Rush - Permanent Waves
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Free Music Notes for Permanent Waves
Free Music Review: The Spirit of Radio without plastic-synth things !
Hit: 5 Stars
"Permanent Waves" brought Rush's first big commercial success, "The spirit of radio", but I don't think the band was moving into a commercial way of life. In "Permanent Waves", from 1980, we can see a very mature band, playing very complex hard/progressive rock'n roll with a clean and well produced sound. After the excellent transitional albums "A Farewell to Kings" and "Hemispheres"", both incredible strong and very rich recordings, the band evolved in lyrics and sound production. In "Permanent Waves" their songs are much more tight, compact and melodical. The rhythm section is good as in the previous albums, but this time they're doing very riff-dominated progressive hard rock trough shorter compositions. The moog synth and other keyboards are present, and they fit perfectly! Peart's lyrics are notably good and Geddy's vocals are, finally, convicent! "Permanent Waves" has the typical Rush 70's sound with some elements of the 80's. "The spirit of radio" is a superb track, with so many good rhythm variations and riffs that really makes me shout ! "Freewill" is a great, great and decent Rush track ! I dont believe some people don't like this one! Why ? WHY ? There is a jam in the middle that you must listen to ! Pure Lee-Lifeson-Peart energy ! "Jacob's Ladder" has an introspective mood, good lyrics and an excellent big and compact instrumental part. Excellent. "Entre Nous" is a short Rush rock song, not as heavy as in the first albums, neither intense as in "Farewell..." or "Hemispheres". Just very good. "Different Strings" is a dreamy ballad, beautiful lyrics, some clean acoustic guitars and a great final part with a fat bass and an emotive guitar solo. The album finishes with "Natural Science". A typical rush progressive song. Some "profetic" lyrics acompannied by acoustic guitars and some...water in the intro. Then came a VERY GOOD riff with some synth, some Peart's goodies and the rest of the guys really kicking off ! There's a beautiful Lifeson's guitar solo and many other things that maybe makes this track the best in the album. "Permanet Waves" shows a band that are growing and making a lot of fans around the world with some excellent albums. This is the last Rush 70's sounding album,then the band moved into the 80's with synthesizers and many other influences that this decade brought to popular music. The next two albums are a perfect combination of this elements, classics, but in a few years we would see what was the 80's...Free Music Review: Rush at Their Artistic Pinnacle
Hit: 5 Stars
Permanent waves is Like an Old Friend. You can listen to it over and over and the relationship is always the same, you can fall back on it at any point even if it has been years and everything is right with the world!
Permanent Waves was released in 1980 and followed up the last of the true long suite progressive rock albums Hemispheres while also predating 1981's moving Pictures by one year. Hemispheres is also a modern rock classic but is quite different from Permanent Waves in a number of different ways. First of all the title track of Hemispheres is an entire side of the album like 1976's 2112. Permanent Waves does include a 9 plus minute tune in Natural Science but no instrumentals although sections of Natural Science are fairly long instrumental sections. I would also rank Natural Science as the best track on this great album though there are several excellent tracks here. Natural Science is very relevant today or in any era as our awareness of Climate Change and our "carbon footprint' are very relevant to the theme of Natural Science which discusses humankind's lack of awareness of our effect on the natural world and even hints of genetic engineering or other newer science technologies that we have not fully grasped before unleashing them on an unsuspecting world.
Entre Nous is one of the very few love songs ever penned by Peart, Lee and Lifeson and it is a great one. I am thrilled that they have been performing it live on the Snakes and Arrows tour and am hopeful they will continue to do so as I am slated to see them next month! Different Strings which follows Entre Nous is another excellent love song and is a true ballad, one of the few ever from the group that features some excellent guitar work by Alex Lifeson and it is a gem. I won't discuss Spirit of Radio or Free will because so many others have elaborated on them ad infinitum but I will mention the one clunker here and that would be Jacob's Ladder. This particular song smacks of filler and embodies virtually every cliche' that This Is Spinal Tap so effectively lampooned.
How can I rank an album 5 stars with one out of 6 songs being filler you ask? The remaining tracks are so superb that they overwhelmingly balance out the weak Jacob's Ladder. This one is in the top 5 of all Rush albums to date, highly recommended!
Free Music Review: The perfect balance between indulgence and accessibility.
Hit: 5 Stars
With Permanent Waves, Rush finally reached the perfect balance between self-indulgence and accessbility in their music. The past two albums, A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres, while both outstanding works and leaps forward for the band commercially, gave us brief glimpses of the balance in the shorter pieces ("Closer To The Heart", "Cinderella Man", "Circumstances", "The Trees"), yet the longer pieces ("Xanadu", "Cygnus X-1", "Hemispheres {Cygnus X-1, Part II}", and the instrumental "La Villa Strangiato") were often too indulgent and bloated, thus slightly dragging down the albums as a result. Here, for the first time, Rush proved they could write complex songs with tight melodies ("The Spirit of Radio", "Freewill", "Entre Nous"), keep them within five minutes, yet still indulge when the occasion permitted (check out the middle section of "Freewill" for a great example), plus keep the longer pieces (the 7 minute "Jacob's Ladder" and the 9 minute "Natural Science") from straying too far into individual over-indulgence during the instrumental passages. On "Jacob's Ladder", during the two long instrumental breaks (before and after the final verse during the song's midpoint), you can really hear how Lee, Lifeson, and Peart, while each performing complex parts in the music, play with each other as opposed to over the other, thus keeping the melody tight and making each of their personal embellishments work that much more effectively. And "Natural Science" also works just as well, for it is essentially three short songs written as one, with the lyrics linked to a central theme (the environment and our place in it), which keeps the overall piece from becoming too ponderous. This is an excellent beginning purchase, for it represents Rush at the beginning of the strongest phase of their career, proved by the overwhelming success of Moving Pictures, and, to a slightly lesser degree, Signals. These three albums are the essential pieces, though I would also recommend Grace Under Pressure, while it is a transtional record (and very underrated by many Rush fans), is still strong melodically and is well worth checking out.Free Music Review: Into the 80's - a new approach - album # 7, Rush produce a classic
Hit: 5 Stars
This was the first Rush album I ever bought (together with Hemispheres (from 1978)) after seeing a couple of videos on TV in 1980.
Rush seemed to reach a technical peek with Hemispheres, I remember thinking, "how would you top that?" and deep down wanted a "Hemispheres Part II" after I'd finished listening to it and prepared myself to listen to Permanent Waves. Wow what a difference, musically the album is superb, Rush play everything to perfection (as always), lyrically this album is quite a move away from the "science Fiction" type based lyrics of the 3 albums that preceded it ("2112" - `76 / "Farewell to Kings" - `77 / "Hemispheres" - `78) to more "real life" type scenarios.
The album is very diverse, starting with an absolutely fantastic opener - "Spirit of Radio" complete with a reggae feel in the middle of the song. There is nothing over 10 minutes on the album (the closest at 9 minutes being the stunning 3 part "Natural Science" the next longest being the majestic / soaring "Jacobs Ladder" at 7 minutes. A couple of great rockers, "Entre Nous" and the faster paced "Freewill" (featuring some great interplay between Geddy Lee (Bass) and Alex Lifeson (Guitar) - which would be a staple of their live shows with of course the ever brilliant Neil Peart on Drums. Adding to the diversity of Permanent Waves was a more acoustic type number - the beautiful "Different Strings".
In summary this, Rush's 7th, seems to take all the things that the band had tried previously (including their "technical peak" stage "2112" thru "Kings" - culminating with the masterpiece "Hemispheres") and looked for a new style and sound. Rush succeeded magnificently. I take my hat off to Alex, Geddy and Neal for working thru what they had achieved to date, and coming up with something so fresh and exciting. Shorter classics such as "Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill" combined superb musicianship and complexity contained within simpler song structures and "closer to home" lyrics. "Jacobs Ladder" and "Natural Science") showed the band incorporating new sounds and style to the "longer" compositions whilst maintaining melody and a rocking edge.
I really enjoyed this album and as my first Rush album it holds a special place for me. I hope you enjoy it to, it's excellent.
Free Music Review: Rush strikes with their first of three 80s classics
Hit: 5 Stars
Canadian power trio Rush's eighth album (ninth technically if you are counting the Rush Archives 3-record set released before Hemispheres) entitled Permanent Waves was released in January of 1980.
Rush went to Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec, Canada in late 1979 to record their seventh studio album and were starting to do away with the long epics that were part of the band's identity in the 1970s.
The album opens with the classic rock radio staple one-two punch of "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill", both of which still get plenty of airplay on rock and roll radio today and Rush still perform those two tracks in concert today. Guitarist Alex Lifeson and bass player/singer/keyboard player Geddy Lee were just on fire on these tracks and drummer Neil Peart shows why he became the successor to John Bonham for rock drummer supreme after Bonzo passed away later in 1980. Next is "Jacob's Ladder" which is a great near eight minue mainly instrumental epic with fantastic synthesizer work and a fantastic vocal from Geddy.
Side two starts with "Entre Nous" which is another good rocker (was recently resurrected for the 2007 Snakes and Arrows Tour). "Different Strings" follows and features Rush's version of Storm Thorgerson (Floyd's album cover designer) Hugh Syme on piano and this was the only track Neil didn't write lyrics for (Geddy wrote the lyrics). The album concludes with the nine minute plus epic "Natural Science". The track is split into three sections and doesn't disappoint.
Despite the fact the album only features six tracks and runs over 35 minutes, this album still remains a classic!
The album was Rush's first album of a decade where they would rule supreme, the 1980s. Permanent Waves was a huge hit peaking at #4 (Rush's first US Top 10 album) and went Gold immediately (subsequently Platinum).
When I was 14, I first bought this album on tape in June of 1990 and loved it at first listen.
This remastered CD, which was superbly remastered by Bob Ludwig, buries the original 80s CD issue and made the cassette sound bland. Plus, all of the artwork that was on the original album is restored as well.