OFF: More Rush Bashing, Theo?

[John Majka]

At 09:45 AM 12/16/97 EDT, you wrote:
>> From:          "BREVARD, Adrian R." <abrevard at SHL.COM>
>> >Ah, my evil disciple's implants are working now...Let's see, have
>> >Rush ever done any religious pilgrimages...
>>
>> Gee guy, you really have it bad for Rush.  I'm sure you have explained
>> dozens of times before why you dislike them so much but c'mon man, these
>> guys can play.  I'm not a huge fan of theirs, was in to them more in the
>> 70's than now, but give them some credit ok?   They have achieved quite
>> a bit in their careers and are still going fairly strong. I'd sure like
>> to know who (besides the obvious, BOC, Richard Thompson) you do like.
>>
>I don't really hate them all that much, but I know their fans are so
>serious about them that I can always get one to take the bait!  It's
>really Geddy's voice that I can't stand [though their lyrics are
>awful too].  But if they had a decent singer, I could like them, bad
>lyrics and all.  Alex's a great gtr player, no doubt...
>theo

Even I, a definite Rush fan (have all the albums etc.), will agree that
Geddy's voice is pretty bad, although it has gotten a lot better from the
mid-80's on.  All that screechy stuff is just plain awful!  As for the
lyrics, I think everything not written by Neil Peart pretty much sucks.  And
then Neil started writing REALLY BAD, TRITE, "SOCIALLY CONSCIENTIOUS" PABLUM
some time in, I don't know, the 80's? It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the
band started going sour.  The first album of course is bad, and then the
band got really good, and then more recently they've become abysmally bad.
The music recently is extremely tired, cliched stuff, and the lyrics are
worse!  Somewhere along the line I think Rush started thinking that they
wanted to write more natural, intuitive sounding music, but they mistook
this "naturalness" with just plain not trying/not keeping the internal
quality control in the "on" position.  I think the last redeemable album was
probably "Presto", but the rot had definitely already begun by this point.
And  "Test For Echo"... well, it's just plain boring and dull.  Nothing
about it makes me want to listen to it. And the lyrics... good god, that's
awful stuff!

John Majka
flossbac at wcic.org
OBCD:  Spoonfed Hybrid (self-titled)