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Experiencing Rush: A Listener's Companion
Few bands have proven as long-standing and experimental as the Canadian rock act Rush, which has successfully survived and adapted like few others by continuing to work in an album-oriented “progressive hard rock” style. Rush bridged its original blues-rock style with progressive rock and heavy metal in the 1970s, explored new wave and synth rock in the 1980s, and then created a new kind of alternative hard rock in the 1990s and 2000s. Throughout its career Rush has stubbornly remained musically and lyrically individualistic. The band created dozens of albums over its four decades—with 45 million sold—and embarked on major concert tours for millions of fans across the globe.The band’s music appeals not just to mainstream rock fans but to those musicians who admire the structural complexity of its music.
In Experiencing A Listener’s Companion, music scholar Durrell Bowman guides readers through Rush’s long career, explaining through the artful combination of biography, history, and musical exegesis how to listen to this unique act. From Rush’s emergence as an early blues-rock power trio of guitar, bass, and drums into the godfathers of progressive hard rock, Bowman marks the band’s first breakthrough with its landmark, sci-fi/individualist album 2112. From there, readers explore Rush’s movement from “prog rock” extended compositions into shorter, potential-radio-play “post-prog” songs, leading to Rush’s most successful album Moving Pictures in 1981. In its later career, Rush adventurously mixed progressive hard rock and music technology, generating a new power trio sound that featured further stylistic evolutions. As Bowman makes clear, it is the band’s stalwart path and many influences on fans, musicians, and others that resulted in Rush’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
Rush is a legendary group, and Experiencing Rush is specially written for music fans seeking a deeper look into the band’s work, as well as for new listeners ready to discover the unique and diverse sound of one of rock’s greatest acts.
In Experiencing A Listener’s Companion, music scholar Durrell Bowman guides readers through Rush’s long career, explaining through the artful combination of biography, history, and musical exegesis how to listen to this unique act. From Rush’s emergence as an early blues-rock power trio of guitar, bass, and drums into the godfathers of progressive hard rock, Bowman marks the band’s first breakthrough with its landmark, sci-fi/individualist album 2112. From there, readers explore Rush’s movement from “prog rock” extended compositions into shorter, potential-radio-play “post-prog” songs, leading to Rush’s most successful album Moving Pictures in 1981. In its later career, Rush adventurously mixed progressive hard rock and music technology, generating a new power trio sound that featured further stylistic evolutions. As Bowman makes clear, it is the band’s stalwart path and many influences on fans, musicians, and others that resulted in Rush’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013.
Rush is a legendary group, and Experiencing Rush is specially written for music fans seeking a deeper look into the band’s work, as well as for new listeners ready to discover the unique and diverse sound of one of rock’s greatest acts.
- GenresMusicNonfiction
194 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 27, 2022
Though I’ve been listening to Rush since the late 70s, I’m hearing things I’ve never heard! Following the chronology of the studio albums, Bowman has shown me things I’ve never seen in my beloved songs. A revelation in 2112 (Soliloquy), a realization of A Farewell to Kings (Xanadu). What’s next? From here… on to Hemispheres.
Bowman’s exposition is thorough. Hemispheres has long been one of my favorite Rush albums. Yet, I’ve rediscovered things in Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres (and things I’ve never realized about Dionysus). I’ve further been reminded of the connections between albums and the evolution of Rush music between AFTK and Permanent Waves.
I also learned something new about Permanent Waves. Timed to be the very first major label album released in the new decade, it appeared on the shelves on New Year’s Day 1980. And I didn’t realize that Natural Science was Rush’s penultimate extended work (The Camera Eye being the last).
Some good history and background around Signals and Grace Under Pressure gave me a better understanding of those albums that I love.
Learning more about the albums that I love… I knew that Aimee Mann sang on the second track (Time Stand Still) of Hold Your Fire (1987), but I never realized that the sounds that open and close the first track (Force Ten) are samples of jackhammer sounds! Also never connected the album title to persevering with ones “inner flame”! Fantastic! Saw RUSH on this tour when they came to Buffalo, NY in Fall/Winter.
Going back and listening to Presto while reading the book showed me just how funky and driven that album truly sounded! It really was another change in direction for the band, away from music technology (synth and samples) and back to instrument virtuosity. The bunnies on the album art belie the true funk-inspired rock album under the covers!
I remember when I first heard Dreamline. It was playing on the local Waikiki rock radio station as I laid in bed early one evening in 1991. I recognized the band’s sound immediately within the first few measures and became very excited for new Rush music! While some tracks us synth/samplers, virtuosity remains. On the end of Bravado, Peart’s drumming shows “limb independence that rivals any drummer”!
Counterparts uses even less synth/samples than Roll the Bones, and was more straight forward rock. Reading this book and listening along took me back to when I pulled into port in Vancouver, BC in 1993 on the day the album was released in Canada and ran to find a music store to purchase the CD! Bowman talks about how Rush always stayed current, reacting to the times and translating trends back into its music.
Bowman provides a detailed explanation of the cover and cd booklet art that I never really noticed or fully understood! He also eases into the descriptions of the tragedies that led to sabbaticals and a question of whether Rush could continue after 1997-1998.
Bowman’s review of Vapor Trails is spot on, from the epic hard rock recovery album and single (One Little Victory), to the over-amped recording and subsequent remastering, to the Lifeson arrest about the same time (read about it)!
After Vapor Trails in 2002, there were only two more studio albums produced by the band. Bowman wraps up the last twenty years in about 14 pages by describing the various other milestones that were finally bestowed on Alex, Neil, and Geddy. Rush made the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time in 2012, and in 2013 was inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.
Bowman does a nice job of identifying two great points about Snakes & Arrows: (1) it holds not only one instrumental piece, but three; and (2) the album’s final song “We Hold On” includes lyrics that suggest that “Rush found quite a lot of vindication” in later years for its decades of eccentric, progressive, and individualistic music.
The author's notes about the bands final studio album (Clockwork Angels) tells about the vaguely steampunk themes and related book and graphic novels that it inspired.
Bowman’s exposition is thorough. Hemispheres has long been one of my favorite Rush albums. Yet, I’ve rediscovered things in Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres (and things I’ve never realized about Dionysus). I’ve further been reminded of the connections between albums and the evolution of Rush music between AFTK and Permanent Waves.
I also learned something new about Permanent Waves. Timed to be the very first major label album released in the new decade, it appeared on the shelves on New Year’s Day 1980. And I didn’t realize that Natural Science was Rush’s penultimate extended work (The Camera Eye being the last).
Some good history and background around Signals and Grace Under Pressure gave me a better understanding of those albums that I love.
Learning more about the albums that I love… I knew that Aimee Mann sang on the second track (Time Stand Still) of Hold Your Fire (1987), but I never realized that the sounds that open and close the first track (Force Ten) are samples of jackhammer sounds! Also never connected the album title to persevering with ones “inner flame”! Fantastic! Saw RUSH on this tour when they came to Buffalo, NY in Fall/Winter.
Going back and listening to Presto while reading the book showed me just how funky and driven that album truly sounded! It really was another change in direction for the band, away from music technology (synth and samples) and back to instrument virtuosity. The bunnies on the album art belie the true funk-inspired rock album under the covers!
I remember when I first heard Dreamline. It was playing on the local Waikiki rock radio station as I laid in bed early one evening in 1991. I recognized the band’s sound immediately within the first few measures and became very excited for new Rush music! While some tracks us synth/samplers, virtuosity remains. On the end of Bravado, Peart’s drumming shows “limb independence that rivals any drummer”!
Counterparts uses even less synth/samples than Roll the Bones, and was more straight forward rock. Reading this book and listening along took me back to when I pulled into port in Vancouver, BC in 1993 on the day the album was released in Canada and ran to find a music store to purchase the CD! Bowman talks about how Rush always stayed current, reacting to the times and translating trends back into its music.
Bowman provides a detailed explanation of the cover and cd booklet art that I never really noticed or fully understood! He also eases into the descriptions of the tragedies that led to sabbaticals and a question of whether Rush could continue after 1997-1998.
Bowman’s review of Vapor Trails is spot on, from the epic hard rock recovery album and single (One Little Victory), to the over-amped recording and subsequent remastering, to the Lifeson arrest about the same time (read about it)!
After Vapor Trails in 2002, there were only two more studio albums produced by the band. Bowman wraps up the last twenty years in about 14 pages by describing the various other milestones that were finally bestowed on Alex, Neil, and Geddy. Rush made the cover of Rolling Stone for the first time in 2012, and in 2013 was inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.
Bowman does a nice job of identifying two great points about Snakes & Arrows: (1) it holds not only one instrumental piece, but three; and (2) the album’s final song “We Hold On” includes lyrics that suggest that “Rush found quite a lot of vindication” in later years for its decades of eccentric, progressive, and individualistic music.
The author's notes about the bands final studio album (Clockwork Angels) tells about the vaguely steampunk themes and related book and graphic novels that it inspired.
May 26, 2020
As a fan of Rush (and some of Bowman’s past book chapters about the band) I was excited for this book. However, despite the fact that it did teach me new things about the band, the book felt mostly tedious. I know that Bowman is a musicologist and much of the book is his description of what their music sounds like. But not enough attention is devoted to Neil Peart’s lyrics. And I was hoping for more actual analysis of the songs. Large portions of the book felt more like a laundry list of their music, a description of what Rush did, than a compelling analysis of their music.
June 5, 2019
A very solid overview of Rush's entire career with particular attention paid to Rush's musical design, musical themes, album designs, and lyrics. As a pretty big Rush fan, I didn't gain a lot of additional insight into the band overall, but it was nice to get some analysis on songs that aren't talked about as much. I would say this is a great beginner's guide to Rush and their music, but not a comprehensive deep-dive into the complex nature of this prog rock band.
March 17, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews