What's the Hurry?

Album: Rush, Moving Pictures, 1981 (dub)

Best Track: "The Camera Eye"

Lasting Memory: Rush's Moving Pictures was the third album I ever bought with own money. It's probably among the first five acquisitions of every man who matches my demographic of 40, paunching and white. Sometimes it's good to be part of the gang.

It is always great to hear "The Camera Eye," Rush's 10-minute rock ode to rock opuses. Jam bands like Phish and Rusted Root could learn a lot from studying "The Camera Eye" (or Rush's other masterwork "YYZ," for that matter). The song never hurries, but it also never meanders. "The Camera Eye" is, for my money, the tightest 10 minutes in rock 'n' roll.

Of course, Rush did not have a hit with "The Camera Eye." Where Canada's answer to Yes made its splash was with the one-two punch of Moving Picture's "Limelight" and "Tom Sawyer." Both tales of alienation -- the former through fame and the latter through, apparently, sociopathy -- practically compelled the suburban adolescents of the early '80s to run to their local record shops and fork over $7.99 for Moving Pictures. Why these songs still hold such appeal for me and millions of other classic rock radio fans is probably speculation left unspeculated.

What I will cop to is that I'd dearly love to jump in MP's fabled "Red Barchetta," crank up the "Spirit of Radio," and "Fly by Night" out of the "Subdivisions" and get "Closer to the Heart." Even though not all those songs are on Moving Pictures. But you know what I'm saying.

Up Next: Scorpions, Love at First Sting, 1984