For all you ignorant Rush haters, remember: Harvard named them Musicians of the Millenium in 1993.

[Rabrrrrrr]

Top that with your Flea wanking and your Linkin Park garbage and your emo bullshit music and your Mozart worship and bending over backwards to blow Bach.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kweIodelqY&feature=related

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. yeah, Harvard

known for its hard rocking, big time drinking, and partying ways. right. THAT Harvard. :eyes: :D

[darkstar]

2. The same one that gaveW his MBA.....

:evilgrin:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. now wait a minute

he paid for it fair and square :D

[DBoon]

8. You were expecting maybe MIT?

nt

[Tuesday Afternoon]

12. hmmmm...

how about a rambling wreck from Georgia Tech :D

[JVS]

11. So, who did Cal-state in Chico say was the best?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. You're asking me?

Fuck if I know.

[MissMillie]

57. maybe not known for it

but don't think it doesn't happen.

[flvegan]

4. 2007 Blender Worst Lyricists in Rock #2...Neil Peart.

I kid. I liked some of Rush' (yeah, I left the "s" off) work into the early 90's.

Even still, the Beastie Boys will be in the RnR Hall of Fame before Rush ever is.

[ProfessorGAC]

37. The Lyrics: Not So Much

But, they were absolutely superb players who knew how to play together.

I know great when i hear great.
The Professor

[evlbstrd]

5. Fuckin' eggheads.

That's who I look to for my Top Ten.

[sniffa]

6. Who is this Rush you speak of?

Is it that fat bastard on the radio?

:shrug:

[old mark]

7. First, Rush sucks. Second, my brother in law went to Harvard,

and I don't much like him, either.

Fuck Harvard, too.

mark

[babylonsister]

9. Damn, I forgot about the comic value of the lounge.

And again, I'm clueless but delightedly so!

[ProfessorGAC]

39. I'll Catch You Up, Sis

Rabrrrrrr is provoking a fight over something that doesn't matter, and i'm on his side!

That's as deep as it gets.
The Professor

[jobycom]

10. That was Harvard's "National Lampoon," after they were bought by J2

J2 Communications was a licensing firm who bought the NL just to sell the name to anyone who wanted to make a movie and label it "National Lampoon's Whatever Dumbass Nudey Teen Flick We Can Make." They were contractually obligated to put out at least one NL Magazine a year, and in 1993, the year of your silly Rush award, they put out one magazine. For all I know, Rush bought the rights to be given the award.

I'm surprised you like them. They are the Thomas Kincade of Rock and Roll--pretentious, empty, narcisistic, and over-marketed.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. I *love* Rush - they, Pink Floyd, and Led Zep have been the soundtrack of my life

In terms of rock bands, anyway. Also include Yes and Genesis in that mix.

[redqueen]

18. You have excellent taste in music. (nt)

[jobycom]

26. You like talented but boring bands.

No heart, no soul, but plenty of stuff to make D&D geeks go "AWESOME!" I could listen to Yes and Led Zepplin in the right mood, though. Musically they were sound and creative, and even now and then inspired. But I couldn't handle them for more than a single or two at a time.

Not like Rush, who was pretentious and unlistenable from the start to me. All the pseudo-intellectuals with their randomly-directed iconoclastic tendencies loved Rush, but all I saw was a band that didn't understand the point of the technical skills they possessed. Pedantic metaphors about trees fighting in the forest, or weak modern parallels to drug-using Tom Sawyers were the essence of formulaic, commercialized manipulation, to me. Give me another dumb-ass love song with some passion over that nonsense any day. Besides, their lyrics are Republican/conservative in the extreme, and their chief lyricist is an Ayn Rand worshipper, so that made it even worse. Every Rush fanatic I knew in high school went on to become a conservative or libertarian.

Genesis is hit or miss for me. Their pop stuff was flat, but sometimes they had an edge. I loved Gabriel's work after he left the band.

Floyd is the exception. They actually did manage to mix the intellectual with the artistic without sounding turgid, musically or lyrically. They were what Rush wanted to be, but didn't have the artistic maturity to be.

Just my opinions, anyway. I'm sure your life was exciting despite have a boring soundtrack! :rofl:

[Rabrrrrrr]

27. Boring? Boring is some emo scab or love-song jagoff or pop fuck huffing along at 4/4 or 3/4

60 beats a minute with a half-step key change after the second verse for twenty-seven consecutive bilge-laden albums.

But, I was raised on classical music, so my musical (and other artistic) tastes are a bit more refined and demanding than the average American artistically clueless shitpot sitting on the recliner shoving Doritos in his maw two-fisted and sucking down gallons of high fructose sugar-filled garbage while watching American Idol and breaking his hip in desperation to get to the cell phone to text a vote at 99 cents a pop for the next insipid melismatic nasal singing whore.

[jobycom]

29. Boring is thinking all that matters one little bit.

Count the trees, miss the forest.

[Rabrrrrrr]

32. To me, boring implies a lack of variety and an overall smear of vapid sameness

from one song to the other.

If I wanted boring, I'd listen to pop music or Kenny G.

I like variety in my art; I prefer my art not to be a long stain of similarity. I don't need predictability to be comfortable. Predictability is boring.

But, I know a lot of culturally ignorant people who feel that unless the music they're listening to broadcast every beat with a howitzer level of beat, and that anything besides 3/4 and 4/4 is 'boring' because it's utterly fucking predictable, and that boring means "sounds different than I am used".

Maybe that's the boring you are stuck on - boring being anything "unusual" or that one has to stop and pause for a moment and think about it to begin comprehend, and must relisten and relisten in order to plumb the depths of the entirety its musical subtlety.

Some people are happy to go to South Dakota and visit Ol' Uncle Bill's One Room Museum of Antiques and feel that they've seen all they ever need to see of old stuff.

Other people, like me, prefer the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, or the Natural History Museum.

[jobycom]

45. Which sums up most of the bands you mentioned.

I guess maybe if counting beats turns you on, go for Zep. But to me they are monotonous. As is Yes. I can hear what they are doing, but it still puts me to sleep. Rush isn't as monotonuous, they are just bad, and their lyrics are goofy. They would all fit quite well in Ol' Uncle Bill's One Room Museum of Antiques, Classic Rock, and Mauve Appliances. Give me something original and new, and give me someone who understands that music has to have passion, not just a mathematically precise balance of notes and rhythms. Again, that's what Thomas Kincaide does. I'll wander through a gallery of unknown Native American artists in Taos, instead. Maybe the technique won't give me a hard on, but at least it's alive.

[Rabrrrrrr]

50. Well, then, give me the Picassos, the Monets, the Twomblys, and Dalis.

You can stay with your 3/4 60 beat a minute Kinkades that offer blandness, sameness, and uncreativity, but at least it's predictable and easy to dance to and you don't have to really pay any attention to it - it can just sit there in the background offering nothing of value.

I prefer art that not only demands, but warrants, close inspection; and which unlocks new vistas of beauty on each inspection, and which grows as I, the viewer, grow.

When it comes to passion, bands like Yes, Zep, Rush, Pink Floyd, early Genesis, King Crimson, ELP, Neil Young, Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, David Bowie, David Byrne and the Talking Heads, Philip Glass, Arvo Part, Penderecki, Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Pharaoh Sanders, John Coltrane, Santana, Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Edgar Verese, Messiaen, Berlioz, Stravinsky - they all have it in spades. In spades. These are the musicians who do music because they live music, breathe music, and couldn't do anything but do music.

But, they're not 60 beat a minute 3/4 or 4/4 danceable with a demographically computed musical algorithm designed to move industrial musical product, so you probably don't like any of them.

[mitchum]

53. Actually, all of the Rush fans I have known have been lower class prole types...

so, I guess that blows your "refined taste" theory

I was also raised on classical music, but I think that Lou Reed's 3 favorite chords beat the shit out of Rush's overcompensating douchebaggery.

[TZ]

28. Ruh roh jobycom..I sense trouble from DuStrange....

:evilgrin:

[jobycom]

30. He's survived worse.

:)

[Dr. Strange]

35. Okay...

DuStrange adds jobycom to the list for the Festivus "Airing of the Grievances."

[jobycom]

47. Uh huh....

Just don't put that but in front of me, then. :P

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Talent Is NOT Boring

And if you can't simply appreciate talent without them exciting you, then i don't think you should be criticizing others.
The Professor

[Dr Fate]

43. I'm sure Lawrence Welk & Liberache were talented musicians as well.

It doesn't make them any more fun to listen to though.

[ProfessorGAC]

49. Lawrence No. Liberache Yes

And, while that's no my kind of music, i would never question why anyone else liked it.

Lawrence Welk was a hack who hired hacks.

Let's try to stay on subject.
GAC

[Dr Fate]

54. Oh- I'm not questioning why people like it...

I thought this was all just good natured opinions, as the OP makes it a point compare RUSH to styles he doesnt like...

Cant stand RUSH, but I love most Pink Floyd...

Have to admit that Red Barachetta (sp?) tells a cool story though...

[ProfessorGAC]

55. Ah, I Was Just Objecting To. . .

. . .the "talented but boring" idea. I don't find talent boring. And, pure technique (the Kenny G reference in another post) is not a display of talent. It's merely a display of practice.

Besides i was just taking sides with Rabrrrrr, just for fun. I was picking light fights in the spirt of the OP.
GAC

[jobycom]

46. Depends. Being a really good speller doesn't necessarily make for good literature.

A talent for playing an instrument doesn't necessarily translate into anything worth listening to. Reference Kenny G.

[ProfessorGAC]

48. Kenny G. Isn't Talented

Talent requires more than technique. You know that. You're now trying to split hairs.
GAC

[Rabrrrrrr]

51. Kenny G is not talented - Kenny G plays in tune. He has no soul, though;

at least, not a soul that's worth a damn.

He's a very typical American that finds surface beauty to be just fine and enough, because caring about depth is evil or something.

I don't know what it is about artless talentless shitpeople, but it's a goddamned shame that American Idol is one of America's favorite shows. And it's not favorite in an ironic way, either. People actually take the "musicians" on that show seriously, and emotionally invest themselves in the shit that is spewed on that abomination.

[Dr Fate]

44. Sums it up for me perfectly. n/t

n/t

[Dr Fate]

42. Love Syd Barret era & most Floyd to a point- dislike the rest.

Yes they are talented, yes they are boring. No, I dont like Emo or mainstream pop!

[Robeson]

14. Rush? Seriously? They were a novelty band in their "prime"....

...a dime a dozen back then.

[Parche]

16. Genesis Is Better

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. As I keep telling you, that is NOT Genesis; that is Phil Collins and band.

Genesis ceased to exist in 1985. It started to die in 1980.

[kentauros]

19. The only time I saw Rush was when they were the opening band for

Blue Oyster Cult, circa 1975. And they stank! :P

Trying to play way too loud so the sound was overblown in every respect; just plain unlistenable. I heard from friends that in later years they often sold themselves as having the loudest concerts, some saying the sound was at or near 120 decibels. Ya know, if I wanted to thrash my eardrums with 120db, I'd work with a chainsaw without those foam earplugs and get about the same experience.

At reasonable listening volumes, Rush is a good band, but not one I'd go out and buy anything from ;)

I did enjoy Geddy Lee on the Bob & Doug McKenzie show, however

[mainegreen]

20. The whole damned school or the department of music?

And seriously, if they named someone 'Musicians of the Millenium' before the millenium is even over, how seriously can we take them?
That's a big mistake to make.

Was there a review process, or did the engineering department get really shitfaced one night and issued a press release declaring Rush to be Band of the Century?

:D

[Rabrrrrrr]

21. I don't know if you watched the video, but I imagine you didn't - it was the Lampoon that did it

and it's pretty tongue in cheek. They awarded Rush with pizzas.

It's a funny video.

[mainegreen]

24. I'll watch it tonight.

Damned firewall prevents me from seeing shit at work.

[DS1]

31. then I suppose tubgirl's right out

[mainegreen]

52. Tubgirl would not make it past the filter, no.

And for that I am grateful.

No tubgirl for me.

[KamaAina]

22. Harvard? Bah!

All they can think of to say when we're kicking their a$$ in The Game is "You may be winning, but you have to go back to New Haven"!

K-A
Y'85, cum laude (no, GWB'68 doesn't know what that is, so don't ask)

edit: Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!

[MrCoffee]

23. Whooptie fuckin doo. What does Harvard know about music?

Prog-lovin' jagoffs.

[Fire Walk With Me]

25. High-School Cafeteria Lunch Ladies For Rush.

Scowling.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Ishoutandscream2]

34. Rush = Pretentious

Sorry.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. No It Doesn't

Pretentitious is deciding for everyone else, what is good and not good.

Hey, i call 'em as i see 'em.
The Professor

[LynneSin]

38. Harvard knows their shit even if they gave an MBA to Bush

the only bleak spot in their stellar careers!

[Dr Fate]

41. Dig those "Wicked Witch of the West" vocals and Faux-Randian lyrics.

"Salesmen! SALESMEN! I'LL GET YOU DOOORTHEEEE!!!"

Pass. I don't know about Emo or whatever either- just good old Rock & Roll will do...

[Orsino]

56. Harvard gave Bush an MBA.

Your Honor, the prosecution rests, and asks for summary judgment.