2112 by Rush

Now, I’m partial to a bit of prog and I like sci-fi, so in theory I should fall into the same Venn diagram as Rush. However the reality doesn’t quite match up. Geddy Lee’s falsetto vocals leave me cold and drummer Neil Peart (technically brilliant as he was) obviously subscribes to the ‘more is more’ school of drumming. The rest is clever twiddly bits, sections of classical music thrown in to show how cultured they are and one too many improvised guitar solos.

The biggest problem though is the theme of the title track, inspired by the objectivist libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand which is so appealing to teenage boys who think that billionaires shouldn’t have to pay taxes because they’re obviously so much cleverer than everybody else.

The actual story is some trite nonsense about an intergalactic war where the baddies who want to outlaw individualism and free will are represented by a red star (subtle, eh?). The hero of the piece discovers a mysterious ancient artefact in a cave which turns out to be an electric guitar and at that point I stopped caring and lost the will to live.

The second side of the album is a bit more fun, with a song about the relative merits of different varieties of hash from round the world. However, the final track returns to Ayn Randism with ‘Something for Nothing’ which might as well be called ‘Wake up Sheeple’.

Oh, and for anyone still reading it turns out that Ayn Rand did end up living on welfare towards the end of her life. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.