro freedom' message. There's a book and graphic novel of the story as well, though I've not read them.

What's it sound like? Amazing. The fullness of the sound is like no other Rush album. For the fans who 'survived' the 80s albums, if it took that foray in to synth pop for them to come back around to make this album then it was all worth it.

Caravan and BU2B open the album. However heavy Caravan is, and however many sections it has, BU2B feels like it's trying to outdo Caravan at every turn. Oddly, I think BU2B sounds a bit like an early Muse song. But don't let that put you off...

I could pick out and talk about every single song on this album. I love all of them (BU2B2 is a bit meh but works in the story as a reprise of the first BU2B). And although there aren't any long songs, 5 songs are (approximately) 7 minutes long! 

But The Wreckers deserves special mention. It's a bit radio-friendly perhaps, but in a good way. As in it's just so damn catchy. I just can't get the chorus out of my head whenever I hear it. 'All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary, of a miracle too good to be true'.

The strings as well. Much like how in the early synth albums, they were used to enhance the sound rather than drive it, on The Garden a strings orchestra (who are around for much of the album) really comes in to its own and builds the album to a beautiful finish.

Just, get this album.

--------------------------------

So, Rush. Reading back, you get the impression I don't actually like a lot of these albums. And... well that's kind of true. If you like a band, you don't have to like everything they do. Aerosmith, Jethro Tull, Blue Öyster Cult. They all have duff albums or periods. It just so happens that, in my opinion, Rush had a particularly long duff period.

Sandwiched around the 80s, though, is some of the most interesting, inventive and moving prog music I've ever heard.

I guess I should try out Yes next?

The Solo Albums

[Added 18/02/2019]

When I go all in, I go all in. Not being satisfied having all of Rush's albums, I dived into the solo material. What I found was... exactly what I expected, if a little low on quantity. 
Neil has never recorded a solo album, though he has guested on a variety of other band's albums. He has also produced a few compilation/tribute albums but I've yet to feel the need to explore these. 
Alex and Geddy, however, have one a piece. And it is to these I will now turn...

Victor (1996)

This is a peculiar album. Firstly, the artist is officially also labelled 'Victor', as Alex did not seem particularly interested in promoting the album due to commitments to recording the next Rush album Test For Echo. This also makes (and made) the album annoyingly difficult to find. Secondly, this album is a concept album... Or, at least, it seems to be.

Victor is a poem by English poet WH Auden, published in 1938. It's quite long, and chronicles a timid man's love for a women, who may have been unfaithful, and his eventual descent into insanity where he kills her. It's more complicated and nuanced than that, but you get the gist.
The title track, second to last on the album, is an abridged spoken narrative of the poem, by Alex, set to what sounds like the soundtrack to a 70s detective-cartoon.

The concept-y-ness comes from the fact that the rest of the songs from the album seem to attempt to add to, and flesh out, the story and themes from the poem. But according to some interviews with Alex, other than the title track, he approached the songs without any particular ideas in mind. So either he's being obfuscatory, or he made a concept album by accident.

The links between the album and poem are much more interestingly dealt with in this blog post, so I'll instead focus on how I, as a Rush fan, feel about this album.
http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/transcripts/20040900chapterverse.htm

Honestly, it's a rollercoaster. Track 3, Start Today, is frankly my favourite song I've heard in months and I can't stop listening to it. The lady vocalist, Dalbello, sounds suspiciously similar to Geddy Lee, but puts in such an impressive vocal performance I don't care - just listen to her hold the notes on the word "To-day".
The rest of the rockers (Don't Care, The Big Dance, Promise, Sending Out A Warning), which all use Canadian vocalist Edwin of I Mother Earth (me neither...), are all good enough, though none stand out. Softer rocker, I Am The Spirit, is also fine, and has some nice solo work in it.
The instrumentals Mr. X and Strip And Go Naked are also pretty fun for showcasing Alex's (often overlooked in favour of Geddy and Neil's) skills. I also like the fact that even the seemingly straightforward rock songs mix in some proggy time signatures and section-breaks.

And then there are the spoken word pieces At The End and the aforementioned Victor. They work as conceptual pieces of art, but they don't half dull the (mostly) rocky sound of the album. I tend to skip them now...

Also here is the admittedly novelty/joke song Shut Up Shuttin' Up. Which is a rocky instrumental with Alex's wife and her best friend having a wine-fuelled bitch about men and their failings. I did chuckle the first few times, but, like the spoken-word pieces, it kind of just gets in the way on repeat album-listens.

So overall - I'd definitely recommend it to Rush fans. The good is great, and the rest is... kind-of forgettable.
It showcases Alex's guitarwork soon after the Rush period where he may as well have not been there, plus Alex wrote all the lyrics, which is a first.

My Favourite Headache (2000)

Geddy's album was written and recorded when it was thought by most that Rush was over (see above under Vapour Trails). Like Alex, he wrote all of the lyrics which was a departure from Neil doing them. Unlike Alex, this isn't a confusingly complicated concept album. And I think it's a great album title...

The first (title) track is by far and away the best one on the album - which is a classic Rush move. The bass riff is hard and funky at the same time, and the slow breaks keep things proggy. 
It seems the album was purposely book-ended, because the other track that clearly stands out is the last one - Grace To Grace. It's not particularly rocky, but it's just got good songwriting. 

I'm finding it difficult to say much of interest about the 9 songs in-between. Home On The Strange is a really fun proggy track. Runaway Train is also a song I stop and pay attention to. It's not that the middle 9 songs are bad, it's just that they're not quite as interesting as the book-ends. Perhaps it's because there isn't a huge tempo variance that some of the tracks blend together. 

A general negative that I think runs throughout the album is the (mostly) impenetrable lyrics. I read that Grace To Grace is allegedly about his mother's WW2 experience. And the title track, on the surface, seems to be about watching too much TV. But there's a general feeling that Geddy is trying to write like Neil, in that he's trying to tackle big issues with intelligence and detail, but can't quite make the metaphors obvious enough for the average person to 'get' them. I certainly don't - most of the lyrics don't really make sense to me. 

But does that matter? No. Because for all intents and purposes this is a Rush album. The headline message is: it basically sounds like Test For Echo. Other than the opening track, the album isn't particularly rocky - it's 'medium' rocky. But if you like Test For Echo, you'll like this. 

Holistically, I prefer this album to Victor, simply because it's much more consistent. There isn't a bad song - it's all either good or better. However, Start Today off of Victor is the best song from between the two. So I'm glad I bought both!

-------------------------------

Hopefully, Geddy and Alex will record something again. Neil may have retired, but the other two have expressed interest in recording again in some capacity. 
And if they can produce music of this quality, then I'm all for it. It can't be worse than Grace Under Pressure!