Rush - Moving Pictures / Chronicles (CD/DVD Combo Pack)
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Music CD Cover
Artist: RushEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2002-10-22
Music Label: Island / Mercury
Soundtracks:
- Tom Sawyer
- Red Barchetta
- YYZ
- Limelight
- Camera Eye
- Witch Hunt
- Vital Signs
Free Music Notes for Moving Pictures / Chronicles (CD/DVD Combo Pack)
Free Music Review: Mercury's sour grapes and the problems of compilations
Hit: 3 Stars
Mercury (Rush's label from 1974's "Rush" until 1987's "Hold Your Fire") released "Chronicles" just after Rush had moved to Atlantic and, in an interview I read at the time, Geddy commented that the band was not happy with Mercury's move; especially since they had not been consulted on which tracks this compilation would contain. Releasing a sprawling two CD package right as a band is launching an album of new material (1990's "Presto") on its maiden flight on a new label smacked of sour grapes then and still does today (Geddy said as much in the interview, tho' he didn't use the term "sour grapes"). Perhaps the inclusion of "Show Don't Tell" was an effort by the labels to head off any legal action?
Rush's albums have always been built around the album, they are a classic AOR band in that regard (that would be, "Album Oriented Radio"). They've never written hit singles (though I've often suspected that "Tom Sawyer" was a stab at it, but that's just a hunch) although they have had several songs breach the Billboard Top 100 ("Spirit of Radio", "New World Man", "Closer to the Heart" and maybe others, e.g. "The Big Money").
They have always oriented their music around the album concept (with, of course, the exception of their first--in reality second "debut" since Rush had been preceeded by another eponymous album that never got off the ground--with the late John Rutsey on skins); which is not to be confused with the concept album.
Three of their first four discs contain multi-part song cycles telling a story ("sprawling" if you no likey, "epic" if you, like me, do likey) which fill(ed) the entire side of an (vinyl) disc.
Even after they abandoned the long form composition (with "Moving Pictures"), they kept the idea of intellectually and musically coherent albums. Thus they are very much in the minority these days. As in the early and mid-Sixties, albums were simply collections of singles that usually had absolutely nothing to do with each other either thematically or musically. The formula was to put out a single every 12 weeks and tour incessantly. The early albums of both the Beatles and the Stones show this "Mickey Most" mentality at work (Most was an early producer of the Stones, among other "Invasion" bands). To make a thin analogy, he was something of a Simon Cowell (tho' not addicted to Armani tee-shirts & smart a***d remarks): "Sales first and, uh, how do you spell 'art' again?"
Thus for the Rush newbie, the best way to experience them are not the (by now) numerous compilation albums (Mercury has released 5, 2 twice!) and Atlantic has just released "Retrospective III 1989-2008).
It's to buy the classic albums. Personally, I'd start with "Hemispheres". It was the first full album I ever heard and I was hooked right away. Then go to "2112" and then just branch out.
The compilations are, in the reverse of the usual trend, more for the already dedicated fan (yes, there's a Rush calendar behind me as I write this, Geddy with his Fender Jazz bass). They put one's favorite songs into a convenient package. (Although with CD burners and PCs everywhere, one can easily create one's own compilations, as I've done many times).
But the shift between moods can be jarring. "Signals" was a pretty laid back, mellow album, trying, as the Police and other bands were doing, to incorporate some of the West Indian sounds whose popularity in America had landed Bob Marley on the threshold of superstardom before brain cancer took his life.
The album that follows, "Grace Under Pressure" is vastly different record. The moods are anger, discontent, depression, angst, grief, bewilderment and the ever-present fear of nuclear incineration (thank GOD my 9 yr has been able to grow up without the Soviet Union's threat hanging over her head!!).
So to put a song such as "Distant Early Warning" with "Prime Mover" (from "Hold Your Fire") is going to be jarring to say the least.
There's a DVD included in this package, since no one's said anything in other reviews, I'm going to assume this is the video collection also sold separately under the title "Chronicles."
It has many of their best videos, including the never shown "Afterimage" (a portrait of the devastation of sudden grief). But it DOES NOT contain one of their coolest videos, "The Body Electric" (the title taken from a line from a Whitman poem), about an android seeking to escape the computers that enslave it. Its lyrics contain the basic plot to the Matrix movies and, thus, predate by a number of years, the cyberpunk phenomenon that William Gibson both named and unleashed in the late 80s. (I don't know if Gibson heard the song before writing the book, but the parallels are hard to deny.)
So, I give this compilation THREE STARS because Mercury did it for spite and because they didn't consult the band; as well as the fact that we have enough collections of Rush songs.
In fact, I already have the CDs in cassette form and the video package I got separately.
SO BE CAREFUL IF YOU ALREADY HAVE CHRONICLES. They may be hoping you'll think there's something different, special or extra about this bundle of two formerly disparate products.
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