Earlier this week, the Ultimate Classic Rock website passed the milestone of their 2,112th post. To celebrate the occasion they decided to take a look back at Rush's 1976 breakthrough 2112 album:

... The album’s epic title track was 20:33 in length and occupied the entire first side of the album. Because of that, the album is often mistakenly identified as a concept album. In fact, that point was just recently debated by VH-1 Classic host Eddie Trunk and his co-hosts on ‘That Metal Show.’ (As they often do, the hosts agreed to disagree on the subject.) While there was indeed a concept attached to the title track, the entire second side of songs are unrelated to the storyline laid out by ‘2112,’ technically striking it from true “concept album” status, but spirited music fans will continue to argue otherwise. ...

... It’s interesting to listen to ‘2112’ now and ponder how it would be received as an album in today’s musical climate. While there are certainly groups that are issuing concept albums/ tracks and similarly lengthy pieces of music in the present, would Rush’s music enjoy the same rabid following that they were able to build as a result of the success in their heyday, or would they have a smaller fringe audience similar to the ones currently following other modern progressive rock groups? ...

... Geddy Lee recently told Billboard that there’s a fighting chance that they might play the entire ‘2112’ album someday in the future:

“If we were really out of our minds, we would attempt something like [1978's] ‘Hemispheres.’ If Rush has a cult following, within that cult following there’s a following for ‘Hemispheres’ [laughs]. I’m not sure we’re up for that one, but I could see us doing ‘2112.’”

The album is sure to get even more scrutiny now that we are fast approaching the 2012 2112 pre-centennial celebration (thanks to LanceTheShred for coining that phrase). JAM! included the album's iconic starman image in its gallery of the 50 coolest band logos (thanks OU812112). And there's this advertisement (thanks david) for Czech automaker Skoda's Fabia car, which features a street drummer and highlights the fact that the car has 2,112 different color combinations.

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