From: jchokey@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey)
Subject: Re: Queenryche and Rush (was Re: Proposal for alt.music.queensryche)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 00:23:01 GMT

In article <0095DFAD.EF7A6580@Msu.oscs.montana.edu> gjs8818@Msu.oscs.montana.edu (Jared Shockley) writes:
>
>Its not that they don't want to broaden their perspectives; its just that 
>why should we sit and talk about a band who has only one good album, Empire,
>and their earlier stuff is a bunch of non-thinking metalhead speed metal.

	Queensryche = speed metal???  That's one I've not heard before! I
suppose it depends on your definition of speed metal though.  I suppose that 
if you consider _Fly by Night_ and _2112_ to be speed metal, then you could
call _Rage for Order_ and _Operation Mindcrime_ speed metal--  so long as 
you don't expect anybody else to understand what you're talking about!  :-)

>The roots of both bands are totally different. Neither band has the same 
>begining nor the same style. The Queensryche style is a Pink Floyd sound 
>whereas the RUSH sound cannot be pinned down because they change it every
>album giving the listeners a chance to hear something new. Queensryche is 
>starting down a road that RUSH travels daily. 

	So now Queensryche sounds like Pink Floyd?!  Well, they do use a lot
of sound/voice effects a la Pink Floyd, but I think you've been deceived from
watching MTV too much--  "Silent Lucidity" is not the entirity of contemporary
Queensryche.   
	The "Rush sound" can't be pinned down?  If you were to drop the veil
of reverence in which you have enshrouded the band, you would notice that
there are plenty of continuities between one album and the next.  True,
_Fly by Night_ sounds a lot different from  _Roll the Bones_, but we're 
talking about a 15+ year difference.  What about the great "differences"
between _Fly by Night_ and _Caress of Steel_, or _A Farewell to Kings_ and
_Hemispheres_ or _Presto_ and _Roll the Bones_.  If you think that Rush
does something radically new on every album, you're just fooling yourself.
	And as for Queensryche, they have made several radical changes in
their sound--  and probably with greater frequency than Rush does.  There
have basically been two radical shifts in Rush's sound--  one after each of
their first two live albums, (I'm referring to _AFTK_ and _Signals)  The 
past four Queensryche albums have all been significantly different from 
each other.  The style and tone on _Rage for Order_ is much different from
that on _The Warning_, _Operation: Mindcrime_ is quite different from 
_Rage for Order_, and _Empire_ is quite different from _Operation:Mindcrime_.
The change Queensryche has undergone over those past four albums, IMHO, is
much greater than the change Rush has undergone over their last six (not
counting the live and compilation albums).


>As for rush-fandom being just
>clueless arrogance, tell me please all of the albums that Queensryche has
>put out. I bet that not all of the people know of all of them. 
		     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^	
	Surely you don't mean to suggest that there's any band in the world 
whose entire oeuvre is known to everybody!  Assuming that you mean that not all
the people who like Queensryche know all their albums, the answer is, of
course, "no," but I don't see what you're proving by pointing out something
that is true of every band.  

>I grew up in
>Seattle and I have their first two albums. Both of these just happen to be 
>speed-metal. It was not til recently that their sound changed.	Get back to 
>me if you can find some thought provoking lyrics or mental-aweing music sheets
>from any Queensryche album before Empire. 

	But if you want to talk about ignorance, I think you've done a decent
job of demonstrating your own.  Leaving aside your curious understanding of
what is generally meant by "speed-metal," you have made some pretty strong
assertions about two albums that you seem to be entirely unfamiliar with--
namely _Rage for Order_ and _Operation: Mincrime_.  I suggest you give those
two a listen before you try and talk about them.  For you to say that Q-ryche
has done nothing innovative or thought-provoking before _Empire_ would be like
someone hearing Rush's first album and a few songs off _Fly by Night_ and
nothing in between, and saying that they've done nothing new or different
until _Roll the Bones_.
	
>It is not that we don't like other
>bands but no other bands seems to give us the same feeling like listening
>to RUSH gives us.

	I presume that you're speaking for the group of Rush fans that is
so frequently labelled as "those ignorant, close-minded, Rush-fans," as the
"we" certainly doesn't apply to me or many other Rush fans who read this
group.  It's folks like you that really give the rest of us a bad name.  It's 
a pity that I continually feel pressured to explain to non-Rush fans that not 
everyone who likes Rush treats the band and their music with reverential awe
and infallibity that you do.  Perhaps you will insist that you do not adopt
such a worshipful attitude toward Rush, but your quickness to criticize non-
Rush music without ever having heard it, your romanticized exaggeration of
the frequency (you said "daily") with which Rush changes styles, and your
seeming inability to write the band's name with out putting it in full block
capitals suggests otherwise.  

	I write this not make some silly argument that Queensryche is
better than Rush or vice versa.  As another poster has pointed out, such 
discussions are best carried out by people still in junior high.  I do it
primarily to point out that you hardly seem to be open-minded towards or
even knowledgeable about that which you are criticizing and denouncing.
Perhaps you should pull out your copy of _Moving Pictures_ and listen to 
"Witch Hunt" a couple of times.

	--  Jim C. <jchokey@leland.stanford.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.music.rush