With Understanding Comes Appreciation
2112 achieved a triple feat: 1) it saved Rush's career. It was like Rush was at the plate with two out and two strikes on them and with 2112 they hit a homerun, and the rest is history, 2) it showed artistic integrity (after all it is a record that "doubles the bet" of its predecessor, incorporating even more elements of progressive rock) and 3) it was a major contribution to a sub-genre (that is, prog rock) that seemed to be in decline after reaching its peak in 1974.
2112 is Rush's fourth album and their first real breakthrough in terms of both record sales and critical acclaim. The band arrived rather late in the progressive movement, their debut self titles album, having been released in 1974, a full five years after King Crimson and their contemporaries brought Prog blazing to the forefront of popular music. In addition, Rush didn't really get progressive until their third album, "Caress of Steel," their earlier attempts being competent but somewhat derivative and undistinguished hard rock fare.
They first began to show signs of a more ambitious approach in 1975 with their "Fly By Night" album. After the departure of the original drummer, the band had the incredible good fortune to find a replacement in Neil Peart. Not only was he a fantastic drummer, but he also turned out to be quite a gifted writer, and his lyrics were a major part of what took the band to the next level, as well as his penchant for science fiction, fantasy and more ambitious subject matter in general.
Hints of this can be found as early as in "Fly By Night's" sprawling "By-Tor and the Snow Dog," a first attempt at an epic that didn't quite work. But fortunately for Prog fans everywhere, the band did not let the raggedness of these early attempts discourage them, and their next release was the even more ambitious "Caress of Steel." Once again, critics called it a failure, although fans seemed to be warming up to what the band was trying to do.
Finally, despite fervent objections by their record company, Rush made 2112, and in doing so struck musical gold. Just as bands like Yes and Genesis were running out of steam, and with the arrival of the Ramones in 1976 threatening to shred the very fabric of Prog to ribbons, Rush came out with an epic that experienced a popularity not enjoyed by any twenty minute plus song since Jethro Tull's "Thick As A Brick" four years earlier. It certainly didn't hurt that the band's reputation was more cemented in hard rock, a popular genre at the time, than in the rapidly waning excess of Prog.