April
1st marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Rush’s fourth studio
LP, 2112 (Twenty-one Twelve), issued on this day in 1976.
After
the release of their previous album, Caress of Steel (1975), Rush were
at a breaking point. The album had failed to connect with fans or
critics, album sales were low and concert attendance was dropping off.
The group were at a loss as they could feel the audience weren’t
connecting with their latest music when they played it live. Their
instincts were telling them this was the path they were meant to follow,
but the commercial failure of their efforts left them shaken and losing
confidence. They were also financially on the precipice of collapse
and their international record label had their hand on the plug and were
ready to pull. It was only through the intervention of their manager,
Ray Danniels, that they were able to hang onto their contract. He flew
down to the US offices and desperately pitched to the label heads that
the band would refocus and deliver something much more commercially
accessible and move away from the “progressive” tendencies they’d
indulged in for Caress of Steel.
The band, however, had other
intentions. They knew they were on the block and the ax was ready to
chop, so they figured, fuck it! If they were going to go down, why not
go down doing what they believed in. To this end, while touring
throughout the latter part of 1975 and early 1976, they set about
putting together the material which would go into their next album.
They were careful not to let Danniels hear any of it until they’d worked
it all out in detail and had what they felt was a solid, fully realized
concept. They’d doubled down on the progressive approach and concocted
a concept album inspired by the writings of controversial Russian
philosopher and fiction author, Ayn Rand.
Drummer Neil Peart
had come up with a science fiction story involving a dystopian fascist
religious society where rationality had been outlawed along with music
in favor of strict theocratic collectivism. Their story would tell the
tale of a lone hero who would rediscover the magic of music by finding
an abandoned electric guitar among some ancient ruins and bring the
power of rock ’n’ roll back to the people. The cover would symbolize
this via what would become the bands trademark icon, the nude man
assailing against the red star. The symbolism references the red star
commonly used in collectivist governments such as China and the USSR
while the nude male represents the purity of intent of the individual
fighting against the state.
The band spent two weeks recording
in Toronto in early 1976. Once the LP was completed, they threw their
“hail Marry” pass at the record buying public and hoped for the best.
Much to their relief, the album was an immediate hit with both fans and
critics, helping to break them commercially, not only in the US, but
also the overseas markets in the UK and Europe as they toured there for
the first time. On the road, the band were reinvigorated. The
audiences came back in bigger numbers than ever before and people “got
it” at last. It became proof positive of their belief in the value of
staying true to their principals and served to buttress their
determination to maintain that approach for the remainder of their very
long and very successful career. It remains one of their most
artistically lauded and highest selling LPs, only coming in second
behind Moving Pictures.
