Alright, my favorite album would be Images and Words, although their best track is that “Lonely Hearts” song they did in the 80s…

Okay, I might reevaluate my stance on GUP. I’ll listen to it tonight and let you know what I think.

Give me a hint on Jeff’s favorite will ya?

I think you might cry.

I don’t think there are any truly awful Rush albums, but there are a lot where I wish I could cut them down the middle and mush them up with other albums. Which is why in my perfect world, I could get rid of Countdown and Chemistry, and pull in Afterimage and Between the Wheels. Replace Superconductor and Hand Over Fist with Bravado and Dreamline.

To me, there’s only one perfect Rush album. But I’m picky.

That’s an automatic 15 yards.

Well you’re going to enjoy the rest of the list, that’s for sure. I haven’t got it all planned out, but I expect Kings and Signals will rank highly.

As an album I don’t find AFTK dark or aggressive, with Xanadu and Cygnus X-1 (two of the best Rush songs) being the exceptions. It’s just kind of… I don’t know. I’m not 14, living in my parents basement, playing D&D by myself because I have no friends, and that’s how I see the album. It’s dated and uber geeky and the title track might be one of their 5 worst songs. It suffers because it has only 6 songs, especially when I will only listen to the album version of 2 of them.

Forget a moment about the atrocious video for Distant Early Warning - that album is as dark and aggressive as, say, A Farewell to Kings. I can understand people not digging songs like Kid Gloves or Red Lenses (I happen to like them), but P/G soars on the strength of Between the Wheels, Afterimage and Red Sector A alone.

I’d put Hold Your Fire in my top five, if only for the greatest back to back song transition they’ve ever done: Prime Mover -> Lock and Key. It’s so perfect arena over the top synthy, before they head into the dark days of adult contemporary that starts at the end of HYF.

And I’d throw Roll The Bones easily to the bottom of the Rush heap. Between the rapping skeleton and Face Up, which is the most horrifyingly catchy song ever… it’s like Sexyback levels of so catchy and awful that you want to smash the CD to bits with a hammer and carve the part of your brain that remembers the tune out with an icepick. Dreamline, Bravado, and Ghost of a Chance are very nice, though. It would have been better had they combined RTB and Presto into one good album, instead of two meh to shitty ones.

I’d say my 17-15 would probably be RTB, Rush, and Grace Under Pressure, with 15-16 being relatively fluid spots. Is it worse to remember an album as being mostly insipid filler, or to not remember an album at all?