Toys in the Attic is the third studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released on April 8, 1975, by Columbia Records. Its first single, Sweet Emotion, was released on May 19 and the original version of Walk This Way followed on August 28 in the same year. The album is the band’s most commercially successful studio LP in the United States, with nine million copies sold, according to the RIAA. In 2003, the album was ranked No. 228 on Rolling Stone‘s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Toys in the Attic is the first song and title track off the album, written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. “Toys in the attic” is an idiom that means something is old, forgotten, or a relic of the past, often referring to childhood memories or experiences, as an attic is a place where people store unused items, and “toys” represent things from childhood that are no longer actively used. Compared to the fast paced opener, Uncle Salty is more slowed down & tells the story of a woman who leads a lonely life of child abuse and eventually prostitution. Adam’s Apple utilizes a clever double entendre regarding the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the much more everyday act of fellatio. 

Similarly, Walk This Way released as the second single from the album and is oozing with sexual innuendo. The lyrics, which tell the story of a high school boy losing his virginity, are sung quite fast by Tyler, with heavy emphasis being placed on the rhyming lyrics. It peaked at number 10 on the  Billboard  Hot 100 in early 1977, part of a string of successful hit singles for the band in the 1970s. Big Ten Inch Record, is a rhythm and blues song written by Fred Weismantel. It was first recorded in 1952 by Bull Moose Jackson and released by King Records, originally on 10″ vinyl, the most popular format at the time. The next sing is Sweet Emotion which was released as a single on May 19, 1975 and peaked at No. 36 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

No More No More seems to be about the trappings of the rock n roll lifestyle and trying to stay away from the pitfalls. It is a fun song and probably one of their best musically. Round And Round is my least favourite song on the record. You See Me Crying ends the album is a power ballad with piano and was heavily orchestrated. Brad Whitford played lead guitar on the song, rather than Aerosmith’s usual lead guitarist Joe Perry. The album would gain renewed attention in 1986, 11 years after its release, when hip-hop group Run-DMC covered “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith. This helped revive the latter’s flagging career and helped propel rap rock to the mainstream.

Blizzard of Ozz is the debut studio album by English heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne, released on 12 September 1980 in the UK and on 27 March 1981 in the US. The album was Osbourne’s first release following his firing from Black Sabbath in 1979. Blizzard of Ozz is the first of two studio albums Osbourne recorded with guitarist Randy Rhoads prior to Rhoads’ death in 1982. In 2017, it was ranked 9th on Rolling Stone‘s list of “100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time”. It was #27 on the US Billboard 200 but #7 in the UK and #8 in Canada.

The album opener starts of with a bang – Randy’s racing riff from I Don’t Know is still one of the best. Lyrically it’s about the crossroads, possibly a trying time for humanity and what’s gonna happen in the future. Crazy Train is the debut solo single by English heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne, released in 1980. The lyrics deal with the subject of the Cold War and the fear of annihilation that existed during that period. The guitar solos and playing on songs like this made Randy the legend that he is still know as today. The single reached No. 49 on the United Kingdom singles chart in 1980. In the United States, the song reached No. 9 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart.

Goodbye to Romance, a ballad, is the next track and the first that Ozzy wrote with Randy. Osbourne has said that the song was his way of saying farewell to his former band Black Sabbath. Dee is a short 50 second acoustic instrumental. Suicide Solution was about the alcohol-related death of AC/DC’s Bon Scott in 1980 according to Ozzy, but Bob Daisley revealed in 2002 that he had Osbourne himself in mind when he wrote the lyrics. On 1 November 1985, a lawsuit against Osbourne and CBS Records was filed by the parents of John Daniel McCollum, a 19-year-old who took his own life in Riverside, California on 27 October 1984 allegedly after listening to the song. The plaintiffs failed to win the case. 

Then we have my favourite song of Ozzy’s – Mr. Crowley is a song about English occultist Aleister Crowley. Written by Osbourne, guitarist Randy Rhoads and bass guitarist/lyricist Bob Daisley, it starts off with an eerie keyboard solo by Don Airey the song features two insanely amazing guitar solos by Rhodes.  It was inspired by Aleister Crowley’s book Diary of a Drug Fiend that Osbourne had read. It was ranked 28th best guitar solo by the readers of Guitar World in 2011. The song was ranked the 23rd greatest heavy metal song of all time, according to a poll by Gibson. Initially meant to be a B side release, No Bone Movies was added to the album. Lyrically it seems to be about the obsession with porn films! 

Revelation (Mother Earth) is a plea for the earth, our mother as the atrocities that humans do is taking a toll on her. The album ends with the more rockier Steal Away (The Night) that has that early 80s vibe. Lyrically it’s about boy meets girl and asking her to run away with him so they can have some fun. was controversially re-released in 2002 with the original bass and drum tracks replaced by newly recorded parts from bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Mike Bordin; however, the original bass and drum tracks were reinstated for the 2011 release due to public outcry.On September 18, 2020, Osbourne released an expanded edition of Blizzard of Ozz including the bonus tracks and outtakes included on previous reissues (i.e. the 2002 reissue and the 2011 expanded edition) as well as seven live recordings from the Blizzard of Ozz tour and one additional live track.

Milagro is the seventeenth studio album by Santana, released in 1992. Milagro, which means “miracle” in Spanish, was dedicated to the lives of Miles Davis and Bill Graham, and was Santana’s first album on the Polydor label after twenty-two years with Columbia Records. The album reached 102 in the Billboard  200. This was my second album of Santana that I purchased, the first being Abraxas and I also had a compilation of his best hits.

We start off from a live recording introduction by Billy Graham and it segues into Milagro. Lyrically it just states about working with others and letting music heal everyone and it’s Latin beat will keep you dancing. Beginning with a talk track by Martin Luther King, the gentle guitar works of Carlos before the religious lyrics of Somewhere In Heaven. The slow track suddenly picks up in pace. Saja/Right On is a cover of a Marvin Gay track, done in Santana’s style. Your Touch is probably one of the better tracks with a dance feel and almost spoken word style singing. The guitar solo is a searing blister of shred work. Life Is For Living is a very uptempo fun song about the good things in life, with fun guitar work as well as keyboard soloing by Chester D. Thompson.

Red Prophet is driven more by the keyboards by Chester and it takes a while for Santana’s guitar to show up. Agua Que Va Caer sounds very Afro centric and has this beat that reminds me of the Congo. Make Somebody Happy is a throwback to RnB numbers, a romantic tune. Free All The People (South Africa) is a shoutout to the end of apartheid which was just around the horizon. The singing is done well in this as is the understated guitar soloing. Gypsy/Grajonca is an instrumental ballad dedicated to German-born American impresario and rock concert promoter, with a faster and more rockier bit in the middle. Bill Graham (whose birth name was Wulf Wolodia Grajonca).

We Don’t Have To Wait is a funky number that is surely a get up and dance in concerts. And finally we A Dios which is a goodbye to the album, a quick 1:31 that ends in a jazz burst. The focus of the album is centered on Carlos Santana’s guitar interpretation and Latin rhythms. Milagro may not be Santana’s best album, but its balance of energies and genre versatility make it a record well worth listening to. It is likely not on the average rocker’s radar; however, once you give it a listen, it’s impossible not to dance and eagerly anticipate what comes next.

1987 is the seventh studio album by English rock band Whitesnake, released on 23 March 1987, by Geffen Records in the US and by EMI Records in the UK one week after. It was co-written and recorded for over a year in what would be the only collaboration between vocalist David Coverdale and guitarist John Sykes, the final album to feature original bassist Neil Murray and the only album with drummer Aynsley Dunbar. The album, besides its commercial success, is remarkable for the band’s change to a more modern glam metal look and sound, and the first recording to use the band’s new logo which would characterise them in the future.

Crying in the Rain is the first song on the album and is a slightly different version of the original, which was released on the group’s 1982 album Saints & Sinners. The song was inspired by singer David Coverdale’s divorce. From more slower and bluesier it is now much heavier and with a faster sound, influenced by heavy metal. Still of the Night, which was written by David Coverdale & John Sykes was released as the first single from their self-titled 1987 album. It reached #16 in the U.K., #18 on the U.S. Mainstream rock Tracks and #79 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is a popular encore and setlist ender to this day. Bad Boys is the party rocker and also reminds me of Bad Boys Running Wild by Scorpions.

And then we have the big kahuna – Here I Go Again was another song originally written for and released on their 1982 album, Saints & Sinners in October 1982. The song was written by Coverdale and then guitarist Bernie Marsden and written was written while Coverdale’s was at the end of his troubled marriage with his first wife, Julia. It became a classic icon of the 80s and is an evergreen song of the indomitable spirit of the romantic die hard! It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart as a sleeper hit and remained there for one week, being the band’s only number-one single of that chart in their discography to date. It also peaked at number four on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. The re-recording also peaked at number nine in the UK, number 1 in Canada and top 10 in the Netherlands.

Give Me All Your Love was the fourth single released from the album, and reached number 48 on the US Top 100 charts, number 22 on the Mainstream Rock Charts, number 18 in the UK charts, and 49 in New Zealand. Is This Love is the next big song in 1987, released on 18 May 1987 in the UK as the second single and remains a huge hit. Reaching number nine in the UK Singles Chart, and number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, it has been a true ballad and mainstay of their live set list ever since. Children Of The Night is up next and a rightfully rockier song which goes a little lower tempo during the refrain. Straight for the Heart is a fast paced love song that is right up the band’s style. Don’t Turn Away is a plea to your lover to work things out.

Although the North American version ends here, in Europe the album included Looking for Love and You’re Gonna Break My Heart Again. The album was a critical and commercial success around the world, eventually selling over 8 million copies in the US alone and thus being certified 8× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. It peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 for ten non-consecutive weeks.

Retro Active is a compilation album by the English rock band Def Leppard, released in 1993. The album features touched-up versions of B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from the band’s recording sessions from 1984 to 1993. The album charted at number 9 on the Billboard 200 and No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart. After releasing only five albums over the course of a twelve-year period (4 years in between Pyromania & Hysteria, and then a further 5 years before Adrenalize) Def Leppard used Retro Active to break that habit, provide a treat for diehard fans.

Desert Song was an outtake from the songwriting sessions that produced 1987’s Hysteria. Self-produced, it became one of the last songs to be released by Def Leppard bearing the songwriting and guitar-playing of Steve Clark, who died on 8 January 1991. It was a hit on U.S. rock radio, reaching number twelve on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Fractured Love sounds like it could have been on Pyromania. Up next is a cover of Sweet’s hit song Action. Originally a 1992 recording, it was released as a B-side to Make Love Like a Man. The music video was shot between June and December 1993; in Sheffield, Ottawa, and Joe Elliott’s home in Ireland.

Two Steps Behind is a one of their best ballads and included in the soundtrack to the film Last Action Hero. The gentle acoustic ballad reached number five on the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart, numbers 12 and 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100, and number 32 on the UK Singles Chart. Written in 1985, She’s Too Tough first appeared on the Helix album Wild in the Streets in 1987. It is a tough little rocker along the lines of mid-80s party rockers. The ballad Miss You in a Heartbeat, meanwhile, was first written and demoed by guitarist Collen in 1991 and was originally recorded by the Law, a band featuring Paul Rodgers and the Who drummer Kenney Jones, for their self-titled album in 1991.

Def Leppard later recorded their own version in April the following year, which they released as a B-side on the Make Love Like a Man single. Only After Dark which is a fun rollicking romp on the guitar is a cover of Mick Ronson’s single. A song that was written around the making of Hysteria, Ride Into the Sun is a rockier change. A surprise is the acoustic From The Inside which is a hate song and feels like the band wrote or recorded the song around a fireplace. Lyrically it is so different from their usual fun or love songs. Ring Of Fire is co-written along with the famed 6th Lep John Mutt Lange and is hard rock number, which would have been at home in Pyromania. The pleading I Wanna Be Your Hero as originally released on the 1987 singles Animal in the US and Pour Some Sugar on Me in the UK. T.

The albums closers are an electric version of Two Steps Behind and a piano version of Miss You In A Heartbeat, which is a hidden track.

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.

Slide It In is the sixth studio album by English rock band Whitesnake. Originally released on 30 January 1984 in Europe, by Liberty/EMI, it was remixed for the American market, later issued on 16 April 1984 in North America by Geffen. In Japan, it was issued a “European” Mix release date on 23 March 1984, and an “American” remix on 21 December 1984 by CBS/Sony. Widely regarded as a moderate success, it helped open the American market to the band’s sound and breakthrough throughout the later 1980s. Historically, it was the final Whitesnake recording to use the band’s original “snake” logo. The album peaked at number 9, marking their fourth Top 10 appearance in the UK & In the US, it peaked at number 40 at Billboard 200, eventually going double platinum.

Give Me More Time was the second single released on 3 January 1984 in Europe and 9 January in Germany. The song was written by David Coverdale and Mel Galley. Musically it reminds me of more of AC/C. The song reached number 29 in the UK and number 27 in Ireland. Standing in the Shadow is a song by the English hard rock band Whitesnake as the 3d single from Slide It In. While it does not have a music video, it was released as a single by Liberty Records with the B-Side American version of “All or Nothing.” The single only charted No. 62 in the UK Singles chart and stayed for three weeks. Slow an’ Easy easily the best song on the record, which was released as a promo single, became a hit on rock radio and reached #17 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Love Ain’t No Stranger which is a power ballad is onne of the group’s best known songs, it’s been included in multiple multi-artist compilation albums as well as in various media from Whitesnake’s own labels. Due to its popularity among fans, Whitesnake has performed the song over eight hundred times as of December 2022, making it one of the group’s top five most played pieces. The song charted at number 44 on the UK Singles Chart and 34 on the U.S. Mainstream rock charts. But my favourite song off the record, and which introduced me to the band, is Slow n Easy which was released as a promo single, became a hit on rock radio. Slow an’ Easy has a cool lead guitar licks and reached #17 in Billboard’s Rock Charts.

The intro to Spit It Out reminds me of All Right Now by Free. The more upbeat and fun loving Hungry For Love which is reminiscent of a lot of 70s rock n roll bands is a good song. Guilty of Love was release as a single in 1983, well before the actual album was released Written by vocalist David Coverdale, he described the track as a “very simple and honest love song”. It has frequently been compared to Thin Lizzy for its dual lead guitars. It reached number 31 on the UK Singles Chart and a music video was also shot at the Monsters of Rock show on 20 August 1983. On the Japanese release also had a cover of Need Your Love So Bad a song first recorded by Little Willie John in 1955.

A Farewell to Kings is the fifth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on Anthem Records on August 29, 1977. The album reached No. 11 in Canada and marked a growth in the band’s international fanbase, becoming their first Top 40 album in the US and the UK. After reaching a critical and commercial peak with 2112 and touring the album, Rush decided to record the follow-up outside Toronto for the first time and settled in Rockfield Studios in Wales after their debut European tour.

The title track starts things off with an acoustic interlude by Alex Lifeson before Geddy Lee’s keys is added and then segues into the full band and lyrically is about dealing with hypocrisy, and finding your own way by looking within yourself. And then there is the grand 11:05 minute Xanadu – beginning with a five-minute-long  instrumental  section before transitioning to a narrative written by Neil Peart, which in turn was inspired by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan. In Peart’s lyrics, the narrator describes searching for a place called “Xanadu” that will grant him immortality. After succeeding in this quest, a thousand years pass, and the narrator is left “waiting for the world to end”, describing himself as “a mad immortal man”.

One of my favourite songs of Rush from the first time I heard it back in the late 1990s is Closer To The Heart. It was released in November 1977 as the lead single off the album It was the first Rush song to feature a non-member as a songwriter in Peter Talbot a friend of Neil Peart’s. It was Rush’s first hit single in the United Kingdom, reaching number 36 in the UK Singles Chart in February 1978. It also peaked at number 45 in Canada and number 76 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and has been a live favourite in the US, Canada, the UK & Brazil. Cinderella Man is a song based on one of Lee’s favourite films, the 1936 romantic comedy drama Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and the themes that it portrays.

The short 2:35 minute Madrigal is up next; a rare love song and ballad. The album closes with “Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage”, a science-fiction song that tells the story of an unnamed explorer who travels to the centre of Cygnus X-1, a real black hole, in a spaceship named the Rocinante, believing there may be something beyond it. Upon approaching the centre the protagonist loses control of the ship and is drawn into it by the pull of gravity, its body destroyed. This song was inspired by an article on black holes that Peart had read. Lee thought the science-fiction genre presented limitless musical ideas which inspired the band to “use all your goofy, weird sounds because that’s what’s happening out in space.” The song has a part II which came out in the next album.

A Farewell to Kings received a generally positive reception from critics. Rush supported the album with their most extensive tour at the time, headlining major venues across North America and Europe for over 140 dates. A 40th anniversary remastered edition with bonus tracks and a 5.1 surround sound mix was released in 2017.

5150 (pronounced “fifty-one-fifty”) is the seventh studio album by American rock band Van Halen. It was released on March 24, 1986, by Warner Bros. Records and was the first of four albums to be recorded with lead singer Sammy Hagar, who replaced David Lee Roth. The album was named after Eddie Van Halen’s home studio, 5150, in turn named after a California law enforcement term for a mentally disturbed person. I bought the album in the mid 90s – I think by 1994 and listened to it a lot!

The album starts with a banger in Good Enough – actually it starts off with Sammy yelling “Hello Baby!” Second track and it was the group’s first single with Sammy and off the album. With Eddie’s keyboard riff dominating the song until the guitar solo, it went to number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one on the Cashbox Top 100, the week of May 16. It was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany and a top 20 single in Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden. Get Up is more rockier and probably my least favourite song on the album. Up next is second single and the best song in the album – dare I say it’s their best ever song. Dreams captures so many emotions, especially after the death of Eddie Van Halen. A lot of musicians chose this song to pay their tribute to a guitar legend.

It reached # 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as #24 on the Cash Box Top 100 and was on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie & soundtrack. The now nostalgic Summer Nights which is the fun number and live favourite that is up next. Another fun rocker is Best Of Both Worlds which works so well live. One of my favourite semi-ballads of Van Halen, Love Walks In is the third single and the keyboard heavy song was the first song that the band wrote with Hagar. It peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard  Mainstream Rock Songs chart, and reached number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100. The title track and live concert staple was never a major single but it is a fan favourite with it’s awesome guitar riffs. And the album ends with another of my favourites with Inside – that chorus is so cool.

The album hit number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, surpassing the band’s previous album, 1984, which had peaked at number 2. The artwork features an Art Deco depiction of Atlas kneeling while holding a mirror-polished metallic sphere on his shoulders. The model for the album was ESPN BodyShaping‘s Rick Valente. The Van Halen logo wraps around the sphere.

Back in 1995 I was still new to the world of Iron Maiden. I was turning 19 that year and the previous year I had borrowed a friend’s copy of A Read Dead which was my introduction to the band and I had seen the music video for The Number of the Beast, which had made me curious about the band. So just after my birthday I had bought to IM albums which converted me into a big time fan – one of them was Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son!

From the opening to Moon Child I felt a bone tingling chill go up and down my spine – the album was like experiencing one of the best 70s or 80s horror movies with evil figures walking about, ghosts and goblins and old witches with a cackling laugh, who could tell your fortune using their magic, a young man on a journey that could prove deadly and on the road ahead lies werewolves and other monsters out to get him. Things slow down a bit with Infinite Dreams, an atmospheric beginning before going into that galloping style we all know and love from Maiden. A real joy is Can I Play With Madness, which I can see on the soundtrack of a horror-comedy film. The song is the sixteenth single released by the band and hit number 3 in the UK Singles Chart.

My fav track on this album is The Evil That Men Do which is a mid-tempo rocker and probably one of the best ever. The title track is up next with it’s ominous sounding intro and verses before going more furious into the chorus. Slowing down just a tad is The Prophecy, which is also a great tune. Another awesome song is The Clairvoyant, which is the band’s nineteenth single and the third from the album. It peaked at number six in the British charts. The albums ends with Only The Good Die Young which to me seems like a sister song of The Evil That Men Do – it just feels like the to songs can be played one after the other and we know that they belong. All great or really good songs, this really is one epic album for me.

Signals is the ninth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released on September 9, 1982 by Anthem Records. After the release of their previous album, Moving Pictures, the band started to prepare material for a follow-up during soundchecks on their 1981 concert tour and during the mixing of their subsequent live album Exit…Stage Left. Signals demonstrates the group’s continuing use of synthesizers, sequencers, and other electronic instrumentation. It is the last album produced by their longtime associate Terry Brown, who had worked with them since 1974. The album peaked at No. 1 in Canada, No. 3 in the United Kingdom, and No. 10 in the United States. In November 1982, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling one million copies in the United States.

We start off with a fan favourite in Subdivisions, which is odd for an album opener as it isn’t the rock anthem but a mid-tempo number. The song is a commentary on social stratification through the pressure to adopt certain lifestyles. It describes young people dealing with a “cool” culture amidst a comfortable yet oppressively mundane suburban existence in housing subdivisions. Anyone who does not obey social expectations is regarded as an outcast; the lyrics flatly describe a choice of “conform or be cast out”. The song has resonated with a whole of Rush fans, especially the ones who are considered nerds and/or non-cool. Analog Kid is the second single from the album and also the second track. Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart wrote the lyrics for the song at first as a companion piece to “Digital Man“, a song that Rush had started working on in late 1981, and presented it to bassist Geddy Lee.

The next song, Chemistry, lyrically seems to be about how everything is basically chemical reactions – life and everything that we know and see. The next track, The Weapon, is about politics and power and the race to make bigger and deadlier weapons. New world Man was the last and most quickly composed song on the album, stemming from a suggestion by then-Rush producer Terry Brown to even out the lengths of the two sides of the cassette version. It went to #1 (on the RPM national singles chart) in Canada, where it remained for two weeks in October 1982. It gave Rush a hit single due to its “hypnotic synthesizer pop with flashes of guitar rock. Losing It is about watching it all fade away and aging.

Finally Countdown – it’s lyrics are about the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia the previous year. The song incorporates audio from voice communications between astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen and ground control, specifically Ascent CAPCOM Daniel C. Brandenstein and with commentary from Hugh Harris, Kennedy Space Center Public Affairs Officer, leading up to the launch through to LOS just after Press to Rota. Rush released three singles from the album: “New World Man“, which became the band’s highest charting single in the United States and a number-one hit in Canada, as well as “Subdivisions” and “Countdown“. The group supported Signals with a concert tour from April 1982 to May 1983. Signals has been reissued several times, including a remaster with a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix in 2011.

Grace Under Pressure is the tenth studio album by Canadian rock band Rush, released April 12, 1984, on Anthem Records. Following the tour for 1982’s Signals, which came to an end in April 1983, Rush got together in August to start work on the followup. After some difficulty finding a suitable producer who could commit, and deciding not to go with their hitherto producer Terry Brown, the album was recorded with Peter Henderson. Largely considered one of the band’s darkest albums, Grace Under Pressure was influenced by the growing tensions in the Cold War in the 1980s. The album’s running theme is “pressure” and how humans act under the influence of it.

World events inspired the lyrics, especially the Cold War, the threat of superpowers and the nuclear annihilation and all of that stuff, and these giant missiles pointed at each other across the ocean. Distant Early Warning was written about the loneliness of someone who worked the DEW Line – a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada set up to detect incoming Soviet bombers during the Cold War, and provide early warning of any sea-and-land invasion. Afterimage was written about Robbie Whelan, a tape operator at Le Studio who was killed in a car accident a year prior to the album’s release and is about the loss of a friend. The album was dedicated to his memory.

Red Sector A is a song by Rush that provides a first-person account of a nameless protagonist living in an unspecified prison camp setting. Neil Peart has stated that the detailed imagery in the song intentionally evokes concentration camps of the Holocaust, although he left the lyrics ambiguous enough that they could deal with any similar prison camp scenario. The song was inspired in part by Geddy Lee’s mother’s accounts of the Holocaust. Geddy’s mother Manya was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, while his dad Morris Weinrib, was liberated from the Dachau concentration camp a few weeks after his wife as liberated.

The Enemy Within has this reggae riff and a great bass line that makes it a great song to listen to and chill. Far from the doom and gloom, this upbeat track is rhythmically supreme, especially with Lee’s bass. The Body Electric is both a positive & negative look at the computer age and possible future. No wonder I always associate Rush with Star Trek! Kid Gloves features a staccato guitar riff from Alex Lifeson and is mostly up tempo, is about learning the tough lessons about life, possibly about even school and learning things through trial & error. Similarly Red Lenses, is comparing things that are red and about pressure of war in the horizon while trying to juggle daily lives. Beneath The Wheel is about the dangers of things that can crush you and how you can avoid it but once it can easily crush you and everything can be destroyed.

While staying their rock lane, the band manages to  give war embraces to new age, funk & reggae with enthusiasm. Grace Under Pressure reached number 4 in Canada, number 5 in the UK, and number 10 on the U.S. Billboard 200. It was certified platinum in the U.S. for selling one million copies.