Rush "2112" [1976]

Wow, everything worth hating about 70s rock in one hideously pretentious album -- what luck! Unless you're under the impression that a "Wide World of Sports" theme is worthy of rocking out to, you really have no business here. Maybe if you're 15 with no possibility of getting a girlfriend in the near future you may dare to take a listen, but then you must also have an extreme tolerance for lead singers who suck helium to achieve their ridiculously high registers, like Geddy fucking Lee does here. Bad as he is, however, he's not even close to being the main thing that's so incredibly wrong with Rush in general and "2112" in particular. This band will waste your time in majorly uncalled-for ways such as tuning Alex Lifeson's guitar as an "intro" to a song he then goes on to rip off Jimmy Page in, but even bringing pomp to that sort of time-wasting filler isn't this record's main infraction. No, that's saved for drummy show-off Neal Peart and his endless kit and even more endless B-minus student knowledge of classic literature; his proggy faux-sophistication is cloying enough musically, but his aimless Shakespeare and bible references are even worse... aw, who am I fooling? Geddy's voice is so awful it could strip wallpaper. Prog-rock always sucks monkey dick, but it's even worse through the pinched vocal of a ball-less Muppet. If you're into musical tedium you can always listen to actual classical music, you know -- and it's kind of a relief they never say "it's not over til the stringy long-haired Canuck man-soprano sings."