Martin Popoff’s second book in his Rush trilogy tackles a decade that polarized some Rush fans from the 1970s while growing new and enthusiastic ones whose introduction to the band came when New Wave music was ascending. To be sure, Rush was never a New Wave band, but they did embrace the genre by adapting musical and lyrical elements to their sound that temporarily vaulted them into the realm of A-list acts at the beginning of the ’80s. That lucrative ride could have endured if they continued with a formula that was established in 1980 and 1981 with Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures. But Rush being Rush wasn’t the kind of band who liked to repeat themselves to the point of diminishing returns. Instead, they often branch out by incorporating instruments and styles that could be alienating to their fan base. Indeed, “The Synth Years” should have been a money loser for the band. But their live shows contained enough older material that while albums like Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, and Hold Your Fire were controversial in that they betrayed the progressive rock roots of the band, fans of the ’70s era Rush were, by and large, consistently treated to Rush standards from the early years.
In a way, if 2112 bought the band their artistic freedom, Moving Pictures bought them their financial freedom. And that freedom to pursue both their artistic interests with a larger financial cushion meant taking bigger risks in the musical direction of the band. Popoff takes care to note that while the band was making some money through their relentless touring schedule and album releases, they were still trying to crawl out “from a mountain of debt.” They needed a big hit, and Moving Pictures proved to be just that. However, if it wasn’t for Permanent Waves — with its emphasis on more compact songs — the pump may not have been primed for the gusher that was to come a year later.
The band never had a hit like they did with Moving Pictures again — and in a way that was just a-okay with Rush. With Signals, the group went further into incorporating more keyboards while pushing Alex Lifeson’s guitar work more into the realm of the rhythm section. “Subdivisions,” “New World Man,” “The Weapon,” and “Losing It” are all fine songs, but for those looking for a heavy guitar and bass sound, these wouldn’t satisfy those hungry customers — like their producer, Terry Brown. Indeed, Brown left after Signals because, at bottom, he and the band were truly separated by creative differences. Brown wanted to produce progressive hard rock, and Rush wanted to keep riding that New Wave sound into the future. In order to do that, they wanted a producer who could push their sound into more exciting realms. Unfortunately for them, Grace Under Pressure proved to be more of a slog. Part of that was the producer they hired bailed on them to work with Simple Minds. Yes, that person was Steve Lillywhite, who left the band scrambling to find a replacement. The proverbial bench for producers was pretty shallow, but they were able to get Peter Henderson. Alas for Rush, Henderson was more of an engineer than a producer whose suggestions on performances in the studio would be more like: “I don’t know; do you want to compare?” Or, “Well, what do you think?” This made the sessions drag on with a lot of frayed nerves to boot.
With Power Windows, they were able to get Peter Collins on board, who did have a lot of suggestions on how the band could improve on their sound — which worked really well for that record. It’s an album that goes deeper into the synth sound for the band and is probably their strongest post-Moving Pictures album of the decade. If there’s a flaw to these mid-’80s Rush records is that they are too shiny in terms of the production. The high end is emphasized to such a degree that the songs can feel a bit sterile. However, that’s a by-product of the decade. The move to digital technology, samples, electronic drums, and, yes, more synthesizers meant Rush had, for a few years, abandoned their dedication to hard rock. Certainly, hard rock elements were still part of many of their songs, but by the time Hold Your Fire was released in 1987, Rush was about as far from progressive and hard rock as they ever were. Other monsters of prog and rock were doing the same, so it’s not like Rush was alone. Genesis, Peter Gabriel, REO Speedwagon, Styx were all successful in the ’80s — but hardly recognizable to their 1970s base. For Rush, that sense of “Who is this band?” was apparent on the song “Tai Shan” — which felt like a complete betrayal of their sound. Even Popoff, who keeps his opinions about songs and albums to a minimum, couldn’t help himself when he noted that in “Tai Shan” Rush’s “Buddhist vibe rings somewhere between hollow, insincere, and patronizing.”
However, there was a sense of rock redemption on the band’s last album of the decade, Presto. Peter Collins was out (for now), and Rupert Hine was in as a producer. It was Hine’s keen sense of the band’s dynamics and understanding of what they wanted to achieve conceptually that led him to agree to the job. He liked the songs the band played for him but wasn’t sure what more he could add since they were fully realized compositions. However, what he did for the band was to continue something that Peter Collins started: getting Geddy to sing in a lower range. It wasn’t so much that Lee’s shrill voice didn’t communicate power, it just made it harder to understand and feel the emotions of the lyrics. And since Hine was also a musician with a track record, he wanted Lee to work on delivering more emotion to his singing and for Peart to write lyrics that connect on a more gut level. Hine also understood that Peart and Lee “sort of played” with Lifeson when it came to lead guitar work, so he devised a “ploy” for Lifeson to could come up with lead breaks without input from the others — and it worked well. Frustration levels dropped, and everyone was more pleased with the ideas that were coming in. The high point of their collaboration with Hine as a producer came with “The Pass” — which Geddy says is one of his favorite songs to perform. While Presto didn’t entirely relegate the keyboards to the margins, Lifeson’s guitar was brought more forward into the mix, which got the band pointed toward a return to hard rock in the ’90s — aided in large part to Grunge.
What shall we (the royal “we”) make of this era for Rush? It was the band’s most productive decade. Their audience for live shows never saw a drop off in attendance, and their elan for experimentation was at a high point. However, while the quantity of music was abundant, sometimes the quality was lacking. Perhaps that’s the risk of chasing “the newest” when it comes to musical styles, instruments, samplers, electronic drums, digital recording equipment, and the like. The new toys tend to get attention while the craft of songwriting gets overshadowed. That’s not to say that I don’t like this era of the band. I absolutely do. Indeed, I became a Rush fan in 1981 after seeing them perform on the Moving Pictures Tour. And while my interest in Rush started to wane a bit after Grace Under Pressure, I still bought every record they released and listened to them quite a lot. However, to me, the band seemed a little lost from ’84 to ’89. It’s not that the records released during that five-year period were bad, it’s just with Rush you expect a greater sense of “power” in their power trio — and their sound got softer as the decade progressed. “Time Stand Still” (a fantastic song) signaled in a big way they were mellowing with age. And maybe if the album and concert ticket sales started to tank during this period, the band may have called it quits. But thankfully, they were committed to the process of progression and progressed musically until their final bow in 2015.
We’ll see where Popoff closes out this trilogy. However, because I’ve heard him opine on Rush’s music in the ’80s on the Something For Nothing podcast, I know that he’s not a fan of this era. I felt his points were valid, even though it angered a lot of fans who were introduced to the band during that time. And while I wrote earlier that Popoff generally keeps his opinions about Rush’s music from the ’80s to a minimum in this book, there were times when he struggled to fill the pages about certain albums. That was clear on the seven pages devoted to a collaboration with Max Webster on the song “Battle Scar” in the chapter on Permanent Waves — which could have been relegated to maybe a page. Similarly, the kind of activities the band would engage in while making albums focused a little too much on volleyball matches, Alex’s model airplanes, or softball games they would play with various crew members. Popoff includes these anecdotes to show that while making a record can be tedious (especially when the guys would hole themselves up at Le Studio in Quebec for months at the time), they found ways to blow off some steam.
One thing that Popoff tends to marginalize is drug use. Alcohol is featured at times, but other substances not so much. But drug use (mostly pot) is something the guys haven’t shied away from. Yes, Geddy Lee quit smoking the stuff in the ’80s, but Alex and Neil didn’t. And while Alex told Rolling Stone in 2015 that pot use made him “sloppy” in the studio, he added that “cocaine is the worst, for everything. If you want to feel your heart pounding on your mattress at 7:00 in the morning when the birds are chirping, it’s perfect. It’s awesome.” Highlighting some of the uses and, at times, abuses of drugs is completely fair game and shows that while The Boys are super talented musicians they are all-too-human when it came to the rock-n-roll life. I know their image as moderate guys was reinforced by the documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage when Gene Simmons said Rush sat in their rooms reading books while the members of KISS were partying in the hotel with girls. Maybe they were more focused and hardworking on the road and tended to party less, but considering how much drugs are and were part of the rock industry, it would have been interesting to hear about some of their wasted days and wasted nights to liven up the narrative.
While I really enjoyed Popoff’s first book in the series, Limelight: Rush in the ’80s was less of an enjoyable experience. Perhaps because there were few new revelations for fans like myself. I did find sections on the making of Presto fascinating from Rupert Hine’s view, and Peter Collins was pretty upfront about displaying a certain cockiness to sell the guys into giving him the job as a producer; a job that did a lot to improve Geddy’s vocals. But some of the drama of their start-up years in the ’70s was missing, and that made for a less compelling read. Now, some of my issues could be due to the fact that I’m one of those obsessive consumers of Rush-related information, so most of what’s presented here I’ve read in other places. However, if you’re new to the band and want a book that really lays out in detail what the Synth Years were like for Rush, Martin Popoff’s Limelight is a place to start.
