"Vital Signs" is a song by progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 trio Rush

Rush (band)

Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...

 from their album Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures (album)

- Personnel :* Geddy Lee - Bass guitar; Minimoog; Oberheim 8-voice synthesizer; OB-X, Moog Taurus bass pedals, vocals* Alex Lifeson - Electric and acoustic guitars, Moog Taurus...

. The song is heavily influenced by both reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

 (in the guitar riff) as well as progressive electronica

Electronica

Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...

 (in its use of sequencers

Music sequencer

The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...

). This dual reggae/electronica influence would carry on into their next studio album, Signals. The song was released as the final single from the Moving Pictures album. It has appeared in Rush's set lists as current as that of the 2010-2011 Time Machine Tour

Time Machine Tour

The Time Machine Tour was a concert tour by the Canadian rock band Rush that began on June 29, 2010 in Albuquerque, New Mexico and ended July 2, 2011 at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington...

.

A live version of "Vital Signs" appeared as the B-side on Rush's "New World Man

New World Man

"New World Man" is a track from the 1982 album Signals by Canadian rock band Rush. The song was the last and quickest composed song on the album, stemming from a suggestion by then-Rush producer Terry Brown to even out the lengths of the two sides of the cassette version. It went to #1 in Canada,...

" single in 1982. (Mercury #76179, US edition).