Rush – Moving Pictures

Okay. I think I may have missed something really profound in my youth.

I say this quite often when listening to music that was popular back in the day that now has taken on critical reverence. Witness the Stone Roses' debut, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, Tool (take your pick, but probably Lateralus is up there)(or...y'know...maybe not), virtually anything by the Smiths, Violator by Depeche Mode, prime Sonic Youth, and...well, you kinda get where my mind goes.

But earlier this summer, I watched a video of an opera singer listening to "Tom Sawyer" by Rush for the first time, and it was super hard not to get caught up in her innocent enthusiasm for the song. For the record, I, being an '80s kid, had heard the song a few times back in the day, but it never really caught on for me. The synth "nnneeeeeooowwww" at the beginning seemed awfully gimmicky, and Geddy Lee's nerdy, nasal voice just grated on my nerves. I never got past it. Until I watched this video.

Then I began to get it. I mean, I am and always will be a nerd, so...really, shouldn't Geddy Lee be kind of a touchstone for me? His voice, despite being annoyingly high, is really powerful, and he's clearly a great singer. And the music is muscular. Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart are rightful masters of their instruments. The synth sound I described practically encapsulates the excitement we all had entering the computer age at the dawn of the 1980s. So who could fault Rush for wanting to push that "nnneeeeeooowwww" button over and over during the song? What was a fun gimmick back then has given that song an innocence that music seldom has now. It just sounds so cool, makes you feel so powerful.

Well, it turns out that this year marks the 40th anniversary of one of Rush's crowning glories, Moving Pictures (which begins with "Tom Sawyer"), so the album was re-released for the occasion. The combination of seeing the video and reading the unexpectedly positive review of Moving Pictures made me reconsider. Did I miss something big way back when?

Cut to a high school parking lot back in the early '90s late at night after, say, a choir concert, I guess. A bunch of friends and I were talking with a kid desperate to appear cool among us but failing. He tried to say how he liked really great music, but repeatedly bringing up Rush immediately branded him on the outs with us all. Rush was for eggheads who didn't know from really great music like R.E.M. and such. Well. Years later, my big loss. He was really onto something.

Back to today: I've heard Moving Pictures in its entirety repeatedly by now. Hot damn. Seriously, not a single misstep among 'em. It makes me want to take my younger self, shove a cassette of Moving Pictures into my hand and tell me to listen. Then listen again. I mean, I had a yen for the chills that great synth-driven chord progressions could bring (witness songs like "Only Time Will Tell," "The Final Countdown," and even "Girl Can't Help It"). Stuff like "YYZ" and "Witch Hunt" bring those chills every time. And "Tom Sawyer" and "Limelight" are peerless arena rock songs (the latter of which is practically a Rush journal entry for all the world to see). The whole shebang is great lifting music. Or running.

Well, better late than never. I'm finding music like this all the time. Like adults before me, I can't find much in modern music that speaks to me, so I return to the font of music made when I was younger. As great as the music I find generally is, Moving Pictures is beyond, a stunning revelation for me. I'm excited to continue rummaging through Rush's back catalog. Much like Pretty Hate Machine was my entry into industrial, I could see Moving Pictures being my entry into prog rock: not the most representative (and certainly not the most hard-core example), but a masterful, accessible place to start.