Permanent Waves

Permanent Waves is Rush's seventh studio album, following Hemispheres in 1978. It was released on 14 January 1980. After touring ended in the summer of 1979, the Canadian trio retreated to a farm near Flesherton, Ontario, to write. They recorded at Le Studio in Morin-Heights, Quebec, producing the album themselves with Terry Brown.

The songs are tighter and more concise than before, with radio-friendly numbers like "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill" sitting beside the older progressive instincts of "Jacob's Ladder" and the nine-minute closer "Natural Science". Geddy Lee also sings with more restraint here. The record reached No. 3 in Canada and the UK and No. 4 in the US, and it was the band's fastest-selling album to that point. "The Spirit of Radio" became their first Top 30 single in Canada, and the six-month tour was the first to turn a profit. It is a good place to hear Rush changing shape just before Moving Pictures.