As an aside, between my brother's general love for them through Moving Pictures but hesitation thereafter, as well as the fact that the Rush songs I heard on the radio never seemed to go past 1982 (except for play from Counterparts and Test for Echo), I began to get the impression that the general feeling towards Rush was that they were a nice 70's and early 80's band, but got too synth-heavy and 80's-ish, before having a bit of a mid-90's comeback.
I was certainly impressed by their instrumental skills, but I didn't have much particular affection for them, and never actively sought out their albums like I was doing for The Moody Blues or Pink Floyd. Plus, I listened to classic rock radio pretty frequently at that time, and Rush got quite a lot of airplay, so I got to listen to them a lot. I became pretty well acquainted with the band early on in my rock education, as my brother went through a major Rush phase when I was 16 and 17, and I heard their songs on a regular basis. And yet, whenever somebody asks me if I like Rush, my immediate answer is always "no," and my disposition when I'm asked why is always negative.ĭespite some who might think that my love of Yes and relative disdain for Rush comes from becoming acquainted with the former before the latter, this is actually far from the truth. Plus, I like all of the individual band members as instrumentalists, and I even don't have anything against Geddy Lee's voice (usually the main sticking point for people who hate the band). The thing is, I really like a lot of Rush songs, and I'm generally favorable towards many of their albums. The easy route would be to just leave it at that, but unfortunately the situation is more complicated than that simple dismissal would suggest.
Rush Completely confused by the rating system? Go here for an explanation.