The Album Review Club - End of Round #9 Break (page 1904)

Saddleworth2 said:
I know. All these 10/10s. Bloody hell.
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I feel reasonably confident this record will have the widest dispersion of scores on the thread for quite some time. Rush fans are actual fanatics almost like Grateful Dead fans are, and if you don't like them you probably really, really don't like them. My experience is that there haven't been many folks who say, "Meh, they're okay."
 
BlueHammer85 said:
I’m on 4th listen
Will listen to it as much as poss before deadline
Don’t understand how some posters can review it the next day after a couple listens
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I didn't need to even listen. I know this one by heart. First time that's happened; even for the ones, I nominated I listened several times.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
I feel reasonably confident this record will have the widest dispersion of scores on the thread for quite some time. Rush fans are actual fanatics almost like Grateful Dead fans are, and if you don't like them you probably really, really don't like them. My experience is that there haven't been many folks who say, "Meh, they're okay."
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I Have read that Rush fans are the ‘trekies’ of music.
 
OB1 said:
His drumming is very good but it doesn't catch my attention the same way as people like Peart, Bonham and Moon. His technique may be better, I'm a music fan not a musician but in Yes Anderson, Squire, Howe and Wakeman are what I hear first. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Bruford thought he was too good for Yes though.
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C'mon OB, that's rubbish. He left at the height of their success, after making Close To The Edge, 1, because of clashing personalities between band members (a hallmark of Yes) and 2 he loved King Crimson and he wanted to play more Jazz influenced music, he loved King Crimson's music and R Fripp offered him a job as their drummer.
He's retired now btw.
For me BB was one one of Rocks most outstanding drummers, (Fog mentioned Copeland, and I agree).
He introduced intricate rhythms into Yes's complicated brand of music. He listened to a lot of Jazz and eventually created his own band playing Jazz/Rock fusion. Earthworks,,,,Brilliant stuff.
Alan White was a good competent drummer with Yes up to his death but they were denuded without Brufford. You could hear the difference when they played the older stuff with Alan. I really don't understand how Bill has zero drumming personality.
I'm not saying Bill is the easiest guy in the world (most genius's aren't) but to accuse him of thinking himself "too good" for Yes is unfair.

www.yahoo.com

Bill Bruford on His Ups and Downs With Yes and King Crimson, Life After Retirement

Ten years into his post-drumming life, the percussion legend reflects on playing with British prog's holy trinity, making the jump to jazz with Earthworks, and more
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
 
BimboBob said:
I've broken with a long standing tradition with this album. It got 4 listens. 1 with headphones, one after a few scotches and 2 "normal" ones.

I'm sticking to my mid-assessment.

Technically great but there appears to be a lack of anything regarding emotion. The leader "singer" shouldn't really be singing, if you can call it that, my old man used to call it caterwauling. It's 7 songs of expert playing with very little soul. The whole album appears to be a great big "listen to us, we are masters of our playing craft." Which would be all fine and dandy if the songs actually stood up to be counted as songs. They don't. They all follow the same routine, caterwauling, drums (expert), guitar (very good) etc etc...before ending. We shall gloss over the lyrics which are very "proggy" and apart from Red Barchetta are without meaning or nonsense.

It would appear the band exist to promote their excellent skills.

2/10
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Yeah, you've summed up my feelings about Rush.
As most on this thread know I'm a prog fan. But there's some bands, under the umbrella I don't like, Rush being one, Dream Theatre being another, and the kings of showoffidness ELP.
I don't like ostentatiousness in music without emotion. Gentle Giant suffered from this as well and in my opinion these bands, like ELP finished prog. It was all getting too "look how fucking clever we are"
I even hated Rick's silver cape in Yes :)

But Yes and Genesis played exceptionally moving and emotionally accessible music (eg And You And I & the guitar solo in Firth of Forth) and could also rock out hard with the best of them.
Rush are like a machine to me. Prog by numbers ? I never liked the vocals (but I admit that's entirely subjective).
They are lacking in emotion for me.

I know they have an army of fans and good for them. All music is subjective.
3/10 (sorry OB)
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Rush is the most pretentious band that has ever existed, and I write this knowing full well that Emerson, Lake & Palmer were also once a band. Even worse, Rush drummer Neil Peart was an Ayn Rand fan, which should be an instant disqualifier for a rock musician.

Each Rush band member either independently or collectively decided that demonstration of dominant mastery over his instrument was the primary goal for creating music, rather than having important, funny or even interesting things to say about the state of the world or other people. I often wonder whether they never wrote love songs because no women would get within 20 feet of them before they got rich; certainly, no women like Rush and no women like Rush fans.

At the time of Moving Pictures, and of Permanent Waves that came before it, Rush was belatedly realizing that fewer and fewer humans were interested in 23-minute long epic songs about a Dungeons and Dragons character. Or a spaceship. Or a Dungeons and Dragons character piloting a spaceship. Into a black hole. I refer you all to “Cygnus X-1 Book II” -- nice title, you fucking geeks -- on side one of Hemispheres, which actually also IS the entirety OF side one of Hemispheres.

Even the nerds dwelling in the nerdery which was any concert hall in which Rush took up residency were starting to get a little bored, if not confused.

As such, to retain some level of popularity as disco and punk began to pound away at either edges of rock music, in the late 70s and early 80s, Rush embarked upon yet another epic journey: one of minimizing time signature changes to only once or twice per song, instead of 27, and cutting down compositions to 11 minutes or fewer. Permanent Waves was their first go, and an uneven one, but Moving Pictures perfected the transition from musical uber-dork-dom to whatever what they thought ”new wave” was.

This transition is as ham-handed as it is misguided.

Side one kicks off with “Tom Sawyer”, AKA the Song That All Drummers Say Is Very Difficult To Play, and if familiar with Rush’s earlier work, one is suddenly struck by the fact that the lyrics bear no resemblance to the sci fi and fantasy schlock of old Rush nor the insipid deep philosophy of new Rush (e.g. from Waves: “I will choooo-se . . . {dramatic pause} . . . freeeeewill”!). This is good until you look at the liner notes and learn Neil Peart didn’t write the lyrics, but some friend of his did, which is why they are not terrible.

Next comes “Red Barchetta”, an interesting song about a time when cars are banned, nearly ruined by Geddy Lee’s castrato vocals in which it appears his testicles disappear up his scrotum, into his abdomen and gradually make their way out his body entirely. Seriously, this is as close as a man has come to imitating the frequency of a dog whistle. “YYZ” follows, and is an instrumental about Toronto’s airport (I guess), blessed in that Geddy Lee’s high-octave shriek is nowhere to be heard.

And then there’s “Limelight”, a song that carries with it probably my greatest pet peeve of any in popular music -- millionaire rock stars incessantly bitching and moaning about how tough life is on the road. Nothing is preventing you from becoming Steely Dan, fellows -- just hide in the studio and collect your checks.

Side two begins with “The Camera Eye”, a song with some poetic observations about New York and London (Wait. What happened to how much they hate the road???) in which it seems the big reveal is that New York is busy and London has fog. Well, then.

Next comes “Witch Hunt” (subtitled “Part III of Fear”, which is odd given that Parts II and I come on later records by the way, and, yeah, the Roman numerals means This Is Important) which appears to reach the brilliant conclusion that ignorance and prejudice and fear are connected in some way. I am pleased we have Rush to point out this nuanced and unexplored perspective.

Finally we have “Vital Signs”, which is a particularly unusual closer, largely because hearing three white Canadians trying to perform reggae is equal parts sad and hilarious, especially when classic lines about one love and jammin’ and joints being smoked in the morning are replaced by lines about “feverish flux” and “reverse polarity”, whatever the fuck these mean.

Despite all of this, there still remains a singular, nagging, impenetrable problem about Rush and Moving Pictures.

And here it is:

While I honestly believe that (almost) everything I wrote above is true . . . this is one of my top six favo(u)rite records of all time.

It’s a record I cherish; a record I know every single note and word to; a record I still play air drums, guitar and bass to in my 50s(!); a record that reminds me of how blissful youth was; a record that still amazes me with the virtuosity and dexterity of the players no matter the lyrics, the vocals, the song length or the lack of theme.

The best way to put it?

This is the record I lost my aural virginity to. It was my very first “favo(u)rite” record.

And you never forget your first.

I know I can’t ever, ever quit it. I’ll always be hopelessly, desperately in love with it.

God fucking dammit.

10/10.
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That's a great review Fog (even if I don't agree with a lot of it) :)
If we had a "best review" thread I'm guessing you'd win it every time !
 
Bill Walker said:
That's a great review Fog (even if I don't agree with a lot of it) :)
If we had a "best review" thread I'm guessing you'd win it every time !
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Awww, that’s nice, but I don’t know. Brevity has its charms for sure.

In fact the best music review I ever read for was for the band Yello.

Maybe you remember that song “Oh Yeah”?

Anyway, I reprint the review in its entirety below:

“Chickenshi.”
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Awww, that’s nice, but I don’t know. Brevity has its charms for sure.

In fact the best music review I ever read for was for the band Yello.

Maybe you remember that song “Oh Yeah”?

Anyway, I reprint the review in its entirety below:

“Chickenshi.”
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Has that reviewer no soul? Has he not listened to the depth in I Love You? The urgency in The Race? The beautiful singing in Vicious Games?

They know nothing. Not in the same league as you.
 
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