Rush goes full 80s with reggae, synths and more for 1982’s Signals.
Listen to every Rush album one after another and something very unique and special will happen. You’ll notice that Rush tends to work in 2-4 album long themes and the last album of the era will telegraph the theme of the next collection of albums. The end of Fly By Night signaled the turn to progressive rock. 2112, A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres accelerated, coasted and decelerated on progressive rock. The last album signaled a change to more listener friendly shorter songs. In came Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures and Signals. So on and so forth through the band’s discography.
Few bands will actually telegraph the musical direction they’re going to go next let alone indicate that there’s going to be a change in direction at all. The hint that Signals was going to be a reggae-heavy, synth-heavy album were ‘Vital Signs’ and ‘Tom Sawyer’ on Moving Pictures. While Rush had already been playing around with keyboards and synths since Hemispheres, it wasn’t until Moving Pictures did it become apparent that this was going to be the next big thing for the band. Signals showcases the band starting to put more than a toe in the water when it comes to additional instruments and thicker musical arrangements arrangements bundled in 4-6 minute packages.
‘Subdivisons’, a song about living in the suburbs and finding a personal identity amidst a world of uniformity and pressure to conform, starts the album off with a powerful 5/4 synth riff that has become just as recognizable like the opening to ‘Tom Sawyer’. It’s a powerful number both musically and lyrically that sets the tone for this album.
The rest of the album, like the albums before it, have their share of notable numbers and bass player-friendly tunes. ‘Digital Man’ was the last project producer Terry Brown worked on with the band. His stopped working with the band after this song because he thought it sounded too much like ‘Walking on the Moon’ by the Police and didn’t agree with Rush’s new direction. ‘New World Man’, another Police-flavored song, became a surprise radio hit, charting at #21 on the Billboard 100 in 1982. Regardless of their apparent influences, both songs showcase the band’s new direction but do so in a fun, lighthearted way.
‘The Weapon’, part two of the Fear series (part 3 was Witch Hunt on Moving Pictures) and track 5 on Signals, is an interesting songs on this album. Even to this day, I can’t help but feel like from 4 minutes on to the end of the song could have been a porto-electro jam band jam; something that Disco Biscuits, Lotus or Particle could have banged out on their last tour. Musically, it feels like Rush’s loosest sounding song that could have come out of a jam session. It doesn’t feel quite as rigid and scripted as much of the band’s material – past and present.
None the less, ‘The Weapon’ is another Rush song heady musical message about how fear can be used as a weapon both against others and against the self. like the other 3 songs in the Fear series. The replay value on this track alone is very high – both for musical reasons and for a crash course in how to take robust concepts and boil them down to a 6 minute song.
The album, unfortunately, falls apart past those handful of songs. ‘Chemistry’ lacks a hook or anything memorable about it. Despite being the only song where all 3 bandmates wrote lyrics for it, it still doesn’t serve as enough of a reason to salvage this song. ‘Losing It’, the only Rush song to feature electric violin courtesy of multi instrumentalist, Ben Mink, is another song that doesn’t work to the high bar set by ‘Subdivisions’ and ‘New World Man’. Though ‘Losing It’ is one of my favorite Rush songs never played live because of the vivid imagery and melancholy synth, feels like it would be better suited for ‘Power Windows’ or ‘Hold Your Fire’ later on in time. ‘Countdown’ could have been left off the album entirely. It’s this crop of songs that slows whatever momentum the album was building up to with the more listenable, exciting songs.
Further, the lyrical content on this album was a far cry from the deep, philosophical epics of the band’s past. More contemporary and accessible topics were explored such as teen repression, peer pressure, old age, and modern professions.
Overall, Signals is a solid work, but lacking in parts. The hits are hits, and the misses are misses and that’s really all there is to say about the album. To Rush fans, it was an album that was starting to create divisions among fans between those who loved the band as a hard rock progressive outfit and those that were willing and ready to see the band move past their rocking roots to something more contemporary. Rolling Stone hated this album, giving it two out of 5 stars.
Regardless, hope you like synth Rush because there’s plenty more of it to come.
Signals (1982)
- Subdivisions 5:34
- The Analog Kid 4:47
- Chemistry 4:56
- Digital Man 6:23
- The Weapon 6:27
- New World Man 3:44
- Losing It 4:53
- Countdown 5:48
Rush Brown | Arranger, Producer |
Terry Brown | Arranger, Producer |
Steve Kleinberg | Redesign |
Brian Lee | Mastering |
Geddy Lee | Bass, Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Bass), Keyboards, Lyricist, Synthesizer, Vocals |
Alex Lifeson | Bass Pedals, Composer, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Lyricist, Unknown Contributor Role |
Bob Ludwig | Mastering |
Ben Mink | Violin, Violin (Electric) |
Paul Northfield | Engineer, Mixing |
Neil Peart | Composer, Drums, Lyricist, Percussion |
Rush | Arranger, Primary Artist, Producer |
Deborah Samuel | Photography, Unknown Contributor Role |
Hugh Syme | Art Direction, Artwork, Concept, Cover Art Concept |
Robbie Whelan | Assistant Engineer, Engineer, Mixing Assistant |
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