#1 - Rush - Moving Pictures (1981)
Prior to 2001, I had no real musical (listening) direction. Before Rush, I really can't even remember what I valued when listening to music. It was primarily popular stuff I guess, with some country mixed in. I did like Metallica, but that was about it as far as metal or anything remotely progressive went. And Chicago was (and still is) a favorite of mine, from their early jazz-rock all the way through their sappy 80's love ballads. I had discovered Tower of Power, Jaco, and Weather Report a few years earlier, so they were in the mix - but as far as world class musicianship, that was it.
That all changed in 2001, when my brother made a CD-R for me that had a whole bunch of different music on it. Three tracks right in the middle of the disc happened to be "Tom Sawyer", "Red Barchetta", and "YYZ". As soon as I heard them, I was like "holy crap, this drummer is awesome." Then I was like "holy crap, this is ALL awesome!" Those three songs were my musical awakening. Then "Limelight" became one of my favorite songs from
Retrospective II (I mentioned in a previous entry that the two Retrospective compilations were my first Rush albums), and I noticed it was from the same album as the other three songs. Are you kidding me, this album has four of the greatest things I've ever heard? Then I got the album and after I heard those four, a song that would go on to surpass even those came on - "The Camera Eye" - a top 5 Rush song for me.
The songs are awesome, the playing superb, the production is excellent. The intros and outros are simply stunning. "Tom Sawyer", "Limelight", and "YYZ" have instantly recognizable opening moments. The intro to "The Camera Eye" is possible my favorite 3 and a half minutes in music. The outros to "Red Barchetta" and "Tom Sawyer" are gems as well. Ok, so "Vital Signs" is fairly pedestrian amongst the Rush song catalog, but even that track gave me a mind-blowing experience. Not long after I had purchased the album, I was listening through it late one night liying on the floor with my headphones on. As I was drifting in and out of sleep during the closing moments of the final song, the famous "everybody got to 'evelate' from the norm" line came on and provided me with quite the surreal experience.
Discovering Rush led me to Dream Theater and Symphony X, which led me to Porcupine Tree and Opeth. Discovering Neal Peart led me to Dave Weckl, Chick Corea, etc. and a renewed interest in jazz, both modern and traditional. All told, approximately 33 of the 50 albums on this list are here because
Moving Pictures opened my eyes to a music world beyond what was directly in front of me and I am forever grateful. So in a way, you could say that the album title even has another meaning in that it
moved me to another stage in my music listening experience.
"All the world's indeed a stage,
And we are merely players,
Performers and portrayers,
Each another's audience
Outside the gilded cage."
Topic: Big Hath's Top 50 Albums v. #1: -.---.----.. (Read 64267 times)
