I’m historically terrible at personal projects that require sustained effort over long time periods. I’m much better at obsessive burst productivity where I work on something for a weekend non-stop, barely stopping to sleep and eat.
So it’s no surprise that I fell off my steady progress on my Rush Listening Project back in May. First we got distracted by the Eurovision Song Contest and I was listening to those songs nonstop, then the kids finished the school year and I no longer had an hour in the car each weekday to listen to music.
I realized this month that I won’t get through all of Rush’s remaining albums by December at only 2 per month. I’m currently in the mid-1980s and there are about 20 years to go, haha. On my roadtrip to Santa Barbara last week, I listened to 3 more albums and realized how much I *missed* this. Besides exploring the entire body of work from a band I love, I’m also learning some things that are more broadly applicable to *life*.
Give the unfamiliar a solid chance and spend more time with it. Albums I didn’t care for on my first listen slowly seeped into my brain and I’d wake up with lyrics in my head from a song I only heard twice. By the third time through I can usually identify my favorites from the album, and there hasn’t been a single album that didn’t have at least 3 songs I really liked. This is also true for me with new people. I’m an introvert and slow to warm. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. But I’ve made some lifelong friends because I didn’t give up.
Don’t pay attention to the critics - form your own opinion. With a band like Rush, the fandom is *opinionated*. My favorite album Presto is the one most fans hate. I loved it when it came out, and I love it now. I listened to it nonstop on our Dublin trip earlier this year and it still holds up for me. It’s my comfort listen and I’m so grateful to have it. I’ve heard some people talk about how they refuse to read *any* reviews before consuming media, and I definitely see why. Try it for yourself and decide - don’t let others sway you! This is true about a lot of things in life - your favorite restaurant may not be 5-star-rated on Yelp, but your opinion is the one that matters.
The good stuff sometimes requires more effort. Without getting all “kids these days”, the advent of social media and short videos has wrecked our collective attention span. Rush is not an easy band to listen to, and by today’s standards their songs are not so accessible. My 12yo was horrified that we made a grocery run listening to one 1970s Rush song that was playing when we got to the store a few miles away *and was still playing the entire ride home*. That’s not how current pop music works - 3 minutes is a long song! But it engages my brain to listen to these complex prog-rock songs without (many) catchy hooks. I can hear their influences during different time periods - Led Zeppelin and The Who in the 1970s, The Police and 80s new wave, grunge in the 1990s. It’s really cool to pick that out! My 16yo is taking a Gothic Literature class, reading books written in the 1800s, and she’s actually enjoying them despite the unfamiliar language and length. It’s worth it, y’all.
As I mentioned in my last post, I realized my general “blahs” have been due to a lack of novelty, too much routine, too many “should dos” and not enough “want to dos”. So I’m trying to be more mindful and schedule in more JOY. I don’t actually need a ton of naps - I need more FUN. And getting back to my Rush Listening Project (tm) is part of that plan!
