Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974-1987 - Rush (CD 2003)

This is a great band. Every album they ve ever released has gone gold or platinum, and that s without the help of critics or DJs, which brings some irony to the name of this album. Fifteen years ago, as rumor has it, the powers that had been at Mercury Records got the impression that Rush s best years were behind them (they were correct) and that there was no longer any profit potential (they were incorrect), and released them from their contractual obligations. The band has spent the time since then trying the regain stature (by producing stronger albums and by losing the 1980 s tinges that destroyed a great deal of their credibility), suffering a great deal of personal tragedy, releasing several side projects and generally living life a bit more than they had allowed themselves in the past. Mercury hasn t been completely idle either, shamelessly trying to recoup as much cash as possible after making the biggest blunder in their history. As soon as the band released their first album under their new label, Mercury put out a compilation, Chronicles, which contains everything on The Spirit Of Radio plus a dozen more tracks. Later, after the band went on hiatus due to the sudden deaths of Neil Peart s entire family, Mercury once again sensed a possible demand in the market and released two albums, Retrospectives Volumes 1 and 2 (which was essentially Chronicles split into two albums with a handful of further songs thrown in). Now that Rush has come back break and released a new album (Vapor Trails), and a successful one at that, Mercury is there once again playing the bottom-feeder. The Spirit of Radio is the current fruit of these tendencies. (I understand that Lee, Lifeson and Peart are not exactly thrilled with this release.) So, Mercury has released five compilations (including Archives and Rush Through Time) and this makes six.

There is not much by this band that I could ever justifiably tell anyone should not be bought at any costs. My ambivalence about this release arises from two contradictory urges: to recommend great music or to boycott a parasitic record company. That decision is not rightly mine, but yours. For the uninitiated or casual fan, I ve a breakdown of the individual tracks below. The selection of such is fairly obvious Mercury has selected anything that s ever been played on the radio. This would follow the title of the album, but would also omit the best material this band has ever produced.

Working Man is the blue-collar anthem from the debut album that initially gave the band some footing when a Chicago DJ decided to give it a spin in 1974. This is a must for a Rush greatest hits album, but it s not that good a song and suffers even further by the fact that it s from the one Rush album for which Peart is not handling the drums or lyrics. John Rutsey is horrible, even by early-70s heavy metal standards.

We see a gargantuan leap forward from Working Man to Fly By Night. Fly By Night is the title track from the second album and the song from the album that gets the only radio play. Percussion, general musicianship, composition, production and nearly every other category of scrutiny significantly improve from the last track to this one. We also see the greater emphasis on melody with Fly By Night than with the first album.

Caress Of Steel, the third album, is nixed on this release, showing further that this is a commercial venture and not an artistic one.

The first two segments of the 2112 suite are included on this album. Mercury would be remiss to release a greatest hits album without a nod to 2112. However, they should have included the whole suite and made this a double disc set, if necessary. Once again, however, the whole suite is never played on the radio.

Closer To The Heart is the track from A Farewell To Kings, which is probably the best album this band ever released. It s the only upbeat track on that album under four minutes in length, so it s naturally the single. It s also a very popular song, both within and without the Rush fan base. This is the first time on The Spirit Of Radio that we get a glimpse of some of the themes that ran through this period of the group s recorded history such as personal accountability, strong individualism and Rand s objectivism, as well as severe generalization and ivory tower intellectualism.

The album Hemispheres produced a funny tune about social conflict called The Trees, which is laced with biting sarcasm. What really works with this track is the music: it opens with something akin to a lullaby as it lays the groundwork of the story before erupting into the throes of the maple-oak aggression. It s got good music, a nice bridge and a strong climax (both musically and lyrically). This also is a fan favorite, although not as well known to the layman than as of the other tunes on this album.

This album s namesake was the first breakthrough Rush made onto the general public. It s a strange Rush tune because it s fairly hollow musically and yet sounds good at the same time. There are a number of other songs Rush has done where the aim was obviously for radio play and revenues, and they just never seem comfortable producing that kind of material except for The Spirit Of Radio. Freewill is much more typical of this band, with septuple measures, staunch idealism and some blistering high notes towards the end. Freewill is the best includable song from Permanent Waves. (Natural Science is too long.)

If Permanent Waves made the general population take notice, Moving Pictures made them listen. The only album to be represented by three tracks, Moving Pictures is Rush s biggest success to date, selling over four million copies worldwide while still maintaining some progressive standards. Limelight, Tom Sawyer and Red Barchetta comprise three-fourths of the album s first side and put several aspects of the band on display, most notably their virtuoso status, striving for substantial meaning to their lyrics and their growing acceptance of the synthesizer.

New World Man and Subdivisions come from the Signals album, which was released in 1982, and has the distinction of being the first album to be recorded digitally in its entirety. This reliance on electronics shows up in the music as well as we see the synthesizers take a very large step forward and the guitar take a very large step back. (The trend would continue until the band and Mercury parted ways.) This album in general is usually held quite higher by critics than by fans because the hard edge the band had maintained throughout their career completely disappeared in one fell swoop.

Distant Early Warning is this single representative from the Grace Under Pressure album, projecting the Distant Early Warning System as a foreseer of nuclear disaster and many other problems brought on by the modern age, both now and in the future. It s a very good token of the album as it maintains the same synthesizer emphasis from Signals while eschewing the normal lyrical tones for much more cynical ones.

The Big Money shows that some of that same cynicism carried over onto the Power Windows album. This was not one of there biggest albums by any means, but if a song had to be used, it would be The Big Money. This has the typical feel of a Rush album-opener, quick, upbeat and usually one of the nest songs on the album. (It s interesting to note that of the sixteen tracks on this album, eight of them were album-openers on the original studio albums and another six of them were second tracks on the original studio albums.)

The final [studio] album that Rush released on the Mercury label was Hold Your Fire, which actually sold fairly well but didn t really spawn much radio play. Two songs stand out as being popular among fans, Time Stand Still and Prime Mover, although Lock And Key was chosen to be a video. Time Stand Still, however, was the only song that was ever heard on FM radio. Somehow, Force Ten made it onto this album, along with Time Stand Still.

The bottom line is that this is a good album and represents the history of radio play this band has received over the years. However, if you own Chronicles or the two Retrospectives albums, you should not bother with this one, unless of course you re a collector or fanatic. If you own the twelve studio albums the band put out while with Mercury, you don t need this album. (Although, this album is digitally remastered. If the stuff you have is not, you may want to get this.) Lastly, this is a greatest hits album not a best of album - if you re looking for the latter, I suggest buying all [seven] studio albums between Fly By Night and Moving Pictures.