Yo! Dude! Check this out! Call my cell! Come on, just do it, it’ll only take a second. Please? Come on. Yeah! You’re gonna love this. There you go. Nope nope, right there. Up one. There. No no, that’s my work number. There you go.
Eh? Eh?
Oh come on! It’s YYZ! You know, that Rush song? The instrumental one? Naaa n-na na naa n-na na na naa n-n-naa n-na na naa n-na na na naaa, you know, that one? It’s on Guitar Hero 2. Aeh, you’re just not into Rush.
Nah, it’s just the cymbal part at the beginning looping. No, not the whole thing. It can only be 30 seconds long. Eh, I think it’d be weird having the whole song play.
Yeah, I made it in Garage Band.
The drums are fantastic but the voice is god-awful. Just recently, while driving home from work, I learned how to listen to Rush. Reverse the normal listening process of listening directly to the vocals and indirectly to the drums. IE, completely ignore Geddy Lee (if you can) and focus all your attention on Neil Peart (whose style is ever-changing and fantastic, which makes the former easier).
Sorry if that offends you or anyone, but come on. God. Awful.
To quickly clarify my last statement, my complaint is not with the pitch or tonality of the vocals, but with the timbre.
Oh man, Peart’s drumming is unreal. Y’ever listen to one of his solos? It’s incredible. Listen to the bass, too. No one rapes a bass like Geddy Lee. I kinda feel bad for Lifeson — he’s outstanding on guitar, but Peart’s and Lee’s abilities on their respective instruments hugely upstage his.
Lee’s vocals are hard to defend. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) sings similarly, but he has a more chesty voice that softens the timbre a bit. Lee sings from the throat. It’s funny if you ever hear him talk, because his speaking voice is identical to his singing voice. He’s definitely an acquired taste for most people, which is something hoity-toity types say when they mean that something tastes bad but they like it anyway. I personally like his vocals, especially later on as his voice has aged and softened. If you give Snakes and Arrows a listen, you might find Lee’s voice less grating, but I won’t argue with anyone who doesn’t like it.