Power Windows is the eleventh studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on October 11, 1985 in Canada by Anthem Records and on October 21, 1985 in the United States. After touring in support of their previous album, Grace Under Pressure (1984), the band took a break and reconvened in early 1985 to begin work on a follow-up. The material continued to display the band’s exploration of synthesizer-oriented music, this time with the addition of sampling, electronic drums, a string section, and choir, with power being a running lyrical theme. The album reached No. 2 in Canada, No. 9 in the United Kingdom, and No. 10 in the United States.
The Big Money was released as the first single off the album and it peaked at #45 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and has been included on several compilation albums. The lyrics, written by drummer Neil Peart, reflect on the power of “big money” and the sheer magnitude of trade in the modern global economy, particularly during the 1980s. The computer graphics in the music video is similar to the ones for Money For Nothing by Dire Straits. Grand Designs was partly written to criticise mainstream music which the group believed was too superficial. The song also echoes individualistic themes such as non-conformism.
Manhattan Project is a 1985 song by Canadian progressive rock band Rush, named after the WWII project that created the first atomic bomb. Despite not being released as a single, it did reach #10 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart. Neil Peart read “a pile of books” about the Manhattan Project before writing the lyrics so that he had a proper understanding of what the project was really about. The 4th track Marathon, depict how one would feel while running in an actual marathon, but the meaning of the song is meant to use a marathon (an extreme challenge) as a metaphor for life, and say that life is full of obstacles and is all about one taking small steps to achieve their personal goals. The live version released on the A Show of Hands single reached number 6 on the US Mainstream Rock chart in 1989.
Territories is another interesting track – after Peart had written some lyrical ideas he went through them with Lee, who noticed it was telling a story and found them difficult to sing once he and Lifeson had developed music for them. Peart then rewrote them in a more direct way which suited Lee better. Much like the very popular Subdivisions from Signals, Middletown Dreams explores suburban monotony and the average person’s attempts to temporarily escape it. The battles of the middle class! Emotion Detector started out as a ballad but the lyrics that Lee has fit a more mid-tempo music that Lee & Lifeson had arranged. And finally we have the album closer and second single from the album, Mystic Rhythms. As described by Lee, is “the most synthetic track on the record” with each instrument being fed through “a synthesized something The song was used as the opening song of the NBC news program 1986. The single charted at number 21 on the US Mainstream Rock chart.
The pictures on the front and back covers were painted by Hugh Syme, from reference photos taken by photographer Dimo Safari, and the model is Neill Cunningham from Toronto.