In 1976, a science fiction concept album wasn't the safest bet for any band, but for Rush, it could have been career suicide. Caress Of Steel, the band's previous album, had tanked, with epic, radio-hostile tracks like "The Necromancer" and the 20-minute "The Fountain of Lamneth" taking most of the blame. Mercury Records wanted Rush to go back to its roots as Canada's Led Zeppelin. The band, however, had higher ambitions. Like the Beatles, Rush saw the LP format as something more than a collection of singles. An album side cold hold over 20 minutes of material, allowing bands to go beyond simple songs. They could now tell their own stories...or at least Ayn Rand's. 2112 complete with libretto by drummer Neil Peart became Rush's breakthrough success. Its 20-minute title track, inspired by Rand's novel Anthem, is a dystopian science fiction epic, a tale of a guitar-wielding free thinker in the clutches of a mad, totalitarian, galaxy-wide government. The song's connection to Rand led some to view the band, and Peart in particular, as right-wing, a claim Peart continues to debunk whenever it's brought up. Outside of "Stairway to Heaven," the song is most responsible for making epic rock tracks a staple of nerd record shelves. It's also more fun than reading a Rand novel.
Check out "The Champ" by my alter ego, Greg Forrest, in Heater #12, at http://fictionmagazines.com.
I used to do a mean Glenn Danzig impression. Now I just hang around and co-host The Workprint podcast at http://southboundcinema.com/.
