James Rush: 1984 - 2015

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-78952-211-2
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

This book is the companion volume to Rush 1973 - 1982 On Track. 1982's keyboard-heavy Signals album was to be the beginning of Rush's 'synth era' and albums including Power Windows and Hold Your Fire split the fan base, with the old guard resenting the changes in both instrumentation and song-writing style. New followers joined the fold, however, and the band's popularity in album sales and concert receipts continued to grow. Rush were never ones for treading water, as subsequent releases into the 1990s showed a gradual return to the guitar-centric power-trio format.
A double family tragedy for drummer Neil Peart seemed to signal the end of the band, with a sign-off triple live album, Different Stages, appearing in 1997. But five years later, a reformed Rush began to release a series of new albums, culminating in the magnificent concept record, Clockwork Angels.
This book reviews all the band's studio and live releases from 1984's Grace Under Pressure to the final, farewell live album, R40, in 2015. Peart's subsequent retirement and tragically early death in 2020 seemingly closed the annals of this unique band, before the shock announcement in 2025 that the band would reconvene in 2026 with drummer Anika Nilles.

Richard James immersed himself in music as soon as he got his first real six-string at the age of ten. Previously chained to a desk for a living, he broke free, armed with a music degree from the Open University and a Licentiate Diploma in Classical Guitar from the Royal School of Music, and proceeded to roam the East Midlands, UK, as a freelance guitarist and music teacher. He lives with his wife in Leicestershire, UK, and when not involved with music, he enjoys foreign travel and playing chess badly.

Autoren/Hrsg.

James, Richard

Leseproben

Chapter 3

Power Windows (1985)

Personnel:

Alex Lifeson: electric and acoustic guitars

Geddy Lee: vocals, bass, synthesisers, bass pedals

Neil Peart: drums, percussion and electronic percussion

Synthesiser programming by Andy Richards and Jim Burgess

Additional keyboards by Andy Richards

Recorded at The Manor, England; Air Studios, Montserrat; and Sarm East, London, between April and August 1985

Produced by Peter Collins and Rush

Strings arranged and conducted by Anne Dudley, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London

Choir arranged and conducted by Andrew Jackman, and recorded at Angel Studios, London

Released: 26 October 1985

Label: Mercury Records

Chart positions: Canada: 2, US: 10, UK: 9

All music composed by Lee and Lifeson, with lyrics by Peart

A tour followed Grace Under Pressure, from May to November 1984, with the band playing in North America, Japan and Hawaii. The trio’s collective mood, however, didn’t match their commercial and critical success.

The collective finger was once again pointed at the now vacant producer’s chair. It was felt that securing the right person at the helm would solve the problem. It couldn’t be Terry Brown, and it wouldn’t be Peter Henderson. A blend of experience and an objective ear was needed, someone tuned into the current musical thinking and capable of stepping back, giving detached opinions. The support act for part of the tour was noted blues rock guitarist Gary Moore, who suggested his own producer, Peter Collins.

Collins’s CV already included 1980s pop stars Nik Kershaw, Tracy Ullman and Musical Youth. Not a natural fit, you might think, for the progressive rockers wanting to move with the influences of the period without compromising their core style. Collins was confident he could make the band sound better than his predecessors. The irony that Rush, who had determinedly fought against any form of outside direction or control, were now specifically seeking it seemed lost on the trio.

The band reassembled at the Elora Sound Studios in southern Ontario to write more music. As the material began to flow, an overarching lyrical theme of ‘power’ emerged as a link between the songs. Grace Under Pressure had focused on despair; the new project would project hope. The band and producer moved to the Manor Studios, with recording being relaxing and fulfilling.

In his autobiography, My Effin Life, Geddy expounded upon the attention to detail that Collins brought to the project:

Rather than simply accepting the way we’d written a song, he’d ask us to try it in different keys or tempos. Sometimes, he’d suggest a reductive approach, breaking down a verse or a middle eight, eliminating certain instruments to make room for more dynamic parts to come. He believed strongly in injecting surges of energy as a song went along, either with a sound effect, guitar effect or keyboard flourish, arguing that a one-off event or a sudden change in feel will give a song longevity.

Vocals and overdubs were completed at Sarm East Studios. With the basic tracks finished, Collins suggested more innovations. Firstly, Andy Richards, who had played with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Propaganda and Grace Jones, was employed as a specialist keyboard player. Lee, ever the perfectionist, felt he needed to offload some of the programming and playing to a musician whose first instrument was the keyboard. It was all very 1980s, all very glossy with plenty of reverb effect spread across every fader, all very ‘un-Rush’, as we thought we knew them. Real strings would feature on ‘Manhattan Project’ and ‘Marathon’. A 30-piece orchestra and a 25-strong choir were duly engaged. Lifeson’s guitars were completed at George Martin’s Air Studios in Montserrat, with a month spent on mixing in England.

The cover is an intriguing piece by Syme. It’s nighttime in an unwelcoming, darkened room. A teenage boy, one Neill Cunningham, wearing only pyjama bottoms, sits on a wooden chair. He is looking at us expressionlessly whilst pointing a remote control through a partially open, uncurtained window towards the out-of-view moon, the light from which illuminates the scene. The adolescent looks vaguely unhinged. On the bare wooden floorboards nearby sit three old television sets. Syme’s theme is continued on the back cover with the same boy staring at us through a pair of binoculars. More windows with power, still semi-naked, still borderline psychopathic. The mood lifts slightly on the inner lyric sleeve with three individual colour photographs of the band, taken by the eminent Toronto photographer Dimo Safari. Against black backgrounds, Alex is smiling with arms crossed, Neil ... isn’t, while Geddy’s dark hair and jacket mean very little of him is actually visible. At least the mullet appears to be in retreat.

Over-produced, overdubbed to astonishing levels and polished to within an inch of whatever life some of the songs started out with, Power Windows sees Rush happy to be engulfed by everything that keyboard technology could offer. In their latest producer, the band had found someone completely disinterested in their past, a person in sync with the prevailing musical trends and the cutting-edge technology needed to realise such sounds.

The chief problem with Power Windows is that it sticks so very closely to the template it quickly establishes. There is little space for effective dynamics, ‘Manhattan Project’ excepted, and all the songs come in between five and six-and-a-half minutes. There are no shorter, snappier songs to break up the feel of lengthy repetition. Similarly, there’s little difference between each track’s sonic style, with similar tempos employed throughout. It’s the combined and constant assault on the eardrums, which proves wearing after repeated listens. Only three of the eight tracks remain effectively in the memory. That’s not a good return on the listener’s investment.

That said, in Limelight – Rush In The ’80s, Neil praised the band’s effort:

Power Windows really hangs together well as a whole body of work, I think, the way it’s shaped. Running order is something we’ve always spent a lot of time and debate on. And I think it’s a great running order on this; from top to bottom, I think it’s a really good performance.

In Rush – Beyond The Lighted Stage, he said:

We all loved the music of that time, we were young enough to, and we didn’t have any protective nature of what Rush was, that it could never be allowed to be influenced by New Wave music, or could never use an African rhythm. There was no such thing as ‘That doesn’t suit Rush’; those words have never been uttered.

Entering into the ‘synth/guitar’ debate, Alex said:

I loved the idea of the keyboards when we first started. I think that as that part of our sound developed, there were times where we just got on the wrong track.

With Power Windows I found it really, really difficult to work around the way the keyboards were developing. Why am I looking for a different place? I shouldn’t be looking for a different place. What’s going on with these keyboards? You know, there’re not even real, not even a real instrument!

Geddy added his perspective:

Alex and I had some real disagreements about how profound the keyboards should be, but ‘Power Windows’ is a really important record because it was the final and essential blending of keyboards and guitar to me for Rush.

Power Windows does have its devotees. When ‘The Big Money’, ‘Marathon’ and ‘Grand Designs’ appeared on subsequent live albums, they sounded good. Not brilliant, but certainly better. However, as noted Rush fan and McFly main man Tom Fletcher might well ask, ‘Where did all the guitars go?’ Despite the remarkable demonstration of keyboard sounds, only three of its eight songs made it to official live status. This collection felt, at the time, like the nadir of the band’s 1980s output. Today, I feel the same way about it. You need to know it gives me no pleasure in writing that.

‘The Big Money’ (5.34)

A record’s producer is as integral to a song’s success as the ideas contained in the initial writing. Put another way, the fact that ‘A Farewell To Kings’ and ‘Moving Pictures’ are such great albums is in no small part due to the input and skills of Terry Brown. In a similar way, ‘The Big Money’ is the best song on Power Windows despite the involvement of Peter Collins.

First impressions? The sound is bright, full, swamped with reverb, and there’s a lot going on in the background. The lyrics are more a list than a narrative; Peart considers the power of those with vast amounts of money for both good and evil, coming down on neither side except with the final lines, ‘Big money got a mean streak, big money got no soul’, during which Lee excels vocally. In an interview with The Boston Globe in 1985, Peart said:

I didn’t want the song to be...