LAMONT’S MUSIC NOTES-APRIL 12, 2020…THIRTY SIX YEARS AGO RUSH GAVE US THEIR 10TH STUDIO ALBUM ‘GRACE UNDER PRESSURE.’ THE ONE THING I’VE NOTICED WITH ANY RUSH ALBUM, THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A BAD RUSH ALBUM ! A FRIEND OF MIND SAID “RUSH ALBUMS ARE SIMPLY DIFFERENT DEGREES OF INSPIRED GENIUS.” THIS IS FROM THE RUSH WEBSITE ON THE STORY BEHIND ‘GRACE UNDER PRESSURE’: It was recorded at Le Studio, like so many other Rush albums. Rush originally approached producer Steve Lillywhite to record Grace Under Pressure, but he went on to work on other projects. The band produced the album themselves, with assistance from Peter Henderson, who had previously worked with Supertramp, Split Enz, Frank Zappa, and King Crimson.
Largely considered one of the band’s darkest albums, Grace Under Pressure was influenced by the growing tensions in the Cold War in the 1980s. The album’s running theme is “pressure” and how humans act under the influence of it. Despite the dark themes of the record, the band balances out influences from a lot of directions, including reggae and a harder feel of the classic hard rock sound. The writing and rehearsing of the album went quickly, but the recording took a long time. Alex recalled: “…once we got into the studio, things just took a long time. You can’t really help it sometimes, no matter how hard you work or how fast you work; there are certain things about recording that just take a long time.”
HERE’S AN INTERESTING FACT ABOUT RUSH. THE BAND IS THIRD BEHIND THE ROLLING STONES AND THE BEATLES FOR THE MOST CONSECUTIVE GOLD OR PLATINUM ALBUMS BY A ROCK BAND. HERE’S RUSH PERFORMING ‘EARLY DISTANT WARNING’