It's the color of your heartbeat
April 17, 2018 3:08 AM   Subscribe

Featuring some of the most crisp production on any of their albums, the album that Rush released in 1984 (their 10th studio album) was personal and political, deeply influenced by the Cold War, with allegorical SF elements. Grace Under Pressure [YT playlist ~40m] Side A Distant Early Warning [video], Afterimage [video], Red Sector A, The Enemy Within (Part I Of "Fear") posted by hippybear (22 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was a pretty good album! I feel like they were kind of firing on all cylinders in the eighties and much of the nineties. Now, I just hope they release one more album so Clockwork Angels doesn’t wind up being their last : \
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:32 AM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


If you're reluctant for any reason, listen to red lenses. It's easily the most playful of the tracks musically, and there's literally a suspension and drop the band does at one point that is somehow inspirational (to me, at least)!
posted by hippybear at 3:33 AM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


After the gloriousness that was Snakes & Arrows, I was never more disappointed by a Rush album than I was by Clockwork Angels. I only hope for one more really great release before they decide to really hand it in. Neal already basically can't tour anymore, so....
posted by hippybear at 3:41 AM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


This was the album where Rush kind of lost me. I preferred their middle period, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Signals, but Grace Under Pressure was the album they had to make in 1984.

Musical taste were changing and established bands were under enormous pressure to keep their sound up to date. Neil even admitted that The Police were a huge inspiration to them, and you can definitely here the influences of Synchronicity in this album.

And hippybear, Rush officially disbanded. Neil quit, and that was that.
posted by Beholder at 4:08 AM on April 17, 2018 [11 favorites]


Another great album hippybear ! Thank you so much!
posted by james33 at 4:24 AM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


One of my favorite Rush albums. Definitely a bit difficult, especially the second side, but those are the ones that grow on you. By some cosmic coincidence I've been listening to Between the Wheels a lot lately. It is a great mix of prog melodrama and rock energy.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:16 AM on April 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


love you and this album hippybear

this tour might have been my second live concert at either the Worcester Centrum or the Providence Civic Center
posted by kokaku at 6:42 AM on April 17, 2018


At time of release, I had problems acclimating this album. Never giving up, it later grew on me. I can't imagine playing their discography without it.

Grace Under Pressure and Pink World (Planet P Project) live together as voices of human struggle in a technological post-apocolyptic world.
posted by filtergik at 6:46 AM on April 17, 2018


There's a pink world coming down!
posted by hippybear at 6:58 AM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm not giving up...I'm not giving in!
posted by stevil at 6:58 AM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


At first I thought that Red Sector A was just a bleak science fiction piece. Then I found out that it came from Geddy telling Neil about his mother and her experiences in Nazi concentration camps. That song never fails to give me chills. I saw an interview with Geddy where the interviewer tried to attribute some right wing attributes to the band due to their brief Ayn Rand period. Geddy said, "I refuse to side with fascists. I grew up in a house where my parents had tattoos on their arms."
posted by Ber at 7:07 AM on April 17, 2018 [9 favorites]


Beyond their radio hits, I have tried to enjoy album Rush, but every time I am turned off by the pretentiousness.
posted by fairmettle at 7:16 AM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


Geddy's stylin' in that "Distant Early Warning" video and King Lerxst looks pretty sharp, too. Very Paul Weller-in-Style-Council. I saw this tour in Johnson City, TN and I seem to recall that they projected the flying kid behind them. Somehow, what I remember most about that night is going to a rough, roadhouse-y bar afterwards and discovering "Kate Bush is God" written on a men's room stall.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:25 AM on April 17, 2018 [3 favorites]


With this Rush album, I declared full vindication in all the Andy Summers vs. Alex Lifeson arguments I had in high school, since the Police influence in the guitar parts and sounds is undeniable.
posted by thelonius at 10:29 AM on April 17, 2018 [1 favorite]


....although The Fixx probably deserve a mention too
posted by thelonius at 10:41 AM on April 17, 2018 [2 favorites]


This was the album where Rush kind of lost me. I preferred their middle period, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, and Signals, but Grace Under Pressure was the album they had to make in 1984.
Me too, though it was my first ever stadium concert, and I bought the t-shirt.
posted by jetsetsc at 12:26 PM on April 17, 2018


I love this album. It is such an indelible part of my Cold War childhood. In my pre-teen mind it really carried the aesthetic of the times, much like The Terminator movie. I'll have to listen to it on my drive home from work tonight.

And now, it's time for my all-time favorite Rush story, going backstage at one of their concerts...

I was a sophomore in high school and Rush was touring their Presto release. A childhood friend who had moved to Florida mentioned that his mom had worked for a company that had catered the Rush show when they came through his town, and he had a leftover backstage pass. He mailed it to me in time for their stop in nearby Richfield, Ohio. At the time, I was a huge, huge Rush fan: I owned every CD, had all sorts of souvenirs and ephemera, even made my own screen printed Rush t-shirts at my dad's shirt and lettering shop. Scoring this backstage pass was a monumental event in my rock and roll life.

So the big date of the concert rolls around. I had my jeans jacket all bedecked with Rush patches and pins, my homemade Rush t-shirt and magic marker for autographs, plans with my friends to drive separately so they wouldn't have to wait around while I partied backstage with my all-time favorite band. The show was great, I rocked out, checking every few minutes that the backstage pass was firmly secured in the inside pocket of my jeans jacket. Finally the show ended and I made my way to the side of the stage where it looked like I would be able to finally, finally have my chance to meet Geddy, Neal and Alex.

Once back amongst the roadies tearing down stage set and rigs and what not, I had absolutely no chill and immediately made a bee-line for the dressing room door. There a security guard with a clipboard stuffed full of papers took one look at me and my backstage pass and said, "you're not a fucking caterer. Get the fuck out of here!" and ripped the backstage pass from around my neck. At that point two large men took me by the crook of each arm, dragged me to the freight elevator and, after a short ride, literally threw me into the parking lot of the Richfield Coliseum, where I limped by to my '84 Buick Riviera and proceeded to bawl my eyes out while chain-smoking a pack of Camel Lights.

And that, dear reader, is the time I made it backstage at a Rush concert.
posted by slogger at 12:37 PM on April 17, 2018 [5 favorites]


Beyond their radio hits, I have tried to enjoy album Rush, but every time I am turned off by the pretentiousness.
Posted by fairmettle
On the one hand, yeah, it’s hard to disagree. On the other hand, is it really pretentiousness when you’re fully aware of it? They’ve joked in interviews that their fans are all drummers and English majors.
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:18 PM on April 17, 2018




I wish I didn't hate Rush as much as I do...

Never, ever, clicked for me. Though I like Subdivisions, and Working Man is OK, and yeah, ok, Spirit of the Radio and Tom Sawyer. And New World Man. And Fly by Night. But other than that...

And what about the voice of Geddy Lee? How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy...?
posted by Windopaene at 4:52 PM on April 17, 2018


If interviews and live shows are any indication, he has a fairly high speaking voice too. I mean, "seventies prog rock bands with countertenor vocalists" is basically a whole genre.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:23 AM on April 18, 2018


Grace Under Pressure was the album that made me a Rush fan. I especially like "Kid Gloves."
posted by 4ster at 7:09 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


On the other hand, is it really pretentiousness when you’re fully aware of it? They’ve joked in interviews that their fans are all drummers and English majors.

Yeah, "pretentious" isn't the word I'd choose here. "Rock music" is built on "pretentiousness." If anything, in Rush's case, it's the opposite; it's their dogged professional nerdiness that tries the listener's patience over the long stretch.

(I was an english major, my best collegiate friend and fellow Rush fan played the drums.)
posted by octobersurprise at 7:22 AM on April 18, 2018


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