On The Road Again: Rush "Signals"

miércoles, 21 de junio de 2017

Rush "Signals"

Signals is the ninth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1982. It was the follow-up to the successful Moving Pictures. Stylistically, the album was a continuation of Rush's foray into the technology-oriented 1980s through increased use of electronic instrumentation such as synthesizers, sequencers, and electric violin. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard album charts and was certified platinum (one million copies sold) by the RIAA in November 1982.

The writing of the album began in 1981, during soundchecks on the Moving Pictures Tour, which they taped. Coincidentally, parts of "Chemistry" were written by the band at once while they were separated from each other. Geddy Lee wrote the keyboard melody for the bridge section, Alex Lifeson wrote the guitar riff for the verse and Neil Peart wrote the drum beat for the chorus, and in a move unusual for Rush, Lee and Lifeson came with the concept and title for the song and presented rough lyrics for Peart to polish. In April, in Orlando, Florida, the band attempted to watch a launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia. It was cancelled because of a computer malfunction, and they finally observed the launch a few days later for inspiration in writing "Countdown".

In September, at Le Studio, Quebec, Peart jammed with the road crew on a song, and was joined by Lee and Lifeson. It was recorded later and temporarily titled "Tough Break". Afterward, Peart wrote lyrics for the song, retitled "Subdivisions", while Lifeson and Lee came up with additional parts. Lee began experimenting with sequencers and drum machines while at home in Toronto, and came up with "The Weapon".

In January 1982, on a docked schooner in the Virgin Islands, Peart presented his lyrics for "The Analog Kid" to Lee and they both agreed that it would make a great up-tempo rocker, with a soft chorus. At Muskoka Lakes, Ontario in March at the Grange, "Digital Man" was put together and at Le Studio, the ska style bridge was created along with the sequencer pattern with the guitar and bass. Producer Terry Brown was not impressed and initially refused to record it. In May, the band set out to record a song that had a time limit of 3:57 to keep both sides of the record equal.[citation needed] The result, "New World Man", was written and recorded on the same day. In June, Ben Mink from the band FM was invited to play electric violin on "Losing It".

Signals represented the band's last collaboration with Brown, who had co-produced every Rush album since 1975's Fly by Night, and had engineered their eponymous first album in 1974.

The opening track from Signals is "Subdivisions", which has become one of Rush's live staples.

"The Analog Kid" and "Digital Man" served as the inspiration for writer Troy Hickman to create the comic book heroes of the same names in the 2004 comic Common Grounds.

The lyrics for "Chemistry" were written by all three band members. To date, it is the last time either Lee or Lifeson has written lyrics for a Rush song.

"Digital Man" is a reggae-based song with an instrumental break that has been compared with "Walking on the Moon" by the Police. The song was performed during the 2007 Snakes & Arrows Tour, marking the first time Rush performed it live in nearly 23 years.

"The Weapon" (Part II of the "Fear" series) would be featured in the album's supporting tour and would include a video opening hosted by Count Floyd of SCTV fame.

"New World Man" became a surprise hit single for the band, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for three weeks in October and November 1982. It is the band's highest charting single in the US, and the only one to have reached the top 40.

The lyrics for "Losing It" include references to the latter years of writer Ernest Hemingway: "for you the blind who once could see, the bell tolls for thee". The song was not played live until 2015, when it was performed at four concerts on the R40 Live Tour.

The lyrics in the final track, "Countdown", describe the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1981, which the band was present for. The song features samples of radio communications recorded before and during the flight. It was a minor UK chart hit in early 1983.

The sleeve was designed by Hugh Syme, who is credited with its concept, direction, and graphics, with photography from Deborah Samuel. Syme based his design upon receiving merely the album's title, and recalled a "great deal of trouble" in a cover that he and the group were satisfied with. "I decided that, with such a phenomenally important word with the kind of potency it potentially had, to go with something really dumb, really inane". He noted, however, that the cover still tied into the meaning of some of the songs on the album, in particular "Chemistry". The final concept came out from the result of several failed ideas, including one that Syme devised which would have involved Rush hooked up to electroencephalography machines as they played in the studio and a snapshot of their heartbeats and brain waves taken during a performance.

The front photograph depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing a red fire hydrant on a green lawn. Samuel shot the image on the rooftop of her studio. The lawn is a piece of AstroTurf, and the hydrant was rented from Toronto and repainted the desired colour for the cover. She recalled a search to find a Dalmatian who could sniff on command, and placed dog biscuits underneath the hydrant multiple times to get the final shot. The back cover is a pretend blueprint of a neighbourhood with what Lee described as "make believe subdivisions", detailing Warren Cromartie Secondary School, a fictional school named after Canadian baseball player Warren Cromartie. He and the Montreal Expos are thanked in the album's liner notes. Syme considered the back cover "a little subtle, perhaps over-indulgent".

Track listing

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

Side one