There are many entries in the Rush discography that were released when I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve been exploring their 1993 album Counterparts and discovering many gems in this collection.
With nineteen studio albums in their catalogue, Rush has produced an extensive discography over their 40-year career. That is a lot of music to explore! I have arbitrarily assigned each album to a group of four which I refer to as a quartet.
Presto, Roll the Bones, Counterparts, and Test for Echo are the thirteenth through sixteenth albums which make them part of what I call the fourth quartet.
I didn’t explore these four collections in their chronological release order. I started in the middle with Counterparts, then stepped forward to Test for Echo, then rewound to the beginning of the quartet with Presto and Roll the Bones.
Why did I start in the middle with Counterparts instead of starting at the beginning? More on that later.
Presto (1989)
1989 was the year I graduated from university and started my career in IT with my first full time corporate job, downtown Toronto. I would end up staying at this job for two years. I had some difficulty adjusting from the student lifestyle to the corporate employee lifestyle and that led to my decision to start hiking the Bruce Trail.
Rush released Presto in November. The only songs I recognized from this collection when I started my 2020-2021 exploration were Show Don’t Tell and Superconductor.
[In] musical terms Rush is not so much a mirror, but a satellite dish moving down the road, soaking up different styles, methods, and designs. When the time comes to work on new songs, you turn on the satellite descrambler, unfilter your lenses, activate the manure detector, check the rear-view mirror, and try desperately to unmix your metaphors.Scissors, Paper, Stone
By Neil Peart
http://www.2112.net/powerwindows/presto.html#tourbook
Having started this journey of exploration with Counterparts and Test for Echo, I discovered that Presto was an entirely different listening experience.
What are my personal favourites from this collection? As may be predictable, my top two are Show Don’t Tell and Superconducter. As for my third-place pick, I’m still wavering between Red Tide, The Pass, and Anagram.
Roll the Bones (1991)
By 1991 I had worked two years at my first corporate IT job and was feeling disillusioned at the company. I started looking for and found a new job with a small consulting company that developed customized sales support systems to pharmaceutical firms. I liked the development work but not the work environment. That job ended up being my job from hell experience. Perhaps some other time I’ll share that story.
I’m not a big fan of rap music as a genre and when I first heard the rap section of Roll the Bones (the song) I probably had a WTF moment. When I listen to it now, 30 years later, I kind of like how the band wove the rap rhythm and spoken word section into the rest of the song and layered it with some interesting sonic textures. Even though I’m still not a fan of rap music as a genre.
My top three picks from this collection are Dreamline, Ghost of a Chance, Where’s My Thing.
Counterparts (1993)
As I mentioned earlier, Counterparts is where I started my exploration of this particular era. Why did I start in the middle instead of at the beginning?
Two broad reasons. R40 Live Tour, and Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road.
I was fortunate enough to see the R40 live tour at Air Canada Centre in June 2015. Their set list was based on a reverse chronology of their top songs from (almost) each album. I wasn’t that familiar with their newer material from Clockwork Angels, Snakes & Arrows, and Vapour Trails and hence didn’t recognize some of the first few songs they played.
I did recognize Animate though I didn’t know why. I didn’t recognize which album it was from, during which era of my life it came out in, nor did I even know the name of the song until I saw it written on the set list. Later, I would look it up and learn that it was the first track on Counterparts. It was also one of the singles from this collection – which explains why I recognized it, from frequent air play.
I’m glad I started this leg of the journey with Counterparts. I discovered many gems in this collection. They include Animate, Alien Shore, Double Agent, Cold Fire, Leave That Thing Alone.
Test for Echo (1996)
One of the things I enjoyed about reading Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road is that author Neil Peart included a quote from one of his songs at the beginning and end of each chapter. I could imagine that within the context of its chapter each quote offered an insight into the world and headspace that Peart lived in when he wrote each of his songs.
I didn’t always recognize the song that each quote came from and often would look it up. In doing so I began to realize how much of the Rush discography I still had not explored. Many of the quotes led to songs from the Counterparts or Test for Echo collections, which was another factor in my choosing to start where I did.
My top picks from this collection are Totem, Test for Echo, and Limbo.