Caress of Steel - Reception

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic
Sputnikmusic
The Daily Vault C+

Although the band initially had high hopes for Caress of Steel, it sold fewer copies than Fly by Night and was considered a disappointment by the record company. The album eventually became known as one of Rush's most obscure and overlooked recordings.

Caress of Steel did not attain gold certification in the United States until December 1993, nearly two decades after its release. It remains one of the few Rush albums to not go platinum in the U.S.

Due to poor sales, low concert attendance and overall media indifference, the 1975-76 tour supporting Caress of Steel became known by the band as the "Down the Tubes" tour. Given that and record company pressure to record more accessible, radio-friendly material similar to their first album – something Lee, Lifeson and Peart were unwilling to do – the trio feared that the end of the group was near.

Ignoring their record label's advice and vowing to "fight or fall," the group's next album, 2112, ultimately paved the way for lasting commercial success despite opening with a 20-and-a-half-minute conceptual title track.

Read more about this topic:  Caress Of Steel

Famous quotes containing the word reception:

    He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!
    Billy Wilder (b. 1906)

    But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.”
    Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)