RUSH - Signals

Signals was released 35 years ago today and cemented in the "keyboard era" for RUSH.  Some might disagree and say that Signals was the beginning but if you go back and listen to Moving Pictures, you will hear the prevalence of keyboards throughout. Signals also had the unenviable task of being the follow up to the monster Moving Pictures which catapulted RUSH into super stardom.  To create that buffer between studio albums, RUSH released Exit...Stage Left towards the end of 1981.  Once released, Subdivisions became an instant classic and the video highlighting division and isolation within a high school setting had regular play on Mtv.  The next three songs "The Analog Kid", "Chemistry" and "Digital Man" can be seen as a metaphor for RUSH's transition as a band going and growing from a power trio of guitar/bass/drums into the coming digital age with the addition of keyboards/synthesizers/electronics.  The Analog Kid has been played on and off on recent tours, Chemistry was only played on the Signals tour and Digital Man was resurrected on the Snakes and Arrows Tour.  Side Two of the album, "The Weapon (Part 2 of the Fear Trilogy)", "New World Man", "Losing It" and "Countdown" were as strong, if not, stronger than the first side of the album.   In 1994, when Mobile Fidelity re-issued Signals on it's Ultragold format from "Original Master Recordings" it omitted the last verse from "The Weapon" which created some controversy.  The band said that Mobile Fidelity did not use the original masters because RUSH does not/did not record "alternate versions" of any songs but the label stood by the recording.  New World Man became another radio staple and could claim to be the only "hit single" RUSH has ever written.  While a collection of 5/6 songs are played regularly on radio, New World Man is the only RUSH songs written with "radio friendly" synthesizer opening, guitar hooks and clocks in at 3:43 which is a station programmers dream.  Losing It is the first RUSH song to have a guest player on it.  The violin solo was played by Ben Mink, Geddy Lee's close friend and member of FM.  Losing It has the distinction of having no bass lines written for the song.  All of the bass was played on keyboards and when RUSH added the song to the R40 tour, Geddy Lee commented how he had to go back and write in the bass to the song.  When RUSH did play Losing It, it gave Signals the compliment by being the only RUSH album other than Moving Pictures to be played in its entirety.  One could argue that they played all of Hemispheres on that particular tour but it is unknown if they played Hemispheres (Cygnus Book II) in total.  The last song, "Countdown" highlights the launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia of which the band were guests to watch.  Excerpts of mission control's countdown and the shuttle's lift off interplay with the song and the line by one of the astronauts can heard saying "we have enjoyed the music Bob...thank you" and the song would be used on later shuttle mission as a "wake up" song to the crew.

What can be said definitively on this 35th birthday of Signals, is that it has aged very well.