The day you wake up and realize you like Rush is the worst day of your life, you look in the mirror and what you see is nauseating. You spend your entire life hating Rush because Rush are deplorable Prog-Libertarian/Objectivist showoffs and then you wake up one infamous morning and have to admit to yourself that you actually like Rush, or a few of their songs which is bad enough, and it’s the end of you, you’re finished, annihilated. I woke up the other day and had to admit to myself that I actually liked Rush, or at least a few of their songs, and what I saw in the mirror was hideous—a morally repugnant Mr. Hyde capable of any infamy. I looked myself in the mirror and I said, “I don’t know who you are or what you want but you’ve ruined my life.”
Fortunately (as I’ve said ad nauseam) I only like three or four of Rush’s songs, but that’s enough to make me a pariah in the circles I run in. And the only reason I like the one closest to my heart (“Closer to the Heart”) is because it’s hilariously, lovably dumb. Still, we’re talking about Rush, the humor-deprived prog-metal power trio that stormed out of the Great White North playing songs of byzantine complexity complete with Ayn Rand-addled lyrics (check out “Trees,” I dare you).
Their steadfast commitment to playing everything in the most technically complex way possible and total dedication to writing twelve-part songs (complete with Roman numerals!) was unforgivably self-indulgent, and I commend them for coming right out and admitting it in the (twelve parts complete with Roman numerals!) opus “La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise in Self Indulgence).” I also commend bassist/keyboardist and lead castrato Geddy Lee for confessing that he had no idea whatsoever what their 1976 concept album 2112 was about. How endearing!
Unlike their more pop-oriented south-of-the-border neighbors in Kansas and Styx, Rush were the real progressive rock deal, which is to say that their commitment to complex song structures requiring Ubermensch chops rendered them pretentious beyond redemption. A definite love ‘em or hate ‘em proposition, Rush. “The most obnoxious band currently making a killing on the zonked teen circuit” wrote hater and Village Voice scribe Robert Christgau of 1977’s A Farewell to Kings.
On the other side of the broken-glass-topped fence you have Dave Grohl, who positively gushed about playing with Rush at their 2013 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, called it one of the greatest moments of his life. But then again Dave Grohl is a super-nice guy in a super-boring band who seems to have good things to say about everybody, and would probably be enthused at being given the opportunity to “jam” with the Benito Mussolini Quartet.
Rush’s eighth release, 1981’s Moving Pictures, was their most successful (at least in the States), and it continued a winning streak that began with 1976’s 2112, on which the band gambled by doubling down on the progressive rock despite some serious pushing by their record label to go in a more commercial direction. It was a gutsy move—Rush’s label was considering giving them the heave-ho due to poor sales of the band’s previous LP, 1975’s Caress of Steel. Hell even concert attendance was down, and that must have scared the guys—one minute you’re looking at a hall jam-packed with male nerds, and the next you’re looking at a hall only half-packed with male nerds—the band was literally hemorrhaging male nerds! But their gambit paid off—2112 was a smashing success and the male nerds returned in droves.
And Moving Pictures may be Rush’s best, although I hesitate to say so definitively because I haven’t listened to most of the band’s other albums for the simple reasons that 1) the prospect horrifies me and 2) I’m afraid I might like them, which horrifies me even more. ‘Fessing up to liking a few Rush songs is bad enough—becoming a full-blown Rush fan would be the end of me. My friends would write me off and I’d have to find new friends, Rush fan friends, and all we would do is sit around arguing about why they put “Book I” of the positively epic “Cygnus X-1” at the end of 1977’s A Farewell to Kings and “Book II” of “Cygnus X-1” at the beginning of 1978’s Hemispheres, instead of putting them both on the same album like a normal person. It’s an unsavory prospect, and with my luck there wouldn’t even be a bong in attendance.
Be that as it may, Moving Pictures has the great advantage of being home to what may well be Rush’s finest moment, “Tom Sawyer.” I hated the song for decades, and then a curious phenomenon occurred, one that I’ve noticed before–namely I heard it in a movie (2017’s Little Evil), and because it was used in a comedic context I was able to listen to it in a way I’d never listened to it before. Funny can be mind-opening like that. In any event it went from a song I turn off when I hear it on the car radio to a song I turn up when I hear it on the car radio, and who (besides literally everyone I know) wouldn’t?
The trio play it as hard and straight as they ever would; they stick to the plot, rock the fuck out, and don’t stray off in random directions. Compared to most of their songs, they keep this one Ramones simple. It opens with some groovy space paradiddle by Geddy on the synthesizer (his trusty Oberheim OB-X)—the same synthesizer that the Holden Caulfields in the band’s fan base hated because synthesizers are big phonies.
Then he comes in with some nonsense about today’s Tom Sawyer being “a modern-day warrior with a mean, mean stride,” but he somehow manages to actually sound mean as he does it, after which Alex Lifeson plays some Led Zep big power chords and Peart comes on playing all 240 accoutrements on his drum kit. The synth zooms in and out throughout, there’s some ridiculous talk about Tom being a space invader, and Lifeson delivers fatal ax whack after fatal ax whack in a nonstop ax attack. The song has propulsion, it stands and delivers, it’s a triumph of a hard rock anthem, and listening to it (in awe) I can’t believe the guys didn’t find a way to fuck it up.
“Red Barchetta” is a sleek and streamlined machine, just like the sports car Geddy is getting all excited about, and what it has going for it are Lifeson’s big ax and a likable melody that would be more likable if they didn’t deviate from it every other bar. In short I like it in parts, which is to say I don’t like it because you shouldn’t have to like a song in parts. It has some cool moments, ends in a race just like Chuck Berry’s “Jaguar and Thunderbird,” but what you get before that is chop suey. The damn thing is just too damn busy for its own good, which is as good an epitaph for Rush in general as any.
The instrumental “YYZ” is blatant difficult-for-difficulty’s-sake prog show-offery and everything I hate about the genre. It has the faintest (and needless to say rank) whiff of jazz fusion, the trio are just showing off their chops as if chops are the end all and be all when they’re not. It’s chops abuse, this song. Same goes for the complex time signatures (or so I suspect, the only signatures I care about are the ones on checks written out to me) and turn-on-a-dime switcheroos, these guys can do anything but so what, so could Frank Zappa and he was a putz. About the only good things “YYZ” has going for it are Lifeson’s first guitar solo (Lee’s synth solo sucks) and the not to be overlooked fact that we’re spared Neil Peart’s noxious Objectivist blather about how the rich deserve to be rich and the poor deserve nothing because, let’s face it, they’re losers.
“Limelight” opens with a badass guitar riff that could be by AC/DC, it’s a cranking hard rocker and cool enough, Lifeson’s guitar playing is killer, Peart produces a wall of bash and crash neato, but Geddy (and this is my big problem with the song) delivers his lines in a portentous voice like he’s reading from the Gospels. He’s singing about living in the limelight but the words are abstruse gibberish along the lines of “Those who wish to be, must put aside the alienation/Get on with the fascination/The real relation, the underlying theme.” Totally harshes the song’s buzz, it does. Maybe you know what he’s going on about but I don’t, and frankly I wish he’d shut up and let me just sit back in my “gilded cage” and appreciate Lifeson’s monster guitar sound. Oh and there’s this annoyingly boring part in the middle where Lifeson noodles around on guitar to no good end, and if you ask me the boys are just dithering around when they should be bringing the noise.
The ten-plus-minute, two Roman numerals “The Camera Eye” opens with some bad fancied-up pop synthesizer noodling that helps explain why the purists hated the damn thing so much, then you get some King Hell explosions on guitar. But mostly the boys just seem to be standing around yanking each other’s dicks, and just when you think the damn song is NEVER going to start the band kicks into high gear and the threesome are off to the races. When Lee finally comes in on vocals he sounds as smooth as Canadian moose butter, and gratefully I can’t understand a word he’s saying and needless to say I had no intention of referring to the lyrics sheet.
What follows are abrupt tempo changes galore, pure prog for pompous people, and frankly by minute six or so I was so bored stiff by all the stops and starts and doubling back and bending over sideways I found myself thinking about how now was as good a time as any to hit the bookshelves and alphabetize them by author, that or taking a very long shower and hoping the song would be over by the time I got out. Better a total wash in real water than this total wash.
The dull and plodding from beginning to end “Witch Hunt” is giddy-making stupid, and gives Peart the opportunity to really lay into the percussion. And when I say percussion I’m talking about (and this is straight from Neil’s mouth!) “gong, bass drums, wind chimes, glockenspiel, tubular bells, conga, cowbell, vibraslap, and various electronic effects.” I’m pretty sure he plays mallets on a stuffed moose head as well, although that could just be my imagination.
What isn’t my imagination is the mob that enters stage left shouting and creating a ruckus, pitchforks and torches in hand. Then Lee comes in singing about ignorance and prejudice and god knows what else, but to Peart’s credit he seems to be speaking up for immigrants and against removing books from our libraries, so good for him. That said Geddy sounds like the worst ham on the planet as he sings, “The night is black without a moon/The air is thick and still/The vigilantes gather on/The lonely torchlit hill.” But Lee isn’t the song’s biggest problem—its biggest problem is it never takes off or does a single interesting thing—it’s a static puddle of studio muddle and fails to do the one thing I think we all have the right to expect it to do—rock balls like “Tom Sawyer.”
“Vital Signs” shows none and is what The Police would sound like if they took a progressive rock night course, it has this kinda almost but not really starched Canuck reggae vibe with Peart playing oh so tastefully while Lifeson plays faux-ska guitar fills. The damn thing simply refuses to take off, and it doesn’t help that the words Peart has shoved into poor ventriloquist’s dummy Geddy’s mouth are boring abstract twaddle.
Lee isn’t the most emotive singer (to say the least) but nobody could breathe life into lines like “Unstable condition, a symptom of life/In mental and environmental change/Atmospheric disturbance, the feverish flux/Of human interface and interchange.” The only line in the whole damn song that rings halfway true is “An ounce of perception, a pound of obscure,” and I say halfway because while you do get your pound of obscure (easy!) you don’t get so much as an atom of perception. If this is what comes of reading The Fountainhead I thank God I’ve avoided it all my life—it obviously spawns morons.
Ultimately Moving Pictures is a disappointment. Side one has its moments of triumph but Side two is insufferable. Which is good news for me because had I loved the album I’d have had to rethink my entire life. But having listened to it I can say with authority that I’m in no danger of becoming a fan of a band that’s all talent and no taste. These guys could (and would) complicate a straight line. And they’d do it on purpose, because they find the concept of Occam’s Razor offensive. Why, doing that would make them a rock and roll band.
And they have bequeathed the world—and this is saying a whole lot—probably the worst body of lyrics of any band that’s ever walked the earth. Yes, I love “Tom Sawyer.” “The Spirit of Radio” too. And “Closer to the Heart” is so legendary Yo La Tengo had the “metal professor” in their epic video for “Sugarcube” recite its lyrics the way a real lit professor would Yeats. But after that I have no use for ‘em. In fact I consider them a menace. Have you seen that mob around?
GRADED ON A CURVE:
D+
