This is what I hear from Rush defenders all the time “But they’re such great musicians!”. That may in fact be. However, I can’t stand any of the songs they write. Mostly, I find myself just disliking Rush fans. 
Sam, Randism? While that might be a good enough reason to hate them cough, it’s the navel-gazing prog-rock that I hate, not the message (and ear-splitting vocals) behind it.
Hm. I’d say though that the difference between Rush and those other groups you mention is that they have evolved dramatically over the course of their career. Compare 2112 or Farewell to Kings to Moving Pictures to Presto and you’ve got a picture of a group that has developed and flourished in many different guises. But, as is true with all this stuff, YMMV.
How exactly are we defining “creative dead end”?
Both Rush and Yes put out at least 18 Studio recordings (Yes 18, Rush 19), 5 Live records and a host of ‘greatest hits’ and box sets.
By any standard, that is one hell of a recording career.
It’s not political. It’s not because of their looks, or they don’t follow trends. Look at the critics’ darlings right now - The Arcade Fire. What trend are they following, exactly?
Rush are simply more interested in showing off and being flashy than making coherent, powerful songs. They’re all incredibly skilled (with the exception of Mr. Lee’s vocals) and I respect them as musicians. They just, well, can’t compose for shit.
And yet, they’ve been recording (and selling records) and touring for 30 fucking years.
Get over yourselves. No one is asking you to like Rush. I get that you don’t. But a lot of folks do. Rush, and some other prog-rock bands, have stood the test of time. Which is something that cannot be said about a lot of acts that have gotton a lot of press.
How about “Mining trends that were replaced in the culture 25 years ago”? You know, Prog Rock, “thinking man’s Heavy Metal,” “Arena Rock,” falsetto shriek, etc. Yeah, they retain an enthusiastic fan base. But then, so do the Kingston Trio.
And I’ve been jerking off for 20. Just because you’ve been doing something for a long time doesn’t make it worth watching.
I’ve tried to get into Rush on several occasions, and there are a few of their songs I like. But beyond Peart’s drumming, most of it just comes off sounding like a bunch of very talented musicians warming up on their own, and then never actually getting together to perform.
And that makes them inferior, in your eyes?
The classics never really go out of style, do they?
Given the context, I find your name disturbing.
And to tie this post into Rush: Rush rocks. That is all.
I’ll level with you, spooje. I haven’t listened to a Rush album since Power Windows and that was about 15 years ago. It wasn’t awful, but there was nothing about it that grabbed me and said “These guys are on a rocket heading straight up! I must continue to follow their career with genuine interest!” That doesn’t sound like a fair standard, but other artists I was listening to at the time (like Michelle Shocked and REM) inspired exactly that reaction.
Rush is one of those bands that was huge when I was in high school in the 70s (like Yes and Genesis, two bands they are often compared to). Some people stay for the rest of their lives in love with whatever was playing on the radio when they were in senior year. I don’t. It’s entirely my failing, not Rush’s. They haven’t done anything wrong; I just can’t bring myself to care about their music.
Rolling Stone’s website has some glowing reviews of Rush’s albums, so the group has fans at least on the freelance staff.
That’s pretty much the only standard. Rush isn’t your cup of tea, and some other stuff is. As long as we realize that these are subjective standards.
Truth be told, I’m not that big a fan of Rush. I like some of their stuff. I love about 3 of their albums. I have enormous respect for them. But that reaction you describe isn’t there for Rush, while it IS there for some other acts.
My only points are that by objective standards, Rush has been incredibly successful and that success continues to this day. Also, the prog-rock genre is still alive and well, if far from mainstream.
Well, to answer Miller 's question about bands that have been influenced by Rush here is a short list.
Queensryche
Dream Theater
Helmet
Slaughter::boggle::
Great White::another boggle::
Skid Row
and I believe I have a Guitar Player magazine around here somewhere that has Pantera listing Rush as a major influence.
I am sure there are others but those are bands I know cite Rush as an influence. A ton of people from a bunch of different bands worked on “Working Man” a Rush tribute album not too long ago.
As far as why people dislike Rush I have a theory that many people dislike them for the same reaons they dislike classical music. It’s too busy. This applies to other bands besides Rush. We are surrounded by three chord music. Simple, catchy stuff that you can hum. If a song gets much more complicated people turn it off, call it pretentious and move on to listen to the latest Madonna single. Not everyone but certainly a decent number of people. At the same time I can unerstand not liking Geddys voice. It’s pretty odd. Took me a while to like it.
And Gadfly for an example of a " coherent, powerful song" check out "Losing It’ off of Signals. Amazing lyrics and extremely powerful.
Slee
Some folks are miffed at how 2112 was a love letter to Ayn Rand.
I’d like to answer this in order to answer to all similar postings here. 2112 was most definitely heavy on Objectivism, but it was only one album. There are definite influences on a few others, but that’s it. Plenty of other albums don’t have much Rand influence after all, so why do people keep on pointing at that particular issue?
It’s like the D&D thing. They must have done, lemme think, no more than a handful of songs with fantasy themes over such a large career, and yet, what do we hear? “They’re D&D nerds”.
Gee, I sound like their greatest fan, and I am not, let me remind you that - I am not a fan at all - but I believe that criticisms should be fair. Much of what critics here and elsewhere say is that Rush has a label or Randites/D&D nerds/whatever, and they won’t bother considering them because of that label. Do you call that fair?
I do call fair the criticisms of people commenting on Geddy Lee’s voice, or on how they don’t like their songs or their composition skills. That means that they did bother to listen to something of what Rush released and formed their own opinion. No beef with that. I don’t like a few hip-hop guys, for example, because I took the bother to listen and only then form a judgement.
I’d also like to comment on the definition of rock as the three-cord style concerned with teen angst, rebellion and lust. Rock started like that, granted, but who said that it should stay like that? it’s like saying that classical music should have remained the entertainment of the princes and therefore we should dump, I dunno, Carl Orff or Modest Mussorgsky. Rock, like classical music, can be used as a means of expressing much more than what they started for, so what’s wrong in doing it? Furthermore, paraphrasing what another doper (sorry, can’t recall who or where) said in some other thread, there’s a limit on how much you can write about going to Fresno to meet with your posse, or how you met that hot girl and rocked with her all night long.
Even if we want to say that music should be entertaining and nothing more, plenty of people get their kicks from Rush, so what’s wrong with that? Nothing wrong in not finding them entertaining either, but it’s not fair to jump from here to “I will pretend they don’t exists” or “I will stick an inadequate label on them and lambast them for that”.
You say this and then you admit that you have not listened for more than half of their 30 year career. In my opinion one of their biggest strengths is how much the have grown and evolved over the years. What they are playing today is much different than anything they played 15 or 20 years ago. Sure they still play the old stuff in concert and it still sounds great but they are a much different band now. Hell, Geddy hasn’t sung falsetto in about 15 years. One of the biggest criticisms I have heard are from fans who think they haven’t done anything good since Moving Pictures. They just didn’t get how they were evolving. I was in that group until I saw them live during the Hold Your Fire tour, then everything clicked. Hold Your Fire is probably my favorite Rush album. I can not think of any band that has changed and evolved to the extent that Rush has. Your comparision to the Kingston Trio is ridiculous.
Does Coldfire have a fever or something? This is the second recent Rush thread he hasn’t waded in on.
Saying Rush can’t “compose for shit” simply because they don’t write concise songs, is like saying Bach can’t “compose for shit” for the same reason. It is much harder to write a 15 minute long instrumental piece with 17 sections that fit together than it is to write a 4 minute pop song with maybe 3 or 4 parts at most. Music does not have to be concise. And “powerful” is completely subjective. I love their (old) long works and find them very “powerful.”
As far as D&D, I can only think of 2 D&Dish songs, possibly 3 if you really stretch it. And to the anti D&D people of the “mainstream” I say: go fuck yourselves.
Rush are not pretentious in the least. Just because they attempt intelligent lyrics and complex musical structures does not automatically make them pretentious. If they claimed that their approach was the only valid one, then that would be pretentious. Much like proffesional music critics.
I agree with Sam Stone’s assessment as to why they initially lost favor with rock critics. Also punk, with it’s anti-complexity message became trendy around that time.
If you want to talk about mining trends from the 70’s you could easily criticize most genres, including punk, metal and electronica.
Objectionable?? Bollocks, I call it integrity. It takes serious cajones to release an 18-minute fantasy epic (“Hemispheres”) at the height of the disco/punk era. Rush always did what they wanted to do regardless of fashion and trends, and continue to do so. You gotta give 'em credit for that.
As for the whole “D&D” image…well, I’m willing to bet they were typecast solely by the band photo from 2112. 
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The Arcade Fire are the critic’s darlings? Sweet…saw them last week in Detroit, they were awesome. Glad to see another Canadian band getting some well-deserved attention.
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