RUSH, one of Canada’s finest progressive rock bands. Since the release of their eponymous debut album, they have been recognized for their musical mastery, for their complex compositions and the electric theme of their lyrics that mainly speak of science fiction, fantasy, the libertarian philosophy, humanitarian, social, sentimental and environmental themes.
Take a look at The 20 Songs That Can Represent The Career Of Rush:
Leave That Thing Alone
Not everything is “YYZ”, another instrumental piece that Rush created was “Leave”. Although it is much calmer, it represents the perfect harmony between the instruments that Canadians play.
Headlong Flight
The theme song that opened the last studio album we saw from Rush, “Headling Flight” was a pure rock liver hook straight to the face. Neil Peart did not always need to be extravagant in his rhythms to create music out of this world.
Malignant Narcissism
In case of doubt, one more instrumental piece by Canadians. “Malignant Narcissism” is by far one of the band’s busiest and most dynamic works and proved in every respect why Rush never needed controversy or Farfalla to succeed. Only the talent and brotherhood that always characterized them.
The Necromancer
The song with more than twelve minutes in length is seen as the beginning of the musical evolution in which this band begins to move away from conventional heavy rock to start with progressive rock, a good start to know the entire repertoire that will prepare the following places.
With long and dark lyrics, you will wrap yourself in a new dimension of sounds that will take you to the core of the great story told in everything that this song becomes.
https://youtu.be/w3Hn8ywmjEI
The Trees
“The Trees”, Hemispheres’ third and penultimate track, is undoubtedly another impeccable creation by the Canadian trio. Marked by fantastic and quite unusual progressive nuances, its lyrics are enveloped by strong obscurity, always promoting, over the years, numerous debates about the possibilities of meanings. Certainly, one of the most discussed works in the band’s care.
Fly By Night
One of the shortest songs that will be seen in all places (since most of the songs are over seven minutes), but even so one of the most famous songs of this band cannot be left behind, small but complete, with changes singles and catchy and catchy riffs, illustrated on an album with the same name as the song, second in his entire career.
A theme that can make you feel good like most of the Rush songs, with the great performance of the three members.
https://youtu.be/QtM_H6keJv8
Red Barchetta
Of the most commercialized work in all the group’s musical history, a new proposal is given of what is marked in the evolution of Rush, with the record of all previous albums, together in a slow theme that is growing in complex progressions that are giving the best essence of the virtuous qualities of each one of the members of the band.
YYZ
For those who know the band, YYZ, from the same album as Red Barchetta, is found as an extremely striking, experimental, and progressive theme; the song that put them on the map and that everyone knows.
Only geniuses like Rush could have reached the peak of popularity with a track that doesn’t even have a voice. Peart only needed to dial 5/4 in a bell to start an unparalleled musical epic.
The Spirit Of Radio
A simply complex theme, with one of the most sympathetic and simple lyrics of their career, seen from a little-known perspective of the group, it can be very confusing to listen to the whole song, since it contains fast changes and bases fast, slow synths that warp and then line up in seconds where the drums gleam along with the distorted guitar and gorgeous bass – honestly, in my opinion, one of the band’s happiest songs.
https://youtu.be/Juv5Ifs2fFY
By-Tor And The Snow Dog
And back to the album Fly By Night, By-Tor And The Snow Dog is one of the best songs on that album, with more than eight minutes of duration the battery sounds powerful and thrilling, explosive that is changing to a quiet point and nonchalant demonstrating the first roots that grew underground to publicize the new style of the band.
Subdivisions
Intertwined as the start of one of the band’s most classic albums with such a striking and curious cover, Subdivisions may be one of the most different songs of their entire career, with more attachment to synthesizers than to guitar as opposed to that is listened to in all its other themes, apart from having one of the most prudent lyrics on youth themes, with the theme of the boring life in the colonies and subdivisions of their country of origin, Canada. But still, you can hear the great style that enlarged this trio.
https://youtu.be/LU78wkEpmY8
La Villa Strangiato
Based on a dream by the guitarist of the band Alex Lifeson, that is why throughout the duration of the song you can hear incredible ramblings and riffs that are hallucinated only in the depths of the subconscious, with several of the best guitar performances with surprising changes, La Villa Strangiato sends you to a new world, that if you know all the parts in which the song is recorded, you realize the great story that is told without having to say something, only with the wonders of music.
The Fountain Of Lamneth
This song could be the most disputed for several other long Rush themes, such as Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage, The Camera Eye and Natural Science, of which I can mention them just as powerful projects, but The Fountain Of Lamneth deserves this place, since it establishes the same panorama that I have already explained for The Necromancer, but in a more impressive explosion, it reveals the beginning of the best times of Rush, in an acoustic piece of more than nineteen minutes, the most impressive feature of progressive rock.
https://youtu.be/4mC7j-fxqfs
Xanadu
Quiet a piece at the beginning with improvisations that slowly fit in with the magical atmosphere exposed by the title, which give way to the great theme Xanadu, a total journey through a country where fantasy unfolds in the simple verses sung by Geddy Lee, with changes sudden but well digestible, eye-catching and monumental, this is the theme that encompasses one of the best live performances of the band, if you want you can search the images of the moments when this song was presented in concerts and you will be impressed by the performances They are carried out, even with a great feature of their old past, playing heavy rock, you can enjoy the entire song without losing yourself in the rambling of the unexpected.
Limelight
This song works particularly well in this case. Rush explained in “Limelight” that living under the spotlight was a difficult thing that they did not particularly enjoy and preferred to appreciate their privacy. Peart’s terrible brain cancer surprise is certainly a sign of it.
Tom Sawyer
Great song, the most transcendental and popular in the entire history of the band, a song that you may already know but you never imagined who would be the group that plays, either because this was the most played piece on the radio or to mark the new era of Rush before its irrepressible decline, this song is almost always seen as the best of the entire band, but in my opinion, there are three others that give the best view of what is the best of rush, but not the best. I can leave behind, honestly, if it is a very good song, registered with everything necessary to mark a new era of progressive rock.
Working Man
Time to see the best of the best, and what better way to start this countdown than with Working Man, found on the band’s debut album, is in this one where they decide to say everything on their own.
Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres
Along with all that this song is, separated into two parts, one already mentioned before (Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage) Hemispheres can be heard as the total evolution and musical maturation that rush possessed in its good times, with an explosive beginning and a relaxed ending that leaves you speechless, speaking of a great astral and cosmic philosophy that transcends deep in the galaxies, this theme rightfully wins this place that has always been taken by other themes that are They became more popular, but this is undoubtedly the song that deserves the best recognition from the true fans of the band.
2112
And we arrived at the first place, logical for some, confusing for others, but without a doubt, and without fear, I can highlight 2112 as the best composition in the entire history of Rush, not only for being the longest (with more than twenty minutes of duration) if not to highlight all the essence known and expected for the entire history of the band, it is the peak work in which the choirs are combined with the strong guitar solos that evolve and end up to begin again without giving way to a moment of reflection, finished in the best possible way, in which the best song in its history can end, with an explosive and rampant moment in which all the tragic lyrics of the subject enter the reason of all galactic philosophy, such as the suspense that one has before what can be an alien invasion on our planet.
Freewill
Staying thoughtful, Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee liked to make meaningful music and always remind us that we have a chance to choose. Free will means that “if you choose not to decide, you are still making a decision anyway.”