Rush Sends a New Signal Into the ’80s
On September 9, 1982, Rush released Signals, an album that marked one of the most noticeable musical transitions in the Canadian trio’s career.
Coming after the enormous success of 1981’s Moving Pictures, Rush could easily have continued with the guitar-driven progressive rock formula that produced “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight.” Instead, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart pushed further into the technology and sounds of the new decade.
Signals featured a much greater presence of synthesizers, sequencers and electronic instrumentation, while its songs generally became shorter and more streamlined. The album was recorded at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec, between April and July 1982 and co-produced by Rush and longtime collaborator Terry Brown. It would become their final album with Brown after a partnership stretching back to the mid-1970s.
The change was immediately apparent on the opening track, “Subdivisions.” Driven by synthesizers and Neil Peart’s observations about conformity and suburban adolescence, the song became one of Rush’s enduring concert staples. The band’s official history describes it as a song that captured the restless anxieties of youth while embracing the increasingly electronic musical landscape of the early ’80s.
Another standout, “New World Man,” came together almost by accident. Rush says the 3:42 track was composed late in the process primarily because the band needed a shorter song to balance the two sides of the cassette version of Signals.
Commercially, the experimentation worked. Signals reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200 and No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart, and the RIAA certified it platinum in November 1982.
There’s also a nice Midwestern connection to the album’s anniversary. Rush was already on the road when Signals arrived, playing Omaha on September 9, 1982. Just over a month later, the tour reached Kemper Arena in Kansas City on October 16, following two performances at the Checkerdome in St. Louis.
Signals represented more than another successful Rush album. It captured a veteran progressive-rock band recognizing that music was changing—and choosing to change with it.
Sources: Rush Official – Signals; Rush Official – Signals Tour Archive; Rush Official – Signals 40th Anniversary.
Image Source: Unsplash and Wikipedia.
