Rush: Power Windows [MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black edition comes on 180g vinyl with a download voucher. Power Windows reached No. 5 in Canada, No. 9 in the UK and No. 10 in the US, and went platinum within three months.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Download card included

About the album

Some bands write in rented mansions; Rush wrote Power Windows in a barn in Elora, Ontario. In February 1985 they set up at Elora Sound Studios, with Neil Peart writing lyrics in the farmhouse while Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson worked up the music next door in the barn, which housed a 24-track studio. A five-day warm-up tour of Florida in March let them road-test the songs before recording.

The sessions moved to Montserrat and England with Peter Collins as co-producer and Andy Richards on extra keyboards, and the sound grew to match: sampling, electronic drums, a string section and a choir, with power as the thread running through the lyrics. "The Big Money" opens with a bang, Peart researched the atomic age for "Manhattan Project," "Marathon" builds to a choral peak, and "Mystic Rhythms" closes on something hypnotic. Lifeson felt they had taken the best of Signals and Grace Under Pressure and made something more cohesive than either.

It remains a favourite with fans of the band's synth era. Peart wrote the lyrics at a desk he described as about the right size for a five-year-old; the songs, happily, came out considerably larger.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Anthem / Mercury, a reissue of the 1985 album.