Rush’s groundbreaking 1981 album, “Moving Pictures”, is receiving an expanded edition for its 40th anniversary with previously unreleased and newly restored bonus live content.
The band’s eighth studio album was originally released on February 12th, 1981, and its adventurous yet accessible music catapulted the forward-thinking Canadian band to even newer heights as it began navigating the demands of a new decade. The album’s seven songs expertly blended Rush’s intrinsic prowess for channelling its progressive roots into radio-friendly arrangements, a template the band had mastered “to a T” all throughout its previous album, 1980’s deservedly lauded Permanent Waves. Moving Pictures was also the second of many Rush recording sessions at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec, which was ultimately nicknamed the trio’s own personal Abbey Road recording studio.
The album’s lead-off track, “Tom Sawyer,” became one of Rush’s most cherished FM favourites in addition to taking its rightful place as a perpetual concert staple for decades to come. Next, the band shifts into the multi-generational dreamscape of “Red Barchetta” which chronicles the thrills and chills of a high-stakes backroads car race. The instrumental barnburner “YYZ” lovingly named after the airport identification code for Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, runs the gamut of the band’s forever impressive progressive chops in under four minutes flat. Side A closes out with the observational luminescence of “Limelight” a timeless, if not prescient look at how introverted artists grapple with public demands while trying to maintain a personal level of earned privacy.
The Super Deluxe Edition includes three CDs, one Blu-ray Audio disc, and five high-quality 180-gram black vinyl LPs. The set encompasses the Abbey Road Mastering Studios 2015 remastered edition of the album for the first time on CD, along with two discs of previously unreleased and newly restored bonus live content newly mixed from the original analog live multi-tracks by Rush’s original producer, Terry Brown, featuring the band’s complete, unreleased Toronto concert from Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, on March 25th, 1981 (designated here as “Live In YYZ 1981”). The fourth bonus disc is a Blu-ray Audio disc with the core album newly mixed from the original multi-tracks in Dolby Atmos (a Rush catalogue first!), Also included on the Blu-ray are four bonus videos: a brand-new video for “YYZ” plus three remastered vintage promo videos for “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight,” and “Vital Signs.”
The new collections arrive April 15th, 2022, via UMe/Mercury and Anthem Records, in various configurations: including the Super Deluxe Edition, 3-CD Deluxe Edition, 5-LP Deluxe Edition, LP Edition, and digital.
The Fat Angel Sings 