Quick, help me out! To all you who are knowledgeable about Rush's whole catalog (not just the big hits). Give me the top 5 albums and the top 15 songs! I'm just getting into it, and I like it all. Trying to find the songs that are considered the best. Thanks
You're probably going to get a different answer from everyone here. Start with Moving Pictures, and then Permanent Waves. Most people will agree on those. Then, if you like the more "raw" and hard rock side of Rush, move backward in time to 2112. If you like the synthesizers, move forward to Signals. Then you can fill in the rest as your budget allows.
I almost never get involved in suggesting anything because I will always say start at the beginning and move forward because I think that with Rush more than almost any other band it's about the journey. (It's all out there. On the job training. And I'd include all the live albums sprinkled in the correct order).
During the the Mercury/Polygram years the progress is almost directly linear. And after a small step back to refocus it continues with he Atlantic years.
Count me among those Test For Echo lovers, but I can't say there is an album that I don't like. I even enjoy Feedback in moderation.
I don't know if I'd put Test For Echo in my top 5, but I consider it to be a classic.
The only songs I'm not all that enthused about are Test for Echo and Carve Away The Stone.
Are there some lyrical headturners on that album? Sure. But I'd put Totem, Half The World, Driven, Time And Motion, Resist and The Color Of Right up against the best that Rush has ever done.
Least favorite song on Power Windows for me is probably Manhattan Project although I quite like it.
Love to hear Grand Designs brought back live since it's been 25 years since I've last experienced it that way.
One more word on the Birmingham Hold Your Fire show from 1988.
I'd have to listen to it closely, but if it's just a compilation of the A Show of Hands CD and DVD then most of the show is Birmingham. However, there are tracks on the A Show Of Hands CD that were recorded in other US cities so it would just be a hybrid set From the Hold Your Fire Tour.