There are classic rock staples that I never get sick of, like "Tom Sawyer" or "Freewill" or "Fly By Night," but certainly over a lifetime of hundreds of radio spins, sometimes it hits you and sometimes it's just wallpaper. But the last time I heard "Tom Sawyer" on the radio, probably just a few days ago, I cranked that shit and felt it more than I had in years.

The news just broke on Friday that Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart had died of brian cancer at the age of 67, and he's already on the books as one of the all-time greats of rock drumming -- in fact he was probably the popular default for best drummer alive in the decades since Bonham and Moon passed. Rush was always on my to-do list for this series, I hate when it doubles as an obituary, but I'm happy to celebrate a body of work that's worth celebrating.

Rush deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Xanadu
2. Red Barchetta
3. 2112: Overture (Retrospective Edit)
4. Bastille Day
5. What You're Doing
6. By-Tor & The Snow Dog
7. Chemistry
8. YYZ
9. Something For Nothing
10. La Villa Strangiato (An Exercise In Self-Indulgence)
11. Anthem
12. Madrigal
13. Natural Science

Track 5 from Rush (1974)
Tracks 6 and 11 from Fly By Night (1975)
Track 4 from Caress Of Steel (1975)
Tracks 3 and 9 from 2112 (1976)
Tracks 1 and 12 from A Farewell To Kings (1977)
Track 10 from Hemispheres (1978)
Track 13 from Permanent Waves (1980)
Tracks 2 and 8 from Moving Pictures (1981)
Track 7 from Signals (1982)

My self-imposed 80-minute limit for these playlists means I'm more cautious and selective with longer songs and get to fit fewer in if an act has a tendency toward multi-suite prog rock symphonies. Previously my Yes and Tool playlists only had 12 tracks each, so I was actually pleased that I got 13 in here. I cheated a little bit -- 2112's epic 7-part title track is one of the band's most revered pieces of music, but it's also 20 minutes long, and the 2nd section was released as a single. So I used the first section, as it was edited into its own track for the 1997 compilation Retrospective I. But there are four other tracks on this playlist that run 8 minutes or longer, which I included in their full album versions. Rush had a great ear for concise 4-minute singles -- I appreciate that for the most part they didn't need their label to butcher their songs with radio edits to get on the air -- but they stretched their legs out quite a bit whenever the song didn't sound like a likely single.

I think one of the most remarkable thing about Neil Peart's unique role in Rush is that he wasn't a member of the original lineup -- Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson had already released one successful album with founding drummer John Rutsey, and judging from Rush, they could've had a pretty good career just continuing to be a Canadian and brainer than usual Led Zep knockoff. "Working Man" is awesome, as is the deep cut I picked, "What You're Doing." But after Rutsey had to step down due to health problems, Rush hired Peart away another Canadian band called, incredibly, Hush. And within 6 months of him joining, they'd written and recorded a new album, Fly By Night, that overhauled their sound with far more ambitious songs like "By-Tor & The Snow Dog," with most of the lyrics on the album penned by Peart. Imagine that 6 month period of them jamming and gigging and becoming this whole new thing.

There are famous drummers who are beloved as people, like Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, and drummers who became more famous as singer-songwriter frontmen, like Phil Collins and Dave Grohl, but in a way I think Neil Peart was unique: a drummer who stayed behind his kit and never became a singer or media personality, but was revered and celebrated as the musical and intellectual core of a great band. Rush fans love Geddy and Alex, but Neil is the one spoken about in hushed, awestruck tones, the one whose incredibly intricate polyrhythms and verbosely intellectual lyrics made Rush different from every other band. He was a true original.

I stuck with the first 9 of their 19 studio albums for this playlist, so I only went a little ways into their synth-heavy '80s. But I think Rush is kind of up there with Prince as a model of how to set a really high level of musicianship while also embracing new technology and making some cutting edge sonics sound more live and lively. And I dig that they really stuck with the power trio format of the band and didn't just keep adding more and more auxiliary band members to play keyboards and stuff.

I've always been kind of a casual Rush fan, checking out records here or there, I just listened to Hemispheres for the first time last year and really dug it. I feel like I'll never be a hardcore Rush head simply because I fail the litmus test of not especially loving their proggiest album, 2112, which was oddly their commercial breakthrough and still their biggest seller next to Moving Pictures. Even as a drummer and a time signature nerd, I tend to not even count the beats and figure out what rhythm Rush are playing in, since they tend to go so fast and often change it up into a new section before I catch up. So my bread and butter is still the punchier riff rock songs like "Red Barchetta" and "Anthem," but I enjoyed diving into some of these longer jams.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 11, 2020 at 11:55 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.