Given that Rush began playing heavy blues rock that saw them pegged as Canada’s Led Zeppelin, it is worth reflecting how far they flew from that worthy starting point. R50 does exactly that.
It is available in five configurations. Most lavish are the Super Deluxe Edition (a golden box containing newly packaged seven vinyl albums, four CDs, two hardcover books and 20 song-inspired prints) and the Rush Backstage Exclusive Super Deluxe Edition (adding “a bonus pack of four lithos”).
The 7LP and 4CD versions also feature some new artwork etc. Finally, there’s a digital option. The visual extras (by the band’s long-time creative director Hugh Syme, naturally) are stunning, but it matters more that R50 is a chronological 50-track anthology that documents Rush’s five-decade arc from their debut single in 1973 to the trio’s final performance in Los Angeles.
Perfectly befitting the music of Rush, the devil is in the detail. Ten of the 50 recordings are officially exclusive to R50. Each of the 19 studio albums, plus 2004’s Feedback covers EP, is represented – although only 17 of the 50 are as originally released. Other studio takes are three alternative mixes (of Working Man, The Trees and One Little Victory) plus both newly remastered sides of that long-lost first single – a cover of Not Fade Away backed with You Can’t Fight It, featuring first-album drummer John Rutsey.
The other 28 tracks are live versions (two with Rutsey, also) that include the Alex Lifeson supercharged By-Tor And The Snow Dog from 1976’s All The World’s A Stage. Others are cherry-picked from sets included as remasters bonus discs. It’s a mindboggling ride which has moved Geddy Lee to quip: “I’m exhausted just reading the effin list!”
Track 27, 1982’s Subdivisions, is a watershed ahead of seven synthesiser-dominated studio albums. Those years (up to 1996) are represented by nine of the very best Rush tunes of the era, including New World Man, The Big Money, Time Stand Still and Superconductor – plus the older Witch Hunt (which made its live debut in those times) and Neil Peart’s showcase The Rhythm Machine, the best of three numbers featuring drum solos.
R50 ends with the What You’re Doing/ Working Man/Garden Road medley that closed the final show at the LA Forum in 2015, the grittiest of a dozen guitar-heavy 21st-century recordings of songs old and recent that remind us not only of how Rush began their incredible journey, but also how deeply they’re embedded in our hearts.
