Lifeson begat this atrocity. Back in 1984, he contracted the disease that now bears his name. Alex Lifeson's disease afflicts the great guitarists. It shrinks their testicles from the size of grapefruits down to BBs, or smaller. (Other notable sufferers of Alex Lifeson's Disease include Eric Clapton, Gary Moore, and Vivian Campbell). Mr. Lifeson went from wearing long hair and clogs and playing in front of several Marshall stacks, to wearing borderline flock-of-seagulls haircuts and ballet slippers and playing in front of tiny solid state combos.

Guitarists: DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!
Before ALD	After ALD
(Note: Amp size in pictures is proportional to ball size)

He went from being a natural progression of Jimmy Page meets Steve Hackett to Andy Summers meets the Edge. His last vestiges of guitar hero-style lead guitar work were on 1983's Signals. Since then, Lifeson became an accompanist. It's not like he doesn't have chops anymore — he simply chooses not to use them. That's the definition of ALD. If you see Rush live doing old material, he can still cut ripping solos on stuff like Freewill. He just chooses not to play that way on new music. He's become a big pussy. My prescribed treatment for ALD sufferers is call them a bunch of denigrating names like "big pussy" in hopes that they'd snap out of it someday. Unfortunately no one has yet.