There's an interesting new interview with Steve Howe at http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/dc9/..._all_about.php This bit jumped out at me.
Do you think you will ever play on another Yes album?
We released Fly From Here last year, but it's something that I kind of fight myself about. You take bands like Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, bands bigger than anything I've been in, and they make new records and nobody really cares. The people want to hear "Satisfaction." That goes with Yes as well, because people want to hear Close to the Edge. We like playing it. We love it, too. We love the new music but it doesn't have the familiarity. It is questionable what effect a new album has on well- established bands. Sometimes, you have to step back and ask yourself what you should be doing. I think The Who had one of the most disappointing results when they put out that last album. It was practically ignored and they are The Who. If we were to come out with something even as good as Close to the Edge, that would be a major achievement. The collaboration on those early records between Jon Anderson and I was amazing. There was a remarkable sense of teamwork. I don't know how we did it back then. It doesn't work the same way now.
I think we all recognise the truth in what he's saying. Audiences want the well-known songs and don't want new albums. Even here, Hackett's Genesis Revisited II gets more discussion than Beyond the Shrouded Horizon and the 40th anniversary box set of Larks' Tongues gets more discussion than the Travis/Fripp album Follow.
People praise the classics or new bands, but new albums by established artists are much criticised. Perhaps that's sometimes fair, perhaps sometimes not. We berate acts who merely tour the old material, but when they release new material, it gets a lukewarm reaction. Many of my favourite recent albums are by old acts. Trevor Rabin's Jacaranda may be my favourite album of 2012, and both Yes's Fly from Here and Steve Howe's own Time were up there for me in 2011.
Now, as far as I know, Fly from Here sold pretty well and the label are keen on a new release, and Yes are working on a new album, with Squire, Davison and White having written multiple songs. But it would be a sad day, I think, if Yes or bands like Gong, VdGG, Rush etc. stopped releasing new albums.
Henry
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