Rush: 2112 (audiophile remaster, direct metal mastering) [BACK TO BLACK/MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

This pressing is an audiophile remaster cut with direct metal mastering, and it's the album that saved Rush's career. The 20-minute title suite is a prog-rock landmark, and 2112 has been a steady seller for half a century.

This edition

• Audiophile remaster
• Direct metal mastering
• Back to Black/Mercury pressing

About the album

Rush were in trouble in 1975. Caress of Steel had flopped, crowds were thinning and Mercury was ready to drop them. The label granted one more album and pushed for something commercial, and the Toronto trio responded by putting a 20-minute science-fiction suite about a dystopian future and a rediscovered guitar on side one. It was either career suicide or genius, and it turned out to be genius: 2112 went top five in Canada and became their first real commercial breakthrough.

Geddy Lee's banshee wail, Alex Lifeson's riffs and Neil Peart's drumming and lyrics (inspired by Ayn Rand, as the liner notes acknowledge) all lock together on the title track, while side two's shorter songs, "A Passage to Bangkok" and "The Twilight Zone" among them, show a band loosening up and having fun. Fifty years on, it remains the ultimate rallying cry for every misfit kid with a guitar.

Also at Kops: more Rush on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Back to Black/Mercury, a reissue of the 1976 album.