Moving Pictures is the only Rush album I own, Limelight and Red Barchetta the only songs that I enjoy. I have friends that are true follow them around the world RushHeads.
I remember my big brother had Hemispheres playing in his room and would hear it through the walls. I loved it.
I was eight or nine at the time.
Yes. Yes it is.
The weirdest way a Rush album was ever played on on MTV News about 15 or so years ago. I cannot find this on You Tube or anywhere else, which is too bad because if it made it on there, it would go viral.
It was a black DJ who brought out one of his more unusual choices, and yes, it was Rush’s “Moving Pictures”. He then proceeded to scratch “Tom Sawyer”. It was absolutely hilarious! 
I was aware of them in the 80’s, but I didn’t really notice them until 1991 when I went to work at a rock radio station.
Can’t really answer the poll sensibly. I was aware of them from the time of their first album, when they were being dismissed in the press as a Led Zeppelin knock-off. Never heard much from them in the '70s–“Closer to the Heart” is the only song I can even remember getting any airplay whatsoever–and the first thing that really caught my ear was “Tom Sawyer” in 1981. I still never paid much attention to them until after I got married and my wife turned out to be a huge fan of 2112. After that I caught up on what I think of as their peak period, from *2112 *through Signals. Overall, I like 'em well enough, but I’m not a huge fan, and I own only a few albums from the post-*Signals *era.
Mixmaster Mike also used to scratch “Tom Sawyer” during the Hello Nasty tour.
It was in high school, which I started in 1981, so either '81 or '82-ish.
A couple of years ago I found out that they were an actual band and not an SDMB meme.
I never really discovered them. For certain important years in my life, they were just not “hip.” *Creem *made lots of jokes about Geddy Lee, but I’m not sure why…
However, I finally watched Supernatural–from the beginning. So I’m reconsidering a bunch of “unhip” music–including Rush. If Dean likes them…
1982 or early 1983. My pal Dave turned me on to them and then late one night listening to DC/101 (DCs BEST rock!) I heard ‘The Trees’ and it, like, blew my mind, man. Mind blown as only a 16-year-old’s can be.
I’ve seen them more than 50 times now and can’t stop the music, baby. Nobody can.
Signals, I suppose it would be. The year is right anyway. Freshman year in the dorms. The guy next door was a big fan. I never cared for them although I do appreciate them as artists.
It started when I heard Spirit of Radio on the radio for the first time.
Man, you left out their live album Exit Stage Left which came out after Moving Pictures. That’s when I “discovered” them.
Like Dave Matthews Band, I think they are great musicians but most of their music just doesn’t appeal to me.
That is a good comparison. I like most music but the Dave Matthews band is another one that makes me instinctively change the station.
In a cruel twist of fate, I got in my car to go to lunch right after I posted in this thread the first time. The first song that came on the XM radio was a Rush song. I forced myself to listen all the way through this time. Despite the fact that I really didn’t like it, I couldn’t tell you what song it was or anything else about it. The repressed memory protection mechanism in my brain was just too strong even when I tried to consciously override it. This comes from a person who know the full lyrics to almost every other classic rock song that you can throw at me.
And here it is on You Tube.
I still wish I could find the one done by the black DJ.
My favorite Rush cover of all time - a solo performance of “Subdivisions”.
John Rutsey, their original drummer, was a Type I diabetic, something that was not widely known until his death from it in 2008 at the age of 55. 
It was not such a good thing for him, but his departure and the signing on of Neil Peart is what made them legendary IMNSHO. Had Rutsey been able to stay around, they probably would have made a couple of albums and then been largely forgotten.
BTW, has anyone seen “Come On Children”, the documentary that Alex and his now-wife Charlene were in back in 1971? It’s been in my Netflix “Saved” queue for several years now, and I’m surprised more people don’t know about it. I vaguely remember someone telling me about it and thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. There’s a clip from it is their stellar documentary “Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage”.
Freshman year of college, 1991 , Roll the Bones. I’d certainly heard them on the radio before, but it was the first time I heard Dreamline that I really took notice. Bought all their albums by the end of the school year and have seen them about a dozen times now.
Incidentally, Neil Peart’s book Ghost Rider, about his recovery from the deaths of his daughter and wife, is terrific and depressing all at the same time.