When you can play as well as Geddy Lee you can afford to look a little frumpy.
RUSH is entirely too cool for the RRHOF.
I think Geddy Lee’s voice is like fingernails raked along a chalkboard but yeah, Rush probably deserves to be in as much as anyone else.
And John Mellencamp, too.
Why Mellencamp? I know you can’t account for taste and I know my opinion about his worthiness is certainly colored by that, but he’s basically just a second-rate Springsteen, right?
I remember visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and being just utterly depressed. There was just so much of it about nostalgia over dead people, and very little of it that gave me any hope for the future.
There was a special edition of Rolling Stone about 5 years ago which listed the top 500 albums of all time. Sgt. Pepper’s was number one, but from there it said more about the biases of Jan Wenner and Rolling Stone than it did about rock and roll. I find exactly the same kind of attitude at the Hall of Fame.
Genesis is actually the one that I find the strangest - the fact that it’s actually two different bands - the Peter Gabriel prog rock period and the Phil Collins million-sellout, I mean, million-seller period.
It’s very odd to have such an ‘establishment’ celebration of an anti-establishment art form.
And am I the only one who’s amazed that Rush are still together after all this time? Shouldn’t the drummer have exploded by now or something?
I have long believed Neil Pert is an android. I defy you to prove me wrong.
The list is full of “WTF” for an institution called **Rock and Roll **Hall of Fame. Bee Gees? Jackson 5? Madonna? I think if you read the article Wiki has on the institution, you quickly realize there is no legitimate merit to being inducted.
The question is: Does Rush give a crap about the RRHOF?
I dont
I thought something similar about Geddy Lee when I first saw Rush on the ‘Caress of Steel’ tour - he’s playing pedals, keyboards, bass and singing at the same time? What planet did he grow up on?
Chase: I’ve begun to expect nobody does. I mean, do you think the Ramones were thinking “Man. Launching an entire genre was good, but being in here with Steely Dan and Elton and Billy Joel? This puts everything it all in perspective.”
If that impresses you, check out this video of an 11-year-old girl playing all the parts of YYZ at the same time, except for the drums.
Well, yeah, it does impress me because I’ve been experimenting with laying one guitar across the top of the keyboard while playing another guitar that’s strapped really tight to my chest and playing piano at the same time. Sometimes it works; most of the time, I just get confused and screw up. I have quite a lot of respect for anyone who can keep simultaneous multiple instruments straight in their heads for any length of time.
The Airplane would be worthy of fame for any of White Rabbit, Somebody to Love or Crown of Creation, each separately or in combo. A RRHOA is a stupid idea anyway. A remembrance museum for those instantly called to memory? Sounds like a place for tourists to drop bucks.
Pick up the Big Daddy album. Mellencamp at his best is every bit as good as Springsteen at his best. *Big Daddy *is as good as Tunnel of Love.
“Tunnel of Love” kinda stinks, IMHO. If you’re gonna compare Mellencamp to “Greetings from Asbury Park” or “Born to Run” or “The River” (disc one) or “Nebraska” or any pretty much any of the others (before “The Rising”), I’d be on board.
And YYZ girl? Mediocre.
Just kidding. I love when 11 year olds can make me feel like a paltry hack.
Count me in the “Rush should be in” vote. Their virtuosity is unquestionable and yes I do think Geddy Lee’s voice is a major stumbling block for many people, myself included.
Springsteen’s early stuff has more high energy rock, but Tunnel of Love or The River is mature, sophisticated and great stuff. Asbury or Darkness are still good for me, but I cannot listen to an early Springsteen album anymore without thinking that he has done much better stuff. If you don’t like the quieter Springsteen, you won’t like quieter Mellencamp.
It’s not that I don’t like quieter Springsteen—“Nebraska” is phenomenal and I have big soft spots for “Devils and Dust” and “Ghost of Tom Joad.” I guess “Tunnel of Love” just doesn’t do it for me, for whatever reason. The production is definitely part of it.
Knowing that you suggested a quieter 'Camp album, I’m gonna give it a rotation in the next few days. Anything a bit more to check out on the other side of the aisle?
Lonesome Jubilee is about one album prior to Big Daddy, and it is really where he starts getting in the more oblique form of story telling. But he is still using anthems there. Move on to Big Daddy, where he has Theo and Henry, Jackie Brown and Mansions in Heaven and he is really getting into the despair of the blues, but finding a silver lining of redemption in faith and community. The end of the 80s was the end of following new music for me (for the most part). I’ve got a thousand albums and don’t really need any new rock and roll music, although I occasionally hear something good. I going back to the broad category of classical to get new stuff for me now. It really is quite rich. But it’s not kid stuff.
Thirded.
I am a Rush fan and I like it that they are not in the HoF. My perspective is that the HoF insiders have a vision of what is Rock and Roll. This is completely acceptable, admirable even, but I don’t share this vision. The roadblock that the HoF faces is that it realized this vision several years ago. Now they are spinning their wheels try to redefine it in order to keep the money rolling (and rocking) in. I don’t find this particularly admirable and would prefer not to have Rush, or really anyone, a part of it.
Dare I suggest there is a certain prejudice against Canadian bands that did not form or do most of their work in the US? The Band, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen are all Canadian, yes, but I would venture to say they had their biggest success and influence after they went to the states. Whereas The Guess Who, Lighthouse, The Stampeders, Rush and Max Webster/Kim Mitchell, among many others, have not really ‘cracked’ the US market nor consciousness in quite the same way.
Sort of along the same lines as why The Tragically Hip are huge in Canada but largely unknown or ignored in the States.
If I were in a band like Rush, I’d know that we reached out to millions of fans, made some good music, and were a major influence. The snotty opinions of a few people who have nothing better to do than compile lists of “the greatest x of all time” wouldn’t and shouldn’t mean anything. The fans know, the band knows, and nothing else matters.
- Not a huge Rush fan, although I like some of their stuff. This could really apply to almost any band. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is as meaningless as all the “Greatest x of all time” shows put out by VH1, or a similar list put out by any magazine. There’s no definitive “greatest” list of anything.