I’m not trying to be snarky, but I guess you tuned out MTV back in the day, and avoided classic rock radio like the plague, for the above to be true. IOW I am simply amazed that somebody of the age you stated would declare that you can’t recall a single cut of theirs. It would be akin to walking through a forest in upstate NY for month and never hearing a blue jay (or, at least, never realizing that you had heard one).
Well, as @Wheelz noted, Rush had only one top-40 hit (“New World Man”) in the U.S. I was certainly aware of them when I was in high school in the early '80s, but only slightly so. The top-40 stations I listened to back then played them very little. When Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas had a hit single as Bob and Doug McKenzie (“Take Off,”) which guest-starred Geddy Lee, I had only the vaguest idea who Geddy Lee was.
Mostly, I’d heard of Rush because I knew a couple of people who liked them, but I was largely unfamiliar with their music until much later (when I was in my 30s). I look back now, and think, “I was a nerdy kid, who liked some other prog groups…how did I not get into Rush back then?” And, I have no idea why not. 
I don’t find it surprising at all that, if one didn’t listen to an album-oriented rock station in the '80s, or didn’t pay much attention to MTV, one could easily have never noticed Rush – or, quite possibly, heard their songs a few times, or saw a video or two, but it never really registered.
I just looked it up - “Take Off” reached #16 on the U.S. Billboard chart, making it the highest-charting song (in the U.S) that Geddy Lee ever had. 
Well, it was a beauty way to go.
I was a huge consumer of MTV when it started and have always listened to classic rock. I probably could recognize the first few bars of “Tom Sawyer” but not the rest of the song, because I always switched away from it as soon as I recognized it. Rush is a terrible, unlistenable band, even by prog standards, by which I mean when Yes goes on for four album sides. Otherwise, I like a lot of prog. It’s specifically Rush and the horrible noises that emit from Geddy Lee’s gillsacks that grate on me.
Yeah, I listened to a lot of music in the 70s, but the 80s were filled with college and law school. No TV for most of that time (MTV is therefore out) and not much time in the car listening to radio. (and no radio in my apartments that I recall). I had a turntable and some albums, but I certainly wasn’t keeping up with “progressive rock” Much more stuck in the 60s and 70s. (I’m still not 100% sure what that term means) (I did have some Talking Heads and Violent Femmes albums in the 1980s, are they Progressive Rock?)
It’s quite possible I have heard Rush songs and they “never registered.” I’m not trying to threadshit or anything. I’m sure they’re a fine band. Just below my radar.
I wouldn’t classify them as such. The Heads were probably more New Wave or post-Punk (or maybe art rock), the Femmes some sort of punk (Wikipedia classifies them as “folk punk”).
The major progressive rock bands, from the late '60s through the '70s, were Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, among others. Prog tended towards more serious lyrical themes (including “concept albums”), influences from classical music and other, more “serious” musical genres, high levels of musical proficiency/virtuosity, and really long songs.
Thanks. Ignorance fought. I know those bands superficially. Reading over this thread, I guess I need to come to grips with the fact I’m just not much of a music connoisseur. I’ve always had a very casual relationship with music.
end hijack. Please resume discussion of RUSH.
Rush was a band you were either into or not. I was never a fan, did not go to their concerts or really care for the singers voice. But I did know about them and could listen to a couple if their songs without being nauseated by that singing voice. It was and still is an acquired taste.
I was more into then current bands like Aerosmith, Boston, the Cars, Def Leopard, the Who, the Stones, Zeppelin, Neil Young and AC/DC while also enjoy classic band like the Beatles, Hendrix, the Doors, Dylan and Jefferson Airplane myself. There were just so many great bands at the time that you didn’t have to settle for just a pretty good band like Rush.
Geddy’s voice is probably the single biggest complaint about Rush that I hear from non-fans. He was definitely screechy on their first few albums; I think that, either he became a somewhat more competent singer as he got older, or he started singing more in his natural range. Either way, “acquired taste” is, I think, accurate.
Yup. See also: Warren Zevon. Wenner had a run-in with him once, so no hall of fame for Zevon.
The Hall of fame is also supposed to be about influence on music. I would argue that Rush was a very influential band. A lot of kodern prog and rock musicians will tell you that Rush was a major influence. Among musicians they were well known for their skill and songcraft.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Why? Because The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a complete joke.
I’d love Rush… if they’d had anyone else besides Geddy Lee sing.
(And calling that singing was painful for me, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt)
That could be a whole 'nother thread: “Bands you’d like if only they had a different vocalist”
(Could be the Guns’n’Roses thread for someone, could be the Oasis/Rage Against…/Bizkit/Sabbath/Megadeth/Dave Matthews thread for me…)
Ohmigosh, even Prog Fans agree on Mr. Lee ! …
One review of a Rush show I read compared Lee’s “singing” to having ones balls nailed to the stage.
It worked for Dylan.
I’m only slightly younger (52), but I was watching MTV and listening to mainstream rock radio during the 80s and I don’t recall ever hearing/seeing a single song by Rush, unless you count “Take Off,” until quite recently.
Music distribution internationally is weird - Rush was just not a thing in 70s-80s South Africa, yet Rodriguez was huge. Of course, we didn’t really have dedicate AOR stations, which probably helped.
I call bands like that “Hooties”, in honor of Hootie and the Blowfish, which were apparently huge in the mid-90s in the United States, and utterly unknown in my country.