Why do Rush get shit on by critics, but Radiohead get a pass?

I read an interview with Geddy Lee in which he calls out music critics for shitting on prog for years only to bandwagon Radiohead to appear "cool".

Both bands have cool, interesting melodies. Both bands push the envelope lyrically and musically to make music that is new and exciting. Both bands have written songs about science fiction, the environment, the danger of political extremes, and songs of affection. The irony is that Thom Yorke is much lazier as a lyricist than Neil Peart yet he gets a free pass from critics despite writing similar subject matter to Peart.

So how come albums like Hemispheres and Permanent Waves get trashed constantly, but truly prog records like Kid A and OK Computer are dicksucked?

Because people take critics seriously and can't form their own opinions.

Radiohead take a more atmospheric, texture based approach using really sad sounding chords rather than say...Rush or typical prog's long instrumental passages of colorful melodic phrasing for the sake of interesting and diverse musicality. The earlier's much easier to get into and a prime target for hipster bait.

Radiohead don't have that cartoony stoner vibe to them.

>an interview with Geddy Lee
link?
also fuck radiohead

Radiohead is actually good

It probably had to do with timing. Rush came out in the mid to late 70s when critics were all on punk rock. Bands like Rush and, like, Judas Priest were just seen as more of the same and not new or cutting edge the way The Clash were.

Radiohead OTOH brought something new to the table so it was ok to like them and most critics want to be able to claim they're at the cutting edge of music trends.

Critics generally like concise rock and roll. Actually I think a lot of people in general like concise rock and roll. What happens with prog is that it removes all the energy and edge from rock.

To me, prog is like using the sonnet form to write a novel: possible, perhaps even technically impressive, but is extended narrative the reason we read or write sonnets in the first place? Likewise, I don't want to hear a rock band essay what amounts to an amateurish jazz track or an extended concept album that reads like something from a high school creative writing magazine.

And that's the problem with prog. Guys in a band would smoke some weed and think dumb ideas they came up with while high were brilliant. Even Rick Wakeman admitted that Closer To The Edge was just empty noodling--"That album is like a woman with a padded bra. You take it off and realize there's nothing underneath."

because rush fucking sucks

Rush's debut record was straight hard rock, they didn't start doing concept songs until album two. I think a couple of strikes against them might have been Geddy Lee's helium vocals in the 70s and also the generally lefty/SJW persuasion of the music press. A band that did 15 minute concept songs and admired Ayn Rand weren't going to get many props from Rolling Stone Magazine.

>Radiohead OTOH brought something new to the table so
fucking lmao. radioheads entire career is ripping off jennifer by faust, something new my ass

Point well taken and no band demonstrates this better than The Clash. They had some decent material to be sure but there's no denying that politics helped them get a push from the music press.

>Canada
>The whole man crush on Ayn Rand
>Everything that's been said about the prog aesthetic.

All of these lead to a deadly combo which equals critical death upon arrival. That said, I love both Rush and Radiohead.

You know, despite its name, "progressive" rock really did very little to advance rock and roll. If anything, those bands just relied on tired retreads of Sgt. Pepper, only when Sgt. Pepper came out, the idea was fresh and novel. Also the Beatles never did aimless 20 minute solos.

^This. Progressive implies that an artist does something new, blends existing genres in a clever way, and pushes boundaries. There isn't anything "progressive" about prog rock, it's just a silly, dated fad that should be left in a stoned teenager's basement in 1973.

I like both bands but I have to say Rush is still significantly better then Radiohead. Radiohead is popular with critics cause they very much tread the line between "pop" rock and "progressive" rock. They take concepts from experimental genres and put them together in very accessible package, which is basically bait for people who like to think they are listening to something extremely experimental and complex but in reality aren't. Albums like this can be great but people, especially critics, like to think of them as something they really are not, and then scoff as something that is actually progressive because it's not as easy to get into. Other albums that are like this are Dark Side of the Moon and Moving Pictures, which is also Rush's most critically acclaimed album. I think Hemispheres is Rush's best albums, one of my favorite albums of all time, but one 20 minutes song and another instrumental literally subtitled "an exercise in self indulgence" pushes it beyond accessible and into the critics no gone zone. Also that was mostly just in the 70s, today Rush get generally very positive reviews from critics in retrospect, but that's because they finally understand that if a band has such staying power after 40+ years then maybe there is something good about them.

Go back to your shitty 3 chard indie rock

Ouch!

funny men

I think Pink Floyd are a bit of an exception to the rule since they're considered more acceptable to critics than the likes of ELP or Yes. That's probably because Floyd were more overtly political (especially on Animals) and they played for the song instead of mindless noodling. From 1973 onward. Their early material was mostly just pointless fluff and they've acknowledged it (and find those early albums embarrassing).

But then Floyd sold about 20 albums pre-DSOTM anyway, so it's obvious that they didn't achieve success until they learned how to actually write songs.

You forgot to mention that critics for the most part have very little interest in the musical aspect of a band and only care about the artist's image, politics, and lyrics. They don't really care if the band can sing or play, just that they have a cool, edgy image and a political message the critic agrees with. That has to do with most critics being English majors who have never played in a band.

Piper isn't pointless fluff.

This is painting a pretty broad brush here.

>he doesn't like Meddle
costanza belittles

hi fantano

Am I? Most album reviews discuss everything but the music. These guys only care about the band's politics and cult status. For example, Christgau said that he admires metal's energy and momentum but he dislikes its message and fanbase. Which is pretty fucking childish. "I don't like the people who listen to this band, so I'm going to give them a C minus."

Yes, pretty broad strokes but not untrue in my experience. Except for reviews in specialty music magazines, most discussions I see from experienced music reviewers talk in detail about just about everything except the music. When going there, critics tend to dumb down the discussion and deal in simplistic comparisons. I don't know if that's writing to the audience (many of whom don't care for a detailed musical analysis) or if it's ignorance. My best guess is that it's a little of both.

The thing is, if I hear a really nice chord change in a song, I want to see the reviewer call it out in the same way that one might quote part of a lyrical verse in the review. If the reviewer doesn't know the chord, find someone who does.

But what about the voice of Geddy Lee?

How did it get so high?

I think Rush is way more talented than Radiohead, they also have better albums in their discography.

a lot of it has to do with structure. the main problem with prog, if you can even call it a problem is that the songs are really long. radiohead at their most experimental still follows pop conventions

>Close(r) to the Edge

He was talking about Tales, dingus.

Rush is pure wankery and Geddy's voice sounds like a falsetto queef.

Radiohead on the other hand are listenable.

Rush isn't wankery. They might even be the only prog rock band that has any soul in their music.

I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy.

Their music is more compacted than most prog acts. And you want to talk queef? Yorke fucking cries on the mic, his trembling ass. The only thing progressive about them is Thom's eyes lmao

Well even if you like Geddy Lee's (1970s) voice, you must understand the reasons many people don't. It was pretty extreme, especially with the Hemispheres album when he never sang a note of the music until all the instrumental tracks were already recorded, and realized too late that every song was in too high a key for his voice, so not only was he singing ridiculously high falsetto as he normally did, but he was straining to sing even higher, because of the unintentionally higher keys.

Also Rush by their own admission started out as a mostly instrumental band and gave little thought to lyrics or songwriting. As one other factor, they got big right as punk rock was blowing up and prog bands in 1977-78 were very much not popular with any critics. Remember that prog wasn't necessarily disliked in the early 70s, but by 1975 it had definitely passed its peak and most of the bands coming out at that time were vacuous buttprog like Kansas and Starcastle.

Critics for the most part are looking for the newest and latest musical trends. Thus, Jimi Hendrix was fine in his day but ten years later, blues rock solos were passe and done to death. During the 90s, most critics were big on indie rock rather than Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden, because grunge was just 80s underground rock going mainstream; it had already been done better years earlier from their POV.

Or heck, try Lou Reed's attempts at creating storybook epics on Berlin and Street-Hassle. They're cringy as fuck and he would have been better served writing a novel if he wanted to do that kind of shit.

>started out as a mostly instrumental band
I've always wished they had recorded an all instrumental album between 1976 and 1980.

Because Radiohead sounds better than Rush

At the time Rush were coming out critics hated hard rock and prog. They preferred the simpler rock and roll bands of the day like The Stooges and Big Star which is why they loved punk.

>Its rock and roll. Its not supposed to be that good.
Tom Petty

literally all because of this cunt

>man crush
you know Ayn Rand was a woman right?

>>man crush
>you know Ayn Rand was a woman right?

It's a figure of speech. are you intentionally retarded?

...

sometimes prog rock comes across as being quite wanky, a bit dicky.
the long tracks that go through several key/tempo changes, long keyboard solos, often the lyrics too. all this big epic music.
i think some people regard the musicians as trying too hard to impress, being too clever.

the fact that it seems to be taken so seriously by the bands is another thing that puts some people off, i think.
maybe i'm wrong, but i can't think off the top of my head that i've actually seen any of these bands having fun on stage and jumping about.

i like the idea of prog but i've never been able to get into it much. i like bits of some songs.
the only proggy lps i have are 'a trick of the tail' and 'wind and wuthering' by genesis. the gabriel led genesis were too boring for me.
i do like the sound of hackett's guitar.
i have a couple of camel albums too.

>Radiohead
>Good

Good prog tho:
Soft Machine (sometimes)
King Crimson
Can
Faust
Amon Duul ii
Neu!

>using NegroDictionary

Radiohead have deep sadboi lyrics that appeal to hipster nu male faggots. Rush don't

(I know him and he does)

>not knowing how to use "former" and "latter"

I saw some footage of Yes from the 70s and it was basically just everyone trying to play as much technically complicated stuff as they could all play at the same time. It was a fucking mess with no musicality to it, and I say this as someone who enjoys Stravinsky and Bitch's Brew.

If Rush were black they would be considered one of the greatest bands of all time by hipster critics

Rush are one of those bands that have impressive chops, but when I listen to them, I don't feel anything. It doesn't help that they've been releasing the same album for 35+ years.

I feel like the main problem with prog artists is that they don't know of such thing as the rule of cool, which makes them dive off the deep end into trying to make these giant concept albums with thousand elements that end up feeling tasteless. Even Rush, that I felt like were getting it after the 80's with Grace Under Pressure (which is probably my favorite album by them), still got into that trap with Clockwork Angels.
When you think that the world you created requires supplementary material besides the album itself, consider dialing it back a little

>colorful melodic phrasing
What are you talkin bout Rush is basically glorified Hard Rock

My cousin was big into the punk/alternative scene in the 70s--Lou Reed, MC5, Dolls, etc. All the critical darlings of that time. He said that the prog fans he knew growing up were the most pretentious douchebags he ever met. They'd always be bullying him about listening to untalented caveman rock and how MC5 weren't as sophisticated or good musicians as Yes or ELP.

>When you think that the world you created requires supplementary material besides the album itself, consider dialing it back a little
That kind of like those concert videos Devo always used to illustrate their songs?

The video vignettes for the concerts are ok in my book, I'm talking about releasing in-universe novels and graphic novels, that's too much

I love both Rush and Radiohead, but Radiohead couldn't write a song as good as The Spirit of Radio or Red Barchetta if their life depended on it. The atmospheric guitars and sampling carry their actual song writing ability too much.

And then there's this.

KISS is pretty much the minions of music and noone ever takes them serious critically, so it's whatever.
Besides, I was talking about expanding on the concept and not band merch.

I tried listening to Genesis, I really did. I made it about 20% of the way through TLLDOB before giving up.

Did you try Phil Collins Genesis?

Try Duke and then work backwards. You'll get a feel for prog and find it easier

Some people hate prog because they see rock and roll as good-time-fun music that shouldn't have lofty message lyrics or stretch its boundaries into classical forms or multi-layered suites, and basically just shouldn't take itself seriously. Others hate it because they have short attention spans. Still others hate instrumental virtuosity because their own skills are so limited. I'm a big fan of progressive rock, but it's basically a matter of individual taste. Many critics have a double standard for prog rock and jazz. If a jazz musician takes off on a 10-minute improvisational solo, they call it "impressive skill and virtuosity", but if a rock musician does the same thing, those same critics call it "tasteless self-indulgence." As for the haters, I just crank up some King Crimson loud enough to drown them out.

Boring is completely subjective from one person to the next. For example, I'm not Christgau. I can't sit and listen to two minute punk songs with three chords and get excited. The total lack of musicianship bores me to tears. On the other hand, prog goes too far in the opposite extreme--it has mindless noodling with no momentum or feeling to it.

Is there anything more pathetic than fans of a popular genre playing the victim card? Prog bands filled up arenas and the biggest acts made enough money to offshore in a Cayman Islands bank account, but we're supposed to feel sorry for them because some punk band who released three 45s before disbanding got a better review in Creem?

I'm from a punk background and I actually enjoy Yes. But then I gave Brain Salad Surgery a spin and couldn't stand it. It was just 45 minutes of "Oh look at these cool instrumentals we can play look at how many different time signatures we can use in one track." There was no actual music there.

my shit, I at least thought you were suggesting Ayn Rand's gender was ambiguous. How can you fuck up this bad?

difference is that King Crimson is good and rush is bad, similar to how Radiohead are good and rush are bad.

Pretty apples and oranges at the end of the day. Rush had a lot more peers there's was plenty of good rock.
Radiohead gets a pass from the mainstream if anything and that's because they remember creep and karma police

I'm pretty sure 90% of the people who bad talk Rush haven never actually listened to Rush and just hate them because of the reputation Prog has. Tom Sawyer, The Spirit of Radio, Red Barchetta, Subdivisions, Closer to the Heart, Anthem, Digital Man, Red Sector A. All of these are pretty simple and extremely well written rock songs, putting song in 7/4 doesn't make it wankery. Even Rush's more ambitious stuff is still extremely grounded compared to most prog. If you think Rush is all mindless noodling and no musicality then you need to have your ears checked.

because radiohead is nihlistic and cool with a more human connection and rush comes off as music for dweebs

>the only good grog is krautrock
Agreed t b h