Metal Reviews

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The greatest album ever released. The band loves this album, especially Neil.

I love 80's pop, I love Rush. I love Guitars too. I love heavy metal. It blends all of them into a seamless "one" Alex's sort-of power chords throughout the album take it into the metal territory for me.

I have every single Rush album ever released and this one still finds its way into my CD player once in a while. I prefer Power Windows over Grace Under Pressure; an album that was good at the time but but really hasn't stood the test of time. Rush themselves do not hold Grace Under Pressure in very high regard either. Geddy Lee has been quoted as saying that album is a bit "dicey" and not one of their finer moments.

Well, Geddy doesn't like the album because of his personal life at the time. WQhether or not he likes the music is something only he knows. He has said its one of the albums he just can't listen to because of how tumultous the period was. It was a rough time for everyone. Steve Lillywhite pissed the band off by not holding up his end of the deal when he agreed to produce P/G. He went on to produce a simple minds record instead, and obviously, Big Country's Steeltown the same year.

Alex was ready to quit the band (he was quitting every week apparently) because he believed that guitar didn't have a future (what a time for music) and around the time of Power Windows he was exploring the possibility of becoming a painter (like an artist, not a house painter) Alex's drug use was getting out of control at the time as well, which wasn't helping. Apparently the guys in Rush wanted to sooth Alex's troubles and put far more guitar in those songs thatn they really needed (which I liked)

Grace Under Pressure was a tumultous time for the band but strictly due to producer problems and record company pressure. There has never been any mention of personal problems within the band during that period and I hardly think that Geddy and Neil would feel the need to "pander" Alex Lifeson by allowing more guitar on Power Windows to keep him in the band. Power Windows was a much better produced album with much stronger songs and was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to Grace Under Pressure. I have followed this band since 1975 and besides recreational drug use in the 70's by all members, I have never been aware of any real drug problem with anyone in the band. They are one of the few that has avoided that cancerous aspect of the rock 'n roll business. I have serious reservations about some of your claims.....sources?

Contents under pressure is one source. It states the family problems Geddy was having around the time of P/G.He missed his kids. His wife missed him. They were arguing over how much time he was spending on the road.

Rush have no record company problems. They record for their own label, Anthem, and thus have all the control over their artistic output. Polygram simply distributed the material outside of Canada.

Neil's books are the other.

The band were doing coke like it was going out of style in the 80's. Neil still does coke every now and then according to him, at least as of the publishing of ghost rider.

There's a quote from Alex that paraphrased goes something like this: "it would be innaccurate to say that we avoided the typical music industry excess [for drugs] it got very very close to collapsing many times, but we managed to stay just on the other side of not being out of control and luckily we lived through it and the band is still around. We had our problems, but we managed to get it together and not lose everything because of it like some other people [mick fleetwood:cough;cough:)

again, that's paraphrased, but its what he said in the book.

This has some damn great songs on it.