On The Road Again: Rush "2112"

martes, 20 de junio de 2017

Rush "2112"

2112 (pronounced "twenty-one twelve") is the fourth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush. Released on 1 April 1976, it features the seven-part title suite composed by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, with lyrics written by Neil Peart telling a dystopian story set in the year 2112. It is sometimes described as a concept album although the songs on the second side are unrelated to the suite. Rush repeated this arrangement on the 1978 album Hemispheres.

2112 is one of two Rush albums listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (the other being Moving Pictures). In 2006 and 2016, polls of Planet Rock listeners picked 2112 as the definitive Rush album. In 2012, it was ranked second on Rolling Stone's list of 'Your Favorite Prog Rock Albums of All Time', as voted for in a reader's poll, one of three Rush albums included (the others being Moving Pictures and Hemispheres).

A deluxe edition was released in 2012 as both a CD/DVD and a CD/Blu-ray. The CD featured the entire album remastered, as well as three live bonus tracks from their 1981 concert at Northlands Coliseum. The DVD and Blu-ray included the album in three different HD formats, as well as on-screen lyrics, liner notes, and a digital comic book depicting the story of the title track.

A 40th Anniversary edition was released in 2016 as both a 2CD/DVD combo as well as a "super deluxe" edition with a 3LP 200-gram vinyl version. The deluxe set featured the entire album remastered at Abbey Road Studios, as well as previously unreleased live tracks and cover versions of the songs performed by Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nick Raskulinecz, Billy Talent, Steven Wilson, Jacob Moon, and Alice in Chains.

Due to the relative commercial failure of their previous album, Caress of Steel, Mercury (their record label at the time) pressed the band not to do another album with "concept" songs. Caress of Steel contains two multi-part epics: the twelve-minute "The Necromancer" (the second half of side one) and the side-long epic "The Fountain of Lamneth" (side two).

By their own recollection, the band ignored this advice and stuck to their principles; the resulting album would become their first major commercial success, and ultimately a signature record. 2112 was released in March 1976 and peaked at #61 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, becoming their first album to reach the top 100. 2112 would eventually be certified gold on 16 November 1977, along with the band's then-current releases A Farewell to Kings and the live All the World's a Stage. 2112 reached platinum status on 25 February 1981, shortly after the release of their best-selling album, Moving Pictures.

In the year 2112, a galaxy-wide war results in the union of all planets under the rule of the Red Star of the Solar Federation. By 2112, the world is controlled by the "Priests of the Temples of Syrinx", who control every facet of life.

A man discovers an ancient guitar and learns to play his own music. Thinking he has made a wonderful discovery that will be a boon to humanity, he goes to present the guitar to the priests of the Temples, who angrily destroy it and rebuke him for unearthing one of the "silly whims" that caused the collapse of the previous civilization. He goes into hiding and dreams of a world before the Solar Federation. Upon awakening he becomes distraught and commits suicide. As he dies, another planetary battle begins resulting in the ambiguous ending "Attention all planets of the Solar Federation: We have assumed control." (This spoken section was created by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson reportedly "messing around with a tape recorder".) On the "2112/Moving Pictures" episode of the television series Classic Albums, Peart confirmed that he intended the ending to be a happy one as the people of the Solar Federation are liberated.

Peart credits "the genius of Ayn Rand" in the liner notes. Rand, a Russian-born, Jewish-American novelist and inventor of the philosophy of Objectivism, wrote a novella titled Anthem, the plot of which bears several similarities to 2112; Peart added the credit to avoid any legal action from Rand. This credit caused the band significant negative publicity, with some even labelling them right-wing extremists. The British musical paper NME even made allusions to Nazism, which particularly offended lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee, whose parents were Holocaust survivors.

The Starman emblem (also known as the 'Man in the Star' logo) was adopted by Rush fans as a logo since its first appearance on the back cover of 2112. Peart described the Starman in an interview with Creem magazine:

All (the naked man) means is the abstract man against the masses. The red star symbolizes any collectivist mentality.

On the album art, the "collectivist mentality" is depicted as the Red Star of the Solar Federation, which, according to the plot, is a galaxy-wide federation that controls all aspects of life during the year 2112. The figure in the emblem is depicted as the "Hero". Hugh Syme, the creator of many of Rush's album covers, commented on the design: "The man is the hero of the story. That he is nude is just a classic tradition...the pureness of his person and creativity without the trappings of other elements such as clothing. The red star is the evil red star of the Federation, which was one of Peart's symbols. We basically based that cover around the red star and that hero."

The logo also appears on seven other Rush album covers: on the backdrop behind Peart's drumkit in All the World's a Stage, their first live album released in 1976; in one of the pictures that is being moved in Moving Pictures; on Retrospective I; on Archives, a compilation album released in 1978; on their 1981 live album Exit...Stage Left, in the background amongst symbols from all their previous work; on their 2003 compilation The Spirit of Radio; and on their 2004 covers album Feedback. It is also featured on the Canada Post stamp honouring Rush issued 19 July 2013.[9] It also was featured on the front bass drum heads of Peart's drum kit from 1977 to 1983, and again on the 2004 R30 and 2015 R40 tours.

The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada, a non-profit Canadian charitable organization dedicated to promoting the preservation of Canada's audio-visual heritage, has sponsored MasterWorks, which annually recognizes twelve culturally significant Canadian classics from the film, radio, TV and music industries. In 2006, 2112 was one of the albums chosen to be preserved.

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Neil Peart, except where noted; all music is composed by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, except where noted.

Side one