Chronicles (1990)
Disc One
1.Finding My Way
2.Working Man
3.Fly By Night
4.Anthem
5.Bastille Day
6.Lakeside Park
7.2212:Overture / The Temples of Syrinx
8.What You're Doing (Live)
9.A Farewell to Kings
10.Closer to the Heart
11.The Trees
12.La Villa Strangiato
13.Free Will
14.The Spirit of Radio
Disc Two
1.Tom Sawyer
2.Red Barchetta
3.Limelight
4.A Passage to Bangkok (Live)
5.Subdivisions
6.New World Man
7.Distant Early Warning
8.Red Sector A
9.The Big Money
10.Manhattan Project
11.Force Ten
12.Time Stand Still
13.Mystic Rhythms (Live)
14.Show Don't Tell
Chronicles is a curious creation — neither a comprehensive retrospective nor a shallow commercial ploy. Instead, what we have here is something of a halfway house: a pseudo–greatest hits package that attempts to encapsulate Rush’s vast and sprawling catalogue with a straightforward (and refreshingly unfussy) formula. Two tracks from each studio album. One from each live album. Nothing more. Nothing less.
It’s worth noting that this release came from their previous label, Mercury Records, which has led some to speculate that it was put together out of contractual necessity rather than any artistic impulse. If that’s true, then they did a surprisingly good job. Because, on the whole, the selections are solid, and the flow — often a stumbling block in compilations — is reasonably effective. Even so, one can’t help but detect the whiff of legal housekeeping.
Still, despite their aversion to conventional chart success, Rush were never short of favourites — both among the fanbase and the band members themselves. Happily, most of those are present and accounted for. No surprise, then, that Moving Pictures — arguably the band's finest hour — is represented by three tracks, while the then-recent Presto is allotted a solitary inclusion. It’s easy to assume this had more to do with licensing between labels than any slight against the material, which, for the record, was more than strong enough to warrant additional representation.
The only real head-scratcher is the omission of Xanadu in favour of the title track from A Farewell to Kings. Likely a decision driven by time constraints rather than taste, as Xanadu stretches well over ten minutes and would have upset the runtime balance. It’s a notable absence, though not a fatal one.
More encouraging, however, is the decision to include the two “forgotten” live tracks — What You’re Doing and A Passage to Bangkok — which had originally been chopped from the CD versions of All the World's a Stage and Exit…Stage Left due to the constraints of squeezing double LPs onto a single compact disc. Their restoration here is not only welcome but shows a rare example of a label prioritizing the fan experience over the balance sheet — a gesture of goodwill that would not go unnoticed. Indeed, when Rush would revisit the live format again nearly a decade later, they would make it abundantly clear they had no interest in short-changing their listeners.
In the final analysis, Chronicles does exactly what it sets out to do. It offers a generous, if occasionally idiosyncratic, overview of one of rock’s most uncompromising and consistent bands. For newcomers, it provides a reliable (if slightly conservative) entry point. For veterans, it’s a well-curated sampler that, in its better moments, manages to stitch together the band’s many phases with surprising cohesion.
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