Yes: 90125

90125

Best song: Changes

Worst song: Leave It

Overall grade: 2

Remember how Yes managed to make Drama a success, despite lacking Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman, by stunningly and effortlessly creating the kind of prog pop that Styx and Kansas could only dream about? Well, three years later they actually have Anderson back, and yet they come nowhere near close to repeating the feat.

Truth is, this was actually the first Yes album I heard, and it nearly put me off listening to the band for life. I’d been advised on the albums by a non-prog fan and so was led to believe that it was some of their best work, yet at the same time I’d heard that they were similar to bands like Pink Floyd and Genesis who I already liked… I listened, and I had no idea how this was similar in any way to those other bands, and I couldn’t get any enjoyment out of it. I shelved the band, and it was a good few months before I was guided towards ‘Close To The Edge’. Later, after being acquainted with the whole of the band’s Seventies catalogue, I returned to this with fresh eyes. I knew I was getting an Eighties pop album rather than a prog album and with that in mind, I thought I might be able to appreciate it. But I couldn’t hear anything that differentiated it from anything else being made at the time. In my opinion, Yes lost their magical songwriting talent somewhere around 1981 and have been trying to get it back ever since, resulting in some near misses like ‘Keys To Ascension’ and ‘Fly From Here’, and some complete flops, like ‘Big Generator’ and this one.

One possible reason for the drop in quality on this album is the departure of Steve Howe; who after over ten years as a permanent fixture of the band was suddenly not invited to join it. That’s right, this was actually an entirely new band, that started off as Chris Squire, Alan White and then-unknown guitarist Trevor Rabin, and just happened to end up including Jon Anderson and pre-Wakeman Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. As much as I respect Squire as a bassist, I’ve never seen him as the strongest songwriter, and White’s never contributed significantly either, which basically left Anderson alone to carry the group and make them sound vaguely Yes-like, which, after they decided to adopt the name, should have been pretty important.

If I said ‘Owner Of A Lonely Heart’ was my least favourite song here, I’d be being controversial for the sake of it, because there are worse songs. I still can’t stand it, though. I can’t get over the simplicity of it all and the way there aren’t any new layers to uncover with subsequent listens; what you hear is what you get. The band try to add in solos, possibly to appease longtime fans, but they’re uninspired, possibly restricted by the commercial nature of the song.

Its followup ‘Hold On’ is equally uninspired, and it feels like the band don’t realise that it’s possible to be creative and concise, and they have to pick one or the other, because seriously, on paper this song ticks all the boxes of what elements a song should have but it doesn’t do anything more than that and it doesn’t make you feel anything. ‘It Can Happen’ is a slight improvement, made memorable with the addition of the sitar and the less cheesy melody, but still doesn’t exactly break new ground.

‘Changes’ is… well, it’s certainly listenable, even while it never approaches greatness. It brushes aside the shiny, over-polished pop in favour of a rockier sound, and Anderson manages to breathe plenty of emotion into this one: he hasn’t lost any talent, he just doesn’t have as much material to work with here.

Moving into the second side, ‘Cinema’ seems to be an attempt at a prog instrumental, but two minutes doesn’t really give it a chance to develop, and none of the band members are playing their best at this point (Squire hasn’t given us a great bass line this entire album while the others were overloaded with them.) Then ‘Leave It’ was designed as Anderson’s showcase, full of vocal harmonies, but they’re harsh and abrasive to my ears; and I know he’s capable of such beauty. There’s nothing in the background to raise it up, either, and so it becomes my least favourite song on the album because I actually can’t see any merit in it whatsoever: not as a Yes song nor as a pop song.

‘Our Song’ is just so… so eighties, with its keyboards and synths, that seem like something out of a terrible washing powder advert and just manage to overpower the entire song. Then comes ‘City of Love’, and have I mentioned that the lyrics are also terrible here? I’m not saying Yes have ever been well known for great lyrics, but at least they used to be original. Here, they dispense with all originality and go for cringe-inducing: I think the title of this song just about says enough.

‘Hearts’, as a closer, is one of those songs where you spend the whole time waiting for the good bit, as the last thirty seconds are actually pretty cool where the first seven have no focus and nothing special about them. It’s not really enough of a payoff to wait for, in truth. It’s an extended ballad in the grand tradition of ‘And You And I’, but has about as much resemblance to that song as ‘Close To The Edge’ does to ‘Surfin’ Bird’.

Of course, this album is no worse than everything else that was becoming mainstream in 1983; that’s just not my style of music at all, but to an Eighties pop fan this is probably perfectly worthwhile. It’s just not superior to anything else from the time, as it no longer has the unique power of classic Yes albums from the seventies. Perhaps I’m always going to judge it harshly in the shadow of its great predecessors, but I can’t imagine ever listening to this for pleasure.

Yes: Drama

Drama

Best song: Tempus Fugit

Worst song: White Car

Overall grade: 5

(author’s note: I’m so sorry I’ve been away for a while! I had to send off my university applications on Wednesday so I was working really hard to get those finished, and then I went to Switzerland for a couple of days, and then I had a pretty disastrous Friday night and felt too ill to do anything Saturday. But I promise to try to catch up a little over the next few weeks.)

‘Tormato’ was widely ridiculed – by the fans, by the music press, and somewhat by me, although I doubt my review had any influence on what happened in 1980. What happened was that both Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman quit the band. Not the first time for Wakeman, who was already making a habit of this leaving and rejoining thing, but certainly the first time for Anderson. His departure shocked fans the world over, but not as much as the announcement of the new members: Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes from the Buggles. Yes, the Buggles, who had one song of any note, and that’s just because it was the first video to be played on MTV, and other than that were completely forgettable.

So, two crucial members gone and two new members who came from a plasticky synth-pop group – this album must be terrible, right? Well, actually no. This album is damn good. Quite a few of the songs had pretty much already been written by Howe, Squire and White, and it feels like with just three of them, they were all putting a lot more effort into the songwriting process.

From the opening bars of ‘Machine Messiah’ it’s pretty clear that Yes don’t really fit into the symphonic rock box anymore. They’ve predated King Crimson by a year in mixing New Wave into a hard-edged prog sound and it’s totally awesome. Howe’s guitar is the highlight for me on this sprawling and messy 10 minute epic, and although Downes is no Wakeman, his part is still plenty complicated enough to keep me interested, and he does some good Moog soloing. And it doesn’t feel too far removed from “classic Yes” so as to be a completely different band, still including a lot of their trademarks, like some great vocal harmonies.

‘White Car’ is basically unnecessary, and at only 1 minute 21 seconds, it doesn’t do anything except fill up 1 minute and 21 seconds of vinyl. I guess Downes and Horn wrote it to be an introduction to ‘Does It Really Happen?’, but that song stands up just fine on its own. I’ve heard people say it sounds like a 90125 song, but I don’t get that. Sure, it’s got the arena-sized sound to it, but it’s so much more unique than anything from that album, more inspired, quirkier. In fact, with the slight funk influence that goes into the riffs, it reminds me more of something like ‘Siberian Khatru’ from earlier.

‘Into the Lens’ is my least favourite actual song, and the one that Downes and Horn had the most influence on (it would appear in an alternate version on a later Buggles album). Specifically, I find Horn’s vocal part kind of ugly, and so it’s the one moment when I really miss Jon Anderson’s presence. The melody is simple and accessible, and comparable to what bands like Asia and Kansas were writing, but classier. It’s very listenable, but too safe in places and I don’t really consider it Yes.

‘Run Through The Light’ again has more of a pop influence, but it still works well because there’s so much going on. Yes always include a ballad, and here, this is the one. If it was a Buggles song, it would probably be sickeningly dull, but as a Yes song the pretty melody and soulful mandolin are counterbalanced by White’s awesome drumming and Howe’s purposeful guitar. Horn plays bass instead of Squire, which I’m not too fond of, but it means we get to hear Squire on electric piano (I wish that was a little more prominent.)

The finishing track is ‘Tempus Fugit’, and what a finish it is! It could easily have been extended a bit (this album’s really short). Squire’s bass is just outstanding, and the title’s apt because the time really does just fly by when you’re listening to it, as it picks you up and runs away with you in a whirl of conflicting instrumentation. It’s heavy and intense and really uplifting at the same time. It’s always moving, and it’s got a lot of interesting parts that you can pay close attention to, or you can just let yourself get swept up in the feel of the song, depending on your mood. I’ve no shame in saying that this is one of my favourite Yes songs.

Part of me thinks that Squire, Howe and White would have worked quite well as a trio, just getting session musicians to play on their songs, as they’re clearly the stronger writers. Still, even the Buggles songs have something going for them, and this album is a necessity for any serious Yes fan.

Oh, Trevor Horn produced this album as well as singing, by the way. He did a good job, which is not surprising considering how hard he worked on it… he spent his wedding night in the studio. And most of his honeymoon. Although he originally planned to spend two weeks in Miami with his new wife, this time ended up getting shorter and shorter as he kept working on the album, until they decided not to bother with Miami and go to Bournemouth instead. For three days. And Steve Howe joined them.

Amazingly, they’re still married.

Yes: Tormato

Tormato

Best song: On the Silent Wings of Freedom

Worst song: Arriving UFO

Overall grade: 3

It had to end somewhere. The idea of having six outstanding albums in a row is an unfathomable dream for most bands (King Crimson, lookin’ at you) but Yes managed it, made it look effortless even. Yet on their seventh attempt they crashed and burned spectacularly, resulting in a bigger mess than a tomato thrown at a wall with great force. Which, incidentally, isn’t a completely random simile – it’s a true story, as when Rick Wakeman first caught sight of the cover art for this album, he hated it so much that he did indeed throw a tomato at it. That’s a pretty standard response for me when I don’t like something, too.

My two main problems with this album are 1) bad songs, and 2) the band don’t seem like a proper unit here. They’re all playing, a lot of the time, but with very little awareness of what everyone else is playing, which gives a lot of the songs a jumbled and messy feel, as though they’ve been thrown together. It’s a million miles away from the elaborate symphonies they conducted on ‘Close To The Edge’.

I’m pretty tired and I don’t want to waste too many words on this third-rate album, but I’ll throw out a quick description of some of these songs. I’m completely indifferent to ‘Future Times/Rejoice’. The sound quality is absolutely terrible (as it is on most of the album) causing me to spend the first couple of minutes just thinking about that, during which time nothing in the song has managed to grab me. The rest of the song continues to amble by, its watered-down-Yes too bland to provoke a reaction.

‘Madrigal’ and ‘Release Release’ are the two most disappointing things on here – not the worst, just the most disappointing, because they display the band’s sad first few stabs at a commercial hit. ‘Madrigal’ is a kind of ‘Wondrous Stories’ rewrite, but seriously inferior, while ‘Release Release’ rocks much harder, but it’s as though the band were so focused on that aspect that they forgot to make it do anything else.

In actual fact, neither of these ended up being a hit, but they had some vague commercial success with one of the other tracks, ‘Don’t Kill the Whale’. Though Yes doing a protest song is a bit unexpected, it’s actually pretty good, although it’s better if you don’t think too much about the lyrics. A lot of songs here are quite simple and as such, not great showcases for the band’s playing, but the same can’t be said for Wakeman and especially Howe here, where they both get a chance to cut loose and solo a bit.

Second side; ‘Arriving UFO’ is pretty painful, with the group going embarrassingly sci-fi and taking the phrase ‘nerd music’ to a new level. Kind of like ‘The Ancient’ on ‘Tales from Topographic Oceans’, it’s Yes trying to play a more experimental, sound-effect-laden piece, and totally failing – there’s no musical progression in this song or anything to make it more than a medley of themes.

Luckily, things finally start picking up towards the end with the Anderson solo song ‘Circus of Heaven’, which is fun and innocent and seems to reflect his personality really well, and the Squire solo song ‘Onwards’ which is unexpectedly a straight-up love song, and even more unexpectedly, pulled off with ease and grace. It would probably be really pretty if the sound quality didn’t suck so much.

We close with the only song that I can be really positive about; ‘On the Silent Wings of Freedom’. It’s about half the length of ‘Awaken’ on the previous album and also about half as good, but there are worse things than half as good as ‘Awaken’. The whole band are involved and all of their parts work (it feels for the first time like they can hear each other play) and I can tell that if I didn’t know many Yes songs, I’d absolutely love this. As it stands, it feels just a touch formulaic, as if the group have developed a pattern to their epics. Still I enjoy it; it’s jazzy and enigmatic, and Squire’s bass playing is a particular highlight.

To be honest, the odds of a prog band releasing a good album in 1978 were not good, and to their credit they didn’t fail as spectacularly as ELP did with ‘Love Beach’. That said, if an album is so bad that it makes you throw a tomato at it, it should make you think twice about whether you really want it to be released.

Yes: Going for the One

Going for the One

Best song: Turn of the Century

Worst song: Parallels

Overall grade: 6

Listening to this album is always slightly bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s brilliant and there’s no denying it; on the other, it was Yes’ last truly mindblowing album, and it can only go downhill from here. But it’s still a pretty impressive feat that this one turned out as good as it did: after ‘Relayer’, the band felt they were fresh out of ideas, and took a hiatus to pursue solo projects (of which Chris Squire’s is meant to be the best, though I don’t have it). But then they came back together, with Rick Wakeman returning to the band having made a pretty great start to his own solo career, and they had a whole bunch of new ideas to work with, which over time became this.

I guess that’s the reason why I like ‘Turn of the Century’ so much – it’s more of a collaboration than the others. It’s a slightly folk-influences tune that’s got this really cool production effect in that it starts off sounding like the music’s being played from very far away and gradually gets closer as it moves on. There’s also some ridiculously beautiful harmonies going on; that moment around the four minute mark where thye sing ‘I’m sure we know’ gets me every time. Elsewhere, Wakeman (he’s back! what could make me happier?) pitter-patters over constantly ascending and descending keyboard lines and the feeling I get from it is that the band have reached where they wanted to be. Past the point of needing to constantly prove themselves with the endless 20-minute songs, they’re comfortable with just staying in one place for a bit. It’s almost their equivalent of ‘Abbey Road’.

So if ‘Turn’ sees them content, then the track which gives Yes the new lease of life to reach that point is definitely the title track, which precedes it on the record. Rather than building up slowly like a lot of this group’s songs, it hits you in the face from its first few seconds, and the intensity stays with the song throughout. It almost matches ‘Time and a Word’ in its overwhelming positivity; Anderson’s euphoria can be felt as though he’s standing in the room right next to you and Howe’s guitars sound almost jubilant.

Rounding out side one is ‘Parallels’, an outtake from Chris Squire’s ‘Fish Out Of Water’ album. Now, I have minor issues with Chris Squire as a person in the way he takes total control of the band, treats its other members as disposable and also turned them into an 80s pop machine for a few years, but I do love his playing, and so if I thought this song was really good, I’d admit it. I don’t, though. I think if someone was trying to recreate the style of classic Yes, it would be a fair imitation, but coming from the band themselves it seems a bit uninspired.

Side two opens with the surprise hit single ‘Wondrous Stories’. I actually heard this played on mainstream radio pretty recently, which came as a real shock, though a welcome one. Some people hate it, and to be fair, if the band made a whole album of cute little pop songs like this, I would probably hate it too. But in moderation it works really well, especially coming right before the more challenging ‘Awaken’. Oh, and it strongly features Rick Wakeman’s NEW POLYMOOG! (As someone who doesn’t actually play any keyboards, I probably should not find that as exciting as I do. But it does sound amazing.)

I never used to be big into ‘Awaken’, thinking it didn’t really achieve anything not already improved on with their earlier epics, but then I heard Jon Anderson saying that he saw it as their best, or certainly most complete song, and I thought I’d try to see it in a new light. And you know what? I did. It doesn’t burst with originality in the same way ‘Close To The Edge’ does, but I see Jon’s point in that it’s more planned out, less improvised than earlier works, and it really takes the listener on a rollercoaster ride through musical themes and emotions – moving seamlessly from church organ to guitar solo to ethnic percussion to a sudden cascade of excitement to the sad and melancholy ending. And it all makes perfect sense; after all, they’d had a lot of practice with this extended composition thing by this point, hadn’t they?

If you’re not convinced, then just remember that this album, complete with its 15-minute closer, stayed at number 1 in the charts for two weeks. And it was freaking 1977. Now that’s a triumph.

Yes: Relayer

Relayer

Best song: The Gates of Delirium

Worst song: To Be Over

Overall grade: 6

‘Relayer’, the seventh Yes album overall, is notable for being the last in a string of three to have 4 or less tracks, the last in a string of four to have awesome Roger Dean cover paintings, and the last before the band took their first hiatus to release solo material. It’s also notable for not featuring Rick Wakeman on keyboard-type instruments. As the story goes, he told the band he was quitting, but none of them took him seriously, and then he later got a phone call: “Why weren’t you in rehearsal today?” “…Because I quit.” Which prompted the band to find a quick replacement.

This replacement ended up being Patrick Moraz, a classically trained jazz keyboardist who had some credits in that he’d worked with members of The Nice, but was largely unknown. Just as significant was the other lead contender for the role, Greek electronic composer Vangelis, who would later release albums with Jon Anderson during his early 80s hiatus from Yes. I actually saw some Jon & Vangelis albums in a shop the other day, and I was tempted, but eventually decided it was too big of a risk to buy without listening first – though I will listen, because I think the blend of their musical styles could be really interesting. There’s no denying ‘Relayer’ would be a whole lot different if he had played on it, or Wakeman for that matter.

Because despite being new, Moraz’s influence is all over this album, a crazy experiment in jazz fusion. Liking the other classic Yes albums is definitely no guarantee you’ll appreciate this one, as there’s none of the symphonic, well-organised style of prog music that they’re famous for. And none of this is more apparent than on Side 2’s opener ‘Sound Chaser’, a well-titled cross between Lizard-era King Crimson and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. It’s full of sudden changes in volume, dynamics and tempo that pushes the band to their absolute limits of speed and creativity. Yes, they’re really just showing off all the tricks they can do, but there are a LOT of tricks, and it still manages to be more of a song than a jam. This is helped by the vocal sections that appear sporadically, although they’re actually my least favourite parts of the song, although I guess Jon didn’t have a whole lot else to do, so I’ll give him his moment. Far more interesting are Steve Howe’s guitar workouts and the funk-like chanting of ‘cha cha cha!’

The only other track on Side 2 is the light to ‘Sound Chaser’s dark, the gorgeous and melodic ‘To Be Over’. If I hated it I could make a crack about it being well-titled too because I’m always waiting for it to be over, but sadly that’s impossible, because I’m never looking forward to the end, even if the similarities between this and previous songs like ‘And You And I’ and ‘South Side of the Sky’ prevent it from being one of the band’s finest hours. The first three or so minutes are my favourite part, a kind of proto-dream pop that’s gentle and relaxing, and brings you down from the intensity of the previous song while still having little nuances that make it work on its own. The rest of it’s got slightly sharper edges, and I’m guessing that it’s this that inspired the icy painting we see on the cover.

But these two pale in comparison to the grandiose statement of Side 1’s ‘The Gates of Delirium’. In actual fact, this is the last sidelong Yes would attempt until 1997’s ‘The Solution’, which isn’t even a real song. ‘Gates’ is definitely a real song though, and what a song! Like all good sidelongs, it’s based around a pretentious concept (Tolstoy’s ‘War & Peace’) and can be categorised in at least ten musical genres. It starts off with a prelude that runs through all the different emotions felt as the battle approaches, featuring some particularly excellent vocal melodies from Jon, and then leads neatly onto an instrumental detailing the battle itself. The section’s incredibly dense and full on in a way that captures the terror and confusion of war. Alan White plays very well here, having had a chance to settle into the band that he hadn’t had when recording ‘Tales’. Then, the music does the same thing as side two by seguing from this into a quiet, beautiful ballad, known as ‘Soon’, the peaceful lyrics of which are at odds with the really quite evil ones of earlier. Much like ‘Sound Chaser’, although the instrumentals are unstructured and just feature the instruments playing off one another, the different sections give the song an overall purpose and flow.

To conclude, this is actually one of my absolute favourite Yes albums, and while it’s not quite as immaculately put together as ‘Close To The Edge’ its appeal often lies in its disorganisation. That being said, I generally feel slightly dirty after listening to this and loving it, and I have to go put on Rick Wakeman solo albums to make myself feel better.

Yes: Tales from Topographic Oceans

Tales From Topographic Oceans

Best song: The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)

Worst song: The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)

Overall grade: 5

It seems slightly twisted to write this on the same day as a Ramones review. I feel like a traitor, like I’m betraying both bands equally by listening to and enjoying the other one. But don’t listen to what people tell you about this album – more than anything else, it’s an incredibly important protopunk record. Sure, Iggy Pop was loud and Status Quo only knew three chords but it was this album, more than any other, that really inspired the rage that punk musicians felt, that really convinced them that speaking out against the musical climate of the time was the only way to go.

But despite it causing a whole musical movement three or four years after its release, this album got quite a lot of hate from critics for quite a long time. Its reputation seems to be improving somewhat throughout recent years, and I’ve read quite a few positive reviews of it since George Starostin trashed it on his old site. I guess I’ll be positive too – qualified positive. This could be a single album and it might be one of my favourite Yes albums, and that could either be these four songs each cut down to around twelve minutes, or it could be just two of these songs (first and last, please) with a little more effort put into each of them.

That second option is because I think that even if these songs were perfect, this album would still be too much. I have Soft Machine’s ‘Third’, another album made up of four sidelongs, and it’s freaking hard work to listen to, as much as I like it – and I say that as a lover of these extended compositions. But overall I’d choose all four songs shortened, just so Jon Anderson can still claim to be the only person to write an album based on ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, which is of course why he started this project in the first place.

So, four songs to talk about, and how much I like each one directly correlates with their interest to filler ratio, so if they WERE cut down (if I say it enough, Jon might take the hint) it’s perfectly possible that ‘Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil)’ could be my favourite, because parts of that song are, in a word, sublime. It’s the closest thing on the record to a traditional song and it showcases Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman performing some of their best work. However, it’s also the most drum-heavy track, and we’re had a lineup change in the last year – Alan White is now behind the kit, and he’s very good, but he’s not Bruford-good. So this is the only point where Bill’s missed. (Side note: I now have his autobiography! Should I do a book review?)

I’ll go backwards, then. This is preceded by The Ancient (Do I Have To Write These Subtitles Every Time) which is the part that really drags. Half the band barely make an appearance and so Steve Howe is left to hold up the fort on his own which he does with some boring electric guitar and some awesome classical guitar, and the song, especially the first half, is a lot more noisy and experimental than you’d expect from Yes, and the style isn’t something they do well. It’s a fair effort, though, and makes more sense if you’re following the lyrics and/or concept. Interestingly, if my sources are right, Howe actually contributed to these lyrics, making it not quite such an Anderson-dominated affair as most think.

Further back still, ‘The Remembering’ is laid back even in its interesting sections, and in its dull parts I think that Jon Anderson should have composed ambient music. I don’t really think that, it would have been a huge waste of his talents, but he certainly COULD have done. Chris Squire plays excellently on this song though; think ‘The Fish’ but bigger. If each band member really made their mark on one section here, this is his, and if you’ve ever thought the bass can’t be a lead instrument, here’s proof that it can. Oh, I also think this song inspired the tranquil blue of the cover art: one of Roger Dean’s best works, it was my desktop background for a while.

Lastly, to begin with, ‘The Revealing Science of God’. A friend of mine once said something like ‘When a song becomes longer than about eight minutes, it’s no longer a regular song, it’s a symphony’. I’m not trying to be pretentious, but I think that’s true here. This is great, great stuff the most fully formed piece, the one with enough musical ideas to justify 22 minutes, that completes the triumvirate of Yes sidelongs with ‘Close To The Edge’ and ‘Gates of Delirium’. It defies the whole idea of a structure and seems to have beginnings and endings in unexpected places. It’d be brilliant to see this one live.

Each of these are worthwhile pieces to varying degrees, and you shouldn’t just dismiss this album. At the same time, you might not want to listen to it all at once. You could split it up and do a piece when you wake up, one in your lunch break, one after you finish school/work for the day and one before you go to bed… come to think of it, that actually sounds rather nice, doesn’t it? I might do that next time instead of what I usually do, which is listen to it while I perform mindless tasks like putting all my CDs onto iTunes.

Don’t believe the controversy: say Yes to this album.

That was by far and away the worst line I have ever written.

Yes: Close To The Edge

Close To The Edge

Best song: Close To The Edge

Worst song: …you cannot be serious. Oh, fine then, And You And I

Overall grade: 7

There are albums I think are better than this one. Not very many, but they do exist – often those that are more coherent i.e. are so great because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. But I cannot think of one single album that has less flaws than Yes’ 1972 masterpiece here. (Many would agree: it has over 2000 5 star ratings on ProgArchives.com)

However, I believe I am supposed to be objective while writing this and so I’ve tried very hard to find some negative aspects to comment on in order to show I’ve considered both sides. Here’s what I came up with:

1.       It’s too good. Sometimes it’s just far too much awesomeness to cope with in one sitting so I have to split it up into individual songs. When I do listen to the complete album, it basically spoils me for all other music for the rest of the day.

2.       Yeah, that’s all I got.

I can actually understand why someone wouldn’t like this album. I’ve never read a truly negative review of it (though I’d be interested to, so if you know of one…) but it’s hardly everyone’s thing; as whether or not you like it depends on your priorities regarding music. It’s very much an album to listen to. If you just have it on in the background, half-listening while doing something else, it sounds like random noise. It’s complicated and you have to pay attention to make sense of it. A lot of people don’t like that in music and I think that’s fair enough – there’s only a certain number of hours in the day and not everyone wants to spend them solely on music. It also hasn’t got lyrics you can particularly relate to, a beat you can dance to or anything that’s likely to make you shed a tear, unless you’re really really moved by Bill Bruford’s drumming.

But it’s technically perfect and the structure and writing of the title track is flawless. Let me break it down: some very quiet bird noises grow louder and eventually segue into some fairly soothing outdoor music before the faster guitar crash in and the band dissolves into a fast, complicated, slightly jazzy instrumental piece, with a couple of minute pauses for Jon Anderson to let out an ‘aaaah!’ Then, at around the 3 minute mark, he gives the band a cue to change direction into a more structured, symphonic section which lasts until Bill Bruford gives us a great drum line and Jon starts to sing the first verse, at which point the music picks up pace again. For a short instrumental break and the chorus, the instruments become rougher and choppier until a wonderful swirling organ comes in and a couple of backing singers add lovely harmonies. This fades and the volume goes down, some rhythmic drums keeping the pulse for a while but then coming to a stop, leaving us with just some calming naturesque sounds, like the dripping water sound effects and the atmospheric music. But as we pass the halfway point the organ comes back in and begins to build things back up, joined after a while by some far off soft vocals which carry us through to a much quieter part of the song that feels very melancholy. Jon’s voice shows a rare emotion and the music just envelopes you completely. A few drum taps count the band in and then we’re back in a more excited freeform style where everyone present is displaying their best-ever musicianship. A bombastic and triumphant chorus comes out to finish it off and we revisit the original theme to tie everything up before the instruments gently fade out, returning to the simple tweeting of birds that we first heard, and that’s your song.

It’s not like a sidelong that’s a bunch of short songs strung together with connecting pieces, this is very much a single track, and everything is timed to perfection. But as if hearing that wasn’t enough to change your world, we have two more songs to go! Neither of them try to be the first, there’s the more acoustic ‘And You And I’ that’s almost folky in places, and the hard rock-influenced ‘Siberian Khatru’ which is great except it just fades out to silence at the end, making it kind of a boring finish to the album. But after 38 mindblowing minutes, it’s not much to complain about.

I also like the cover art. It’s green! But not plain green, a range of shades. What does it symbolise? Is it the earth becoming shrouded in darkness? Is it Roger Dean running out of red paint again? Is it an unused design for one of Rick Wakeman’s capes? For something that doesn’t have a real picture, I look at it for far too long.

Even if it doesn’t sound like your thing, I think you should listen to this record once in your life just to experience it. It’s the pinnacle of Yes and of everything classic prog tried to achieve, and it’s not just a record, it’s an experience; a musical rite of passage.

Yes: Fragile

Fragile

Best song: Heart of the Sunrise

Worst song: I guess Five Per Cent For Nothing

Overall grade: 6

This album. This album. If Yes had never topped ‘Fragile’, they would still be one of my favourites. It’s just so good. Not everyone thinks so, though. I listened to this in the car today, and my mother was there too, and when it was over the best thing she could think of to say about it was ‘I didn’t find it disturbing’. But then, her favourite song is George Michael’s ‘This Is Not Real Love’, so what does she know?

But if she wants to bitch about this album, she needs her own blog. Right here, I’m going to tell you why ‘Fragile’ is in fact, completely fantastic. And that explanation begins with ‘Roundabout!’ I’ve heard this song probably hundreds of times, because I’m always playing it to people while telling them that they should get into Yes. There’s no way I could get sick of it, though, it’s so perfectly written in the way that it’s both a pop song and a more complicated prog song. The song (and the album as a whole now that I think about it) probably isn’t Jon Anderson’s peak as a songwriter, but as a pop songwriter, yes it is.

I mentioned in my ‘Yes Album’ review that at one point, Jon’s voice behaves as additional instrumentation rather than regular vocals, and that technique is used even more here on ‘South Side of the Sky’ and ‘Long Distance Runaround’, helped out by the fact that they’re buried very low down in the mix (I’ve known people to think that the songs are genuinely instrumental.)

Speaking of ‘South Side of the Sky’, it rules. I just like to sit back and let it all wash over me at once, everything coming together like Rick Wakeman’s gorgeous little piano part in the middle and the fact that Bill Bruford does some of his best Yes drumming here. I like ‘Long Distance’ too (there’s certainly nothing not to like) but it’s the least essential of the group compositions as well as being the most simple.

As you probably know, each band member contributes a little solo piece to this album, ranging from 30 seconds to 3 minutes in length. Bill Bruford’s is disappointing – he is my favourite drummer and he could easily have done a really amazing drum solo, but his ‘Five Per Cent For Nothing’ feels like a rough draft that should have been worked on more. I don’t have many complaints about the others, though. Wakeman plays an arrangement of a classical piece by Brahms, and although I might have slightly preferred an original piece, I enjoy it while it’s on. Anderson layers his vocals on top of each other for ‘We Have Heaven’ and the overall effect is pretty mesmerising, while on ‘The Fish’ Chris Squire shows us all that the bass can be a lead instrument too.

That just leaves Steve Howe’s ‘Mood For A Day’. It’s not at all showy or flashy like the others, and it’s even better for it – it’s probably my favourite of the solo spots. As a guitarist, I feel like Howe really knows when less is more, and his acoustic guitar solos really prove this, in their minimalistic beauty.

The opening to ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ comes as a total contrast to this – Yes remember they’re a rock band! They forget that sometimes, but they definitely haven’t here, as all five of them come together to create a dense track that’s both disjointed and flows really well. The epic beginning focuses on Howe and Bruford’s talents, with Anderson gradually becoming more prominent as the song goes on, and everyone gets a chance to be in the spotlight even while they’re always playing off each other. I’m going to see the band next year, and this is the one song that they aren’t going to play that I really wish they would.

Yes: The Yes Album

The Yes Album

Best song: Perpetual Change

Worst song: A Venture

Overall grade: 6

Two years ago, Yes were writing cute pop songs and playing Paul McCartney covers. They released two albums which can only be recommended as curiosities (with the exception of the standout title track of ‘Time and a Word’, which has to be the definitive hippie song), muddled through with a mediocre guitarist and used an orchestra to try to hide the fact that their songwriting wasn’t quite up to par. Then, completely out of the blue, they release… this.

See, they fired that mediocre guitarist (Peter Banks) and hired Steve Howe in his place, and all of a sudden the band just clicked (except for Tony Banks on keyboards, but we’ll get to that) and they found that they had this magical ability to write songs that are complicated and accessible in equal measure, and they were all talented enough instrumentally to pull them off effortlessly.

This record is the start of progressive Yes, but while they were still rough around the edges. We start off with ‘Yours Is No Disgrace’, one of the few Yes songs where their opponents who say ‘Jon Anderson just sings gibberish!’ are probably right. It’s still a great song though; Bill Bruford has a thrilling drum part and there are few more beautiful vocal melodies around.

Then ‘The Clap’ comes, a brief acoustic guitar showcase by Steve Howe – he was new to the band, and he already got a solo! That’s democracy. It’s a highly enjoyable demonstration of his talent and serves as a bridge between the two epics on the side. The second of these is ‘Starship Trooper’, a great three-part song where every part builds and expands on the one before it. It’s different to everything else on here, in that it’s less classical and jazz influenced, and much closer to space rock.

Side 2 begins with ‘I’ve Seen All Good People’, which I hear still gets played on the radio, but sadly none that I listen to. What I like about this one is the way, in the second part, Jon Anderson uses his voice as just another instrument, blending in with the guitar and bass and keyboards – you could almost consider it an instrumental. And I also love the a cappella harmony that opens up the ‘Your Move’ part. It makes me shiver.

‘A Venture’ tries to be the Side 2 equivalent of ‘The Clap’, but it doesn’t work, because it’s too much of a song. It feels like it could have been developed and extended into something more like the others, but instead it’s a little rushed, more of a rough draft. But it does bring us nicely to ‘Perpetual Change’, which is a SERIOUSLY underrated song. Most people see it as the weakest epic on the album, but that’s a lie – it’s magical. Featuring two dynamic guitar solos, a rockin’ Squire riff, the most cohesive band work yet and a generally nostalgic feel, it’s hard to believe while listening to this version that it was even better live.

I think everyone should be forced to sit down and listen to a Yes record at least once a month. Their music is good for the soul.