Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky's Edge Blood Red Shoes - Fire like this Band of Skulls - Baby Darling Doll Face Honey
This week I have been mostly buying: Elvis Costello & Friends Go To Washington (Bootleg LP) Mike Nesmith - Your Standard Ranch Stash & The Newer Stuff LPs REM - Monster LP Currently buying only vinyl as it's just a much nicer way to listen to music.
Richard Hawley booked for Leeds Academy end of September. No John Cooper Clarke we can make, gonna keep an eye on it.
Bought the Rush album on Monday - the best thing they've done in many a year. Headlong Flight is simply stunning. Listening now! Foo Fighters producer at the helm and you can hear the parallels with some of the stuff on Wasting Light. Rope would have sat perfectly well on this album! Tickets booked for Manchester next May.
A lot of people seem like to Rush on here. I've been meaning to try 'em out at some point but don't know which album to go for. I get the impression that they went a bit Arena Rock in the 80s so I wouldn't be interested in that but if there is an album that sums up their style the most then I would try that.
Personal taste, obviously, but I think Permanent Waves (1980) and Moving Pictures (1981) were their peak. They'd moved away from the multi-part prog sword & sorcery stuff to a more commercial sound. Not for nothing did Spirit Of Radio provide them with their biggest 'hit'. I can take or leave the mid to late 80's stuff - Geddy went off on some synth obsession and the guitars took a back seat. That said, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire & Presto had their moments - many of which still hold a place in the live set.
Permanent Waves I would think is the one that springs to mind first but I was thinking of trying 2112 or the '90s one with the bolt on the front cover. I will definitely avoid the synth stuff though!
Micky Finn pretty much sums it up. There's such a back catalogue to go for and they've changed through the years yet for me every album has it's moments, I can listen to any of them. They are probably the only band I've stuck with for so long. As Micky says though as a starting point I'd go for Moving Pictures and Permanent Waves. At a point I was getting into thrash metal such as Metallica, Anthrax etc and would think I'd go off Rush, out came Hold Your Fire in 1988 I think, heavy on the synth but one of my favourite Rush albums. It's not for nothing that they dominate my MP3 player and get heavy rotation. Heard the "Headlong Flight" track off the new album a while back and was blown away. Ticket booked for Sheff Arena next year.
The one with the bolt on the cover is Counterparts, it's ok but for a mid 90's one I'd go for Roll The Bones. Just looking at my MP3 player and I have 8 tracks from that on it!
2112 was the first album I bought of theirs, back in '76 on a tip from a mate at school. Worked my way back through the previous three and then everything since. I can't listen to a lot of that late-80s stuff now; bought out of duty really! Form picked up again with Roll The Bones. I actually love the run from 2112 through to Hemispheres; if you can live with the sub-Tolkienesque lyrics, they really were starting to display their technical skills as musicians. I know every new album gets greeted with a 'return to form' tag, but Clockwork Angels really is brilliant. Forked out for the fan-pack thing just to get it a month early and I'll shell out again if we see a vinyl version in the UK. Christ, they're pushing 60!!
That's it Counterparts - always liked that song "Stick It Out". I think I will try 2112 and Permanent Waves then 'cause they're all pretty cheap on Amazon. I'm into heavy stuff generally and a lot of these bands are influenced by Rush and I can see why.
The last album I bought was The Cribs, In The Belly of The Brazen Bull although with since I started using spotify I tend to buy less albums. Most recent Spotify Albums : Hot Chip - In Our Heads Mystery Jets - Radlands Jack White - Blunderbuss
Never been a massive fan of The Cribs. Just don't really get 'em. Seen both Jack White and Mystery Jets recently. Blunderbuss is a quality album but not heard Radlands yet.
I suppose some of these lyrics may sound a bit dated now but it was fairly original at the time and to be honest that wouldn't put me off. I'll look at that mid 70s to early 80s period then.
For me Their best has to be 2112 followed by A Farewell to Kings though first one I heard and bought was Hemispheres. As pointed out above Permanent Waves was probably their most sucessfull and its pretty good too as I moving pictures I just had a slight preference for the albums I mentioned already I quite liked the very early stuff - best heard on a live album called All the worlds a stage - no idea if its still availlable I have it on Vinyl Got all the abums up to Signals which was where I think they went off and lost interest in the mid 80s Might have to try and listen to the new one though by the sounds of it
Agreed Blunderbuss is quality. Every Jack White turns his hand to seems to be pretty good. Just noticed it gets into The Guardians Best Albums of the year so far. https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/music/2012/jun/14/best-albums-2012-so-far?post_gdp=true I'm liking Radlands a lot too.