Everything Your Listeners Ever Wanted to Hear by Rush... But You Were Afraid to Play

Everything Your Listeners Ever Wanted to Hear by Rush...But You Were Afraid to Play is a rare, promo-only LP by the Canadian rock band Rush, serviced to American radio stations in early 1977.

Compiled by Rush's then-U.S. label Mercury, it has an AOR sampling of tracks from the band's second, third and fourth albums (Fly by Night, Caress of Steel and 2112 respectively), bypassing selections from their 1974 first album, Rush. Rush had received substantial airplay from FM stations, but their subsequent LPs had not, partly due to both the increasing length and complex nature of the material. 2112 had been a surprise success in 1976, but still had not received much airplay. The band were working on a fifth studio album to be released later in 1977, so presumably the compilation was intended to promote some of the more radio-friendly tracks from the albums in between. Incidentally, the album's back cover has a blurb from Circus magazine with the headline "'Closer To The Heart' Will Be The Group's Sixth LP".

Though no rare material is included, two songs were excerpts from their corresponding full-length suites: "Overture/The Temples of Syrinx" from 2112's "2112", and "Bacchus Plateau" from Caress of Steel's "The Fountain of Lamneth".

The basic track list was later used for the 1979 German compilation, Rush Through Time, but substituting the then-more recent and popular tracks "Cinderella Man" and "Closer to the Heart", for "Lakeside Park" and "Bacchus Plateau", respectively.