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(More customer reviews)This book is a high-level academic monograph, and thus some lay readers may find it difficult. But it is rich in ideas and well worth the read. The author's appreciation of Rush comes through clearly (he remains objective while not attempting to hide that he is a fan), and many of his insights into the band's work are fascinating. Moreover, through the excellent summaries of other scholars' theories about North American and middle-class culture, it has a lot of sociology to teach. Even readers who don't particularly like Rush can learn a lot about the place that "progressive rock" (a label the band itself never cared for, but the least objectionable one there is) occupies in music history, the role that the middle class has had in defining cultural tastes in twentieth-century North America, and the brand of individuality that many middle-class North Americans were reared upon. McDonald's examination of the Ayn Rand fiasco is particularly revealing about discursive differences between North America and Great Britain. (It explains why British critics took umbrage at Rush's particular expression of individualism, while most Americans saw it as nothing out of the ordinary.)
It was all the more gratifying for me, as a fan of Rush since 1981, to have Rush's devotees examined seriously as a "taste community." I hazard to say that many Rush fans will see themselves described in these pages. The elements that made Rush appeal to many - the fantasy-escapism, the fierce individualism, the interest in technology, the love of complex musicianship - is all put in a larger cultural context. This book not only taught me a lot of sociology, but helped me put my own tastes, and those of my class and generation, in a meaningful perspective.
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Canadian progressive rock band Rush was the voice of the suburban middleclass. In this book, Chris McDonald assesses the band's impact on popular music andits legacy for legions of fans. McDonald explores the ways in which Rush's critiqueof suburban life -- and its strategies for escape -- reflected middle-classaspirations and anxieties, while its performances manifested the dialectic in progrock between discipline and austerity, and the desire for spectacle and excess. Theband's reception reflected the internal struggles of the middle class over culturalstatus. Critics cavalierly dismissed, or apologetically praised, Rush's music forits middlebrow leanings. McDonald's wide-ranging musical and cultural analysis shedslight on one of the most successful and enduring rock bands of the 1970s and1980s.
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