10 Rock Albums That Went From Hated To Loved

10. Grace Under Pressure - Rush

There has never been any musical idea that doesn't suit Rush’s style. Ever since they started, these Canadian icons were always looking to go down different musical avenues regardless of whether or not there was a market for it, and would often make a masterpiece out of it. That may have gone well in the ‘70s, but there’s a certain portion of their fanbase who started to jump off the bandwagon the minute that keyboards were brought into the mix.

During the ‘80s, Rush had a predominant focus on the synthesizers rather than the guitars, which meant a lot of hardcore fans leaving them as they tried to chase the new sounds of the time. Once you remove the more timely elements of their sound though, time has been much kinder to Grace Under Pressure, with some of the most emotional lyrics that have graced any Rush record.

Even with the pop friendly sound, Neil Peart had a lot to unpack on some of these songs, from the paranoia running through Distant Early Warning to painting the picture of what it’s like living in Nazi concentration camps on Red Sector A. The raw sounds of this record might seem a bit too self indulgent, but when you start to peel back the layers, these weren’t the prog rock gods that we got to know in the days of Farewell to Kings. These were real people with some major emotional baggage, and this was the first glimpse at the band being human.