Like it permits mediocrity by feeding the mediocre illusions of excellence instead of asking excellence of them.
This is the most accurate description of Geddy Lee's singing imaginable.
I'm going to really lay into Rush now, so buckle up. Rush's core crime against music is not understanding that the single most important thing in the band is the song. Every single thing the band does should be oriented toward serving the song, everything from its flow to its message to its ability to hold the listener's attention. Rush ranges from mediocre to bad at nearly everything along those lines.
Take Geddy Lee's singing. Lee and his fans believe that a vocalist's range consists of the notes he can physically hit. This is wrong. A vocalist's range is the notes he can hit
without compromising delivery. If you listen to
Tom Sawyer, Lee begins compromising whenever he hits E-F above middle C. Bruce Dickinson, by contrast, sustains the B above that in
Hallowed be the Name without compromising, Geoff Tate lands on the A in the chorus of Eyes of a Stranger in chest voice, not even breaking a sweat when he vaults up to the to D. It's not that Geddy "can't" hit those notes, it's that he can't hit those notes without sounding like shit. His useful range really isn't much higher than Ringo Starr's.
Rush fans don't understand this. They think that because Geddy Lee screeches out a high C now and then in a way that brutalizes his vocal folds and causes normal people physical pain to hear, he can "sing a high C," and people should be impressed by his "range." This gets into the meat of why Rush sucks. Two of the three band members don't ever seem to give a shit about the song. Geddy doesn't really care what would make the song more expressive; he just wants you to know how aggressively he can squeeze his vocal folds to generate pitches. The difference between Geddy and Ringo isn't range, it's that Ringo doesn't blow past his useful range. Ringo's singing might be utterly mediocre, but it always serves the song. "Act Naturally" and "Yellow Submarine" aren't brilliant pieces of musicianship, but they are pleasant enough to listen to. Ringo's vocals serve the song. Geddy's don't. It also makes Geddy a bad songwriter. Paul McCartney is a good songwriter, because when he writes a song for Ringo, he writes for Ringo's 5-note range. When Geddy writes a song for himself, he writes it for Rob Halford's range, not his own.
Neil Peart's a different animal than Geddy Lee. Unlike Geddy, Neil can actually execute, and is legendary for his tireless self-improvement efforts, making him arguably the best technical drummer in rock & roll. Skill isn't his problem. Neil's problem is that he can't shut the fuck up. Even in
Tom Sawyer, his drumming is just too much, too much of the time. If you listen to the track without drums, there a number of places that are far more poignant without percussion at all than the way they're recorded, pointing to the need for Mr Peart to just back off...which he just can't ever seem to do.
Once you hear it, you can't unhear it. The bands that produce truly great songs have drummers who know when to shut the fuck up. Everyone from Black Sabbath to the Beatles to Journey to Prince to...you get the idea. Rush is actually so fucking bad at pacing songs that even boy bands from the 90s do it better.
Rush fans sometimes cope, "It's more like jazz-rock fusion! It's supposed to be noisy!" Sorry, no. Jazz-rock fusion can still have engaging pacing and a drummer who knows when to back off.
Rush has no excuse, really.
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