Rush-The Spirit of radio

Continuing with drummer week, I wanted to take a song and look at what the drummer was doing. I am not a drummer so it will be very general rather than technical. Since I ranked Neil Peart as number one, I thought I should select a Rush song first so I selected The Spirit of radio which is the opening track off of Rush's 1980 album Permanent Waves. At first I considered picking a solo off of one of the live albums and although those are great, I think it's Peart's ability to shine while still laying down the backbone of a song that is his true strength. The spirit of radio could probably serve as a highlight for any of the three musicians in this band, but in concentrating on Peart you really hear what makes him great. If Rush are mentioned as a progressive rock band then it's normally as a light progressive band or as a major influence for progressive bands who sprung up later. However this song has a lot of pace changes for a song that is under five minutes. Neil Peart manages to change beats many times throughout the song as he lays down the beats for the various changes done by the other instruments, but what I truly love about what he is playing here is how subtle his changes are. A number of drummers would have to emphasize a pace change with a marked or more pronounced beat, but Peart does these changes with ease and therefore it sounds seamless. Perhaps it's the fact that he is able to make these transitions sound fluid that sometimes we forget how great he really is and that's because he makes it sound like it's easy even though it's not. I listened to this song three times in my car today. That would be twice to get an idea of what he was playing and one more time just because I realized how good he really was on this song.
Tomorrow I will pick a Black Sabbath song and try to concentrate on Bill Ward's drumming.