10 Albums That Are Difficult To Listen To

There's a common belief about prog rock getting a little too self-indulgent with the invention of the CD. Though acts like Yes and Genesis were already getting accusations of pretentious material as far back as the '70s, the wiggle room that came from having more space on the record made people throw in random pieces of music that did absolutely nothing. While Rush's Vapor Trails managed to still be aces from back to front, the same could not be said for the record's original mixing.

As much as something like Ghost Rider and One Little Victory still hold up as great slices of Rush from the latter half of their career, the original mix of this album was actually painful to listen to. Since most of the attention of this record was bringing Neil Peart back into the fold after his grief-stricken exile, it seems that no one took proper care of the mixing, leaving this to become the first major victim of the loudness wars.

With no real regard for proper production values, the original version of this album was known to feature blasts of noise that make everything sound like the instruments are clipping the mics whenever they're being played. Even though this was a mixed blessing, Rush themselves seemed to have noticed the error of their ways by remixing it lately with the proper mixing put into place. Then again, just the fact that they felt the need to do something like that speaks volumes about the shoddy work that was done back in the '00s.