Rush reunites. Let the hate start.

[ad_1] <img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="394112c2550ce8269645615443bdd2c4" id="49d20" src="https://www.conservativereview.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnRoZWJsYXplLmNvbS9tZWRpYS1saWJyYXJ5L3J1c2gtcmV1bml0ZXMtbGV0LXRoZS1oYXRlLWJlZ2luLmpwZz9pZD02MjU5NTA3MCZhbXA7d2lkdGg9MTIwMCZhbXA7aGVpZ2h0PTgwMCZhbXA7Y29vcmRpbmF0ZXM9NzQsMCw3NCwwIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTgxMDI1MDkzOX0.9QyAKFGf-0ZIMCyV45Ci7eA769f1cyZIvX_OmoJVEXo/image.jpg" /> The Rush reunion announcement landed like a Neil Peart cymbal crash heard from two continents away.

For some, it was a benediction. For others, a blasphemy. In America particularly, Rush has all the time been a band that splits the room in two. On one facet: devotion bordering on reverence. On the opposite: a curled lip, a sigh, a muttered phrase like “soulless” or “show-off.”

Rush endured as a result of they by no means chased cool. Cool is perishable, however craft shouldn't be.

Few nice bands encourage such loyalty and such irritation on the similar time. Even fewer handle it with out altering who they're.

A Farewell to Kings The ability trio we all know as Rush fashioned in 1974 in Toronto, three younger males chasing one thing larger than barroom rock. They have been loud, quick, and dedicated to mastery. Because the years handed, they grew tighter, extra disciplined, extra deliberate. Whereas different bands burned out or offered out, Rush stayed true.

That mindset carried them for 4 a long time. Album after album. Tour after tour. By the point they bowed out in 2015, Rush had develop into probably the most dependable stay acts in rock historical past. No scandals (regardless of a well-documented affection for Bolivian marching powder). The farewell felt last, particularly as drummer Peart’s well being declined. When he died in 2020, the door appeared closed for good.

Which is why this reunion lands so satisfyingly. It doesn’t really feel compelled. It doesn’t really feel determined. It feels pure. Two outdated buddies selecting up guitars, laughing via acquainted songs, and realizing the music nonetheless issues to thousands and thousands.

To others, it issues in the way in which a neighbor’s energy drill issues — piercing, relentless, and prone to set off a migraine.

Working Man Rush has by no means match comfortably into the American rock fable. The band wasn't blues-rooted, booze-soaked, or born of Southern swag. Geddy Lee sang like a caffeinated banshee. Alex Lifeson combined energy with precision. And Neil Peart — the irreplaceable heart — handled drums like an Olympic occasion.

To rock traditionalists, nevertheless, one thing about this simply felt off. Rock, to them, was meant to really feel darkish and harmful. Assume Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the Who, AC/DC. A part of the gig was bringing chaos — each on and off stage. Treating resort rooms like demolition websites and sanity as elective. Think about the late, nice Ozzy Osbourne: a person who constructed a Corridor of Fame profession out of conduct that will have ended most working lives in a padded room.

Rush by no means subscribed to that mannequin. And for a sure form of American critic, that alone was sufficient to lift suspicion.

Rock wasn’t alleged to sound so organized. It wasn’t alleged to sound just like the band had talked issues via. So the complaints piled up. Too clear. Too lame. “Tacky” and “corny” turned the simple shortcuts, a technique to dismiss what they didn’t need to have interaction with.

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Limelight Take “Tom Sawyer,” nonetheless my private favourite. Purists love to choose it aside. The synth line is just too shiny. The lyrics are too earnest. The refrain too triumphant. It doesn’t brood.

However that’s the purpose. “Tom Sawyer” isn’t attempting to sound harmful. The goal isn’t menace however momentum. It captures movement, confidence, and propulsion — three qualities rock critics usually mistake for shallowness. Look previous the infantile nitpicking, and what’s left is plain. A track that also fills arenas, nonetheless hits exhausting, nonetheless makes folks really feel 10 ft tall.

For some critics, Rush was the band you liked for those who owned graph paper and color-coded your homework. Rush's music was for the youngsters who completed the check early after which checked their solutions. Not rebels, not wreckers, however college students of the factor itself. In rock tradition, that form of seriousness was handled like a social crime.

Subdivisions Rush is hardly alone on this. Steely Dan took the identical beating, dismissed as music for dental places of work, ready rooms, and individuals who alphabetize their spice racks, regardless of writing a number of the sharpest, most venomous songs of the period. Sure was mocked as bloated and indulgent. Genesis, particularly after Peter Gabriel left, obtained the identical therapy.

America has all the time had a sophisticated relationship with real greatness. It celebrates brilliance, however solely when it seems to be unintentional. Genius is finest obtained if it arrives late, drunk, and somewhat uncontrolled.

You see this sample all over the place. Adam Sandler spent a long time being handled like a joke as a result of his movies made cash and audiences laughed till they almost misplaced bladder management. Jim Carrey wasn’t taken significantly till he stopped being humorous and began trying completely unwell. Rush refused that commerce and paid the cultural value.

Headlong Flight What the reunion clarifies — particularly now, in an age of irony fatigue — is that Rush endured as a result of they by no means chased cool. Cool is perishable, however craft shouldn't be. When Lee and Lifeson discuss laughing whereas jamming, concerning the music “dispelling darkish clouds,” they’re describing one thing purists usually neglect. Music is allowed to be joyful. It’s allowed to be exhilarating with out being mystical. It may be thrilling with out pretending to be profound each second.

The darkish humor is that Rush’s greatest sin might have been optimism. In an period more and more allergic to it, they believed in enchancment — musical, private, even societal. That’s retro.

Cynicism sells. Rage Towards the Machine constructed a whole model on everlasting fury, screaming about “the system” whereas cashing checks from it. 9 Inch Nails turned self-loathing into an aesthetic. Nirvana mattered as a result of they captured the sensation that nothing labored and nobody was coming to repair it. Distress learn as honesty. Anger learn as depth. Enjoyment, against this, seems to be unserious.

However why? We’re right here for a very good time, not an extended one. Rush understood that early.

Music doesn’t all the time must diagnose the human situation. Generally it simply wants to maneuver, carry, and hit you sq. within the chest. Half a century on, they’re again. To not win over the skeptics, who by no means wished convincing anyway. However to reward the devoted and quietly remind everybody else that having a very good time isn’t against the law.