The artist Geddy Lee called “consistently brilliant”
No power trio wields such combined virtuoso heft as Canada’s Rush. Cream fans will strenuously disagree, but even the most committed prog dodger can’t deny Rush’s elemental triple threat. Drummer and principal songwriter Neil Peart’s complex percussion prowess, Alex Lifeson’s ripper guitar attack, and frontman Geddy Lee’s aggressively dynamic bass playing as well as frequent hops onto the synthesizer.
Rush met critical acclaim and commercial success at rock’s most confounding moment. Forged by a love of Yes and Genesis, their progressive arrangements and fantasy lyricism began truly winning fans from 1976’s 2112, just as prog had died a death and punk was in full insurrectionary swing across both sides of the Atlantic. Rush entered the 1980s as one of popular music’s most beguiling acts: an incongruous mash of prog, hard rock, metal flourish, and even a glistening new wave sheen that thrust them to unlikely faces of the nascent MTV era.
As much as prog was in Rush’s DNA, classic rock was equally as formative in shaping their sound. The Beatles, Jeff Beck, and Led Zeppelin all namechecked by the band over the years. Lee spoke candidly, however, about one figure from the world of the 1960s counterculture and stadium stars of the 1970s that, in his estimation, towered above all competition.
“Pete Townshend,” Lee declared to Prog in 2023. “Hands-down the greatest writer of rock songs. ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, ‘Behind Blue Eyes’, Tommy… on and on and on. He was equally adept at writing beautiful melodies and hard rock. The full body of The Who, if you examine it against other artists in rock, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody as consistently brilliant as him”.
The Who soldiered through the swinging 1960s with more longevity than any of their peers. While The Rolling Stones’ golden LP age was behind them and their caricatures began to take shape by the mid-1970s, The Who had transformed from tight garage mods to rock opera behemoths late into the decade, still firing off essential records such as Who Are You and heralded by many in the punk wave as veritable elder statesman.
Possessed with an anthemic guitar attack and Roger Daltrey’s frontman charisma, Townshend’s love of conceptual arc probably sowed seeds in the young Lee’s mind way back in 1969. As much a narrative storyteller as a songwriter, Tommy and Quadrophenia‘s grasp of theatre demonstrated grand unified plots and a firm thematic unity across an LP need not impede on rock’s bold impact.
Townshend, too, was a proper synth nut. Foreshadowing Rush’s love of the Oberheim OB-X and Moog Taurus, Townshend was nearly as associated with the gargantuan ARP 2500 as he was with his trusty Gibson SG Special. Synths would play key melodic drivers in mammoth cuts like ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, as well as plugging the guitar straight into the upgraded 2600 for ‘Who Are You’s shimmering riff. Lee was surely taking notes.
When musing on his ultimate influence and even the greatest album of all time, Townshend’s pioneering work is where Lee ultimately heads to: “The Who, Who’s Next. That album embodies all the best things about rock ’n’ roll—great songwriting, great playing. Almost every tune is a classic”.
