Funny, I was just gonna talk about Rush today and this thread was already here. Anyhow, one of my all-time favorite songs by them is “Countdown”, about the first space shuttle launch. I hope the mods grant me the leeway of posting the lyrics, in tribute to the disaster this weekend:
COUNTDOWN (Lee/Lifeson/Peart, 1982)
Lit up with anticipation
We arrive at the launching site
The sky is still dark, nearing dawn
On the Florida coastline
Circling choppers slash the night
With roving searchlight beams
This magic day when super-science
Mingles with the bright stuff of dreams
Floodlit in the hazy distance
The star of this unearthly show
Venting vapours, like the breath
Of a sleeping white dragon
Crackling speakers, voices tense
Resume the final count
All systems check, T minus nine
As the sun and the drama start to mount
The air is charged – a humid motionless mass
The crowds and the cameras,
The cars full of spectators pass
Excitement so thick – you could cut it with a knife
Technology high on the leading edge of life
The earth beneath us starts to tremble
With the spreading of a low black cloud
A thunderous roar shakes the air
Like the whole world exploding
Scorching blast of golden fire
As it slowly leaves the ground
Tears away with a mighty force
The air is shattered by the awesome sound
Excitement so thick – you could cut it with a knife
Technology high on the leading edge of life
Like a pillar of cloud, the smoke lingers high in the air
In fascination, with the eyes of the world we stare…
“Dedicated with thanks to astronauts Young & Crippen and all the people of NASA for their inspiration and cooperation.”
I like Bad Religion. A lot of their songs may be musically simplistic, but they’re catchy, political, and have great lyrics.
From Kyoto Now:
It’s a matter of prescience
No, not the science fiction kind
It’s all about ignorance,
and greed, and miracles for the blind
the media parading, disjointed politics
founded on petrochemical plunder
and we’re its hostages
If you stand to reason
you’re in the game
the rules might be elusive
but our pieces are the same
and you know if one goes down we all go down as well
the balance is precarious as anyone can tell
this world’s going to hell
That, sir, is a brilliant summation of my feelings towards this band. Do you know what else I love about them? They don’t take themselves too seriously. They acknowledge that their music is “weird”. In fact, Neil Peart (jokingly) proposed an advertising line for their new album: “Now, more of what you’ve always hated about Rush!”
I didn’t say that the bands that are heard are all good. I said if a band is any good, I would’ve heard their songs either on the radio, on an ad, or more likely, in some friend’s record collection.
And none of those things (as far as I know) have happened regarding Rush.
Hmm… don’t look now, but your fallacy is showing :eek:
Personally, I don’t care if you like Rush (or Karen Carpenter for that matter!) but don’t you think your statement is a little self-important? Unless of course you are really Tommy Mottola posting as GuanoLad
My point, which has gotten lost in amongst the misconceptions, is that I have never heard any of their songs. I’m not saying they are bad, I just figure if they really are as amazingly incredible as some are saying, and that’s quite a thing to say, you’d think I would’ve heard at least one of their songs at some point somehow.
But if I have, it was not labelled as Rush, nor as the greatest song ever written, or even “hey, this is kind of cool”. Instead, the only conclusion I can gather is, maybe they aren’t quite as amazing as you think, as they haven’t made an impact outside of personal record collections.
What sort of music is it, can you classify it? Can you tell me where I may have heard a song of theirs? Can you link to a sample? Anything I might recognise? If I do recognise it, and it is something I have liked, I’ll rethink my stance.
I may indeed be wrong in my estimation of it’s airplay, but I really don’t believe I’ve heard anything of theirs at all.
I believe you’re just ignorant of the outside world. I attended a Rush concert at the Gorge in WA this summer and it was damn near sold out (hell, it may have been sold out, sure as hell looked like it). Rush has also been around for decades; anyone with even a mere musical insight has knowledge of Rush.
Well, first of all if you haven’t heard of Rush you probably don’t know jack about music. Second, Rush is played all the time to this day. Third, I promise you that you have heard Rush songs but you just don’t know enough about music to understand what you are listening to.
I would suggest that you actually listen to a band before making a judgement about that particular bands impact on the world of music.
In the rock world Neil Peart, the drummer for Rush, is considered as one of the best players ever. Cite.
Before you comment on Rush you really should listen to the bands music. Rush kept progressive rock alive during the 70’s and 80’s. And, hey, Rush has been around since 1971. But you never heard of them so they must suck, right?
Or maybe they are and you just don’t know it! GuanoLad, you are now experiencing the “Defenders of Rush” carrying out our self-appointed mission
But seriously - I know you didn’t say they suck, and I encourage you to find some of their music and check it out. Although I should warn you, their style has changed dramatically over the years. In the early to mid 70’s they were a sort of Led Zeppelinesque hard rock band, then in the 80’s they got into the synth thing pretty heavily. By the 90’s they were back to a simpler rock sound, and they’ve actually returned to their harder roots with their newest album Vapor Trails.
I have heard plenty of Rush, having had a roomate in college that was obsessed with them. I don’t like their music. It’s not that I don’t understand the lyrics, it’s not that I don’t understand that they’re good technically. Aesthetically, I just don’t like their sound. If it ended there, I would just say that a don’t like Rush. However, many Rush fans have a habit of assuming that I don’t like them because they’re “too deep” or “my tastes aren’t refined enough”(for a dead on example of this attitude see Sleestak’s post above. Because of Rush fans, I loathe Rush.
I have a big smile on my face right now. Kinda like this: :).
All the Rush-Defenders in this thread, talking about the deep meaning of Peart’s lyrics, the technical brilliance of their musicianship, etc. You all could have been me ten years ago. I was the biggest Rush geek there was. I have a vague memory of writing a paper on them in high school. :eek:
It’s all true. The lyrics are “thinky” and they have a very clean sound (actually they have had about seven completely different very clean sounds, as they keep completely reinventing themselves).
But I outgrew it at some point. I don’t know why, I think maybe it was a reaction against having worshipped them all those years, I just got tired of myself. I remembered that lots of “dirtier” bands are pretty awesome too, and “thinky” is not the same as “great” when it comes to song lyrics. Test for Echo was the last time I paid any attention to them.
I swear to God, I have heard more people say this. It’s true, though. We do tend to be assholes.
