Hardcore fans will Rush to get this
Author takes deep dive into band
The followup to his hit Rush: The Illustrated History finds author Martin Popoff breaking down the massive success of Ontario trio Rush, one album at a time.
With sales in excess of 40 million worldwide, the meticulous musical group has never really been a singles band. Both the members and fans favour full-length albums as the way to deliver the heavy, orchestral and complex material.
Fans fiercely debate the merits of one release over the next, and Popoff has used that as the starting point in this book.
Breaking down all 20 studio albums, he gives celebrated musicians, journalists and writers the chance to sound off about everything from the controversies surrounding whether the group was just another Led Zeppelin clone when it began to the reasons behind its massively successful return from a lengthy hiatus with the 2002 album Vapour Trails.
With every chapter providing a complete track listing with song running times, the musician lineup, release date and studio information from recording site to producer, there is plenty here to win a trivia discussion with. Add in the live photos, personal pictures and album covers by contemporaries and each chapter provides a great deal of context about the recording.
If you are the kind of person who cares deeply about the importance of Rush in the greater sense of rock history, you will get all you could ask for and more.
Being a fly on the edge of the spliff tray listening to Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett ponder the gown-wearing band on the back of the 2112 album cover: “It’s a really grand concept, but maybe they’re not quite pulling it off, in a cheesy, low-budget ’70s kind of way — which I think is highly forgivable.”
Delve a bit into drummer/lyricist Neil Peart’s interest in Ayn Rand and the individual — a theme that carries through most of the band’s material. And ask questions, as so many fans did after the band announced its massive Clockwork Angels project and Time Machine tour with its accompanying graphic novel.
Rush: Album By Album, certainly lives up to its title. The always thorough Popoff has, once again, dug into the Rush well and come up with buckets of material to keep the conversations flowing.
One thing this well-put-together book has no chance of doing is making someone who doesn’t appreciate Rush begin to.
The group will remain an extremely challenging prospect to many. From Geddy Lee’s piercing shriek to Peart’s sci-fi laden lyrics, it’s just not a project for every pirate ship setting sail on the seas of hard rock.