I think you missed the point of the comment.Originally Posted by Frumious B
I think you missed the point of the comment.
I agree and love Talk. However, I think it could have used the touch of Trevor Horn or someone like him. Many of the songs could have used some tightening and some work on the arrangements. Those are problems that pop up frequently when the artists produce themselves. They don't have that outside voice that isn't emotionally invested in the outcome to give them advice.
Squire seemed to check out after 90125 for a long time, unfortunately. I remember thinking how much better he sounded, both on bass and vocals, after a few tours of the late '90s Yes "reunion." His playing and singing on the Union tour were the low point for me. Loved that tour, but he was just along for the ride.
I agree completely. I don't even think it sounds dated. Compare it to many of the mainstream rock albums that were coming out around that time. I recently listened to Foreigner's Agent Provocateur, which came out a year after 90125 but sounds like every bad '80s movie soundtrack cliche rolled together. 90125 still sounds great today, and the writing and playing still really work. For me, what is dated is a lot of the angst and displeasure displayed by the '70s crowd when 90125 came out. At a remove of 30 years, it all seems pretty good to me.
Just my opinion but 90125 is one of the more well-produced albums that I can think of, any time or any band or any genre. It all fell into place quite nicely.
I'm not sure why there is a "controversy" though. Clearly "Owner" was Rabin's idea originally, with several other people helping hammer it into shape for Yes, and Horn being principal among them. A lot of care was taken to make it just so, and that helped put it over the top and make it the hit that it was.
Hired on to work for Mr. Bill Cox, a-fixin' lawn mowers and what-not, since 1964.
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Squire seemed to go on vacation after Rabin came on board, almost as if he was content to fall into the background and let Rabin fill more of the sonic palette. I wonder if that might have been a reaction to Rabin's style. Howe left more spaces in the music for Squire to work with, where Rabin was more of a typical rock guitar guy in his approach, approaching the instrument more like a typical lead guitarist than as a colorist like Howe.
The production on '90125' is much tighter than your average AOR record. I often compare it to Asia's debut- that's very much a typical AOR production job, huge bellowing reverb-drenched sound, almost like a rehearsal for the stadiums.
I don't really think they've done an album as consistent as '90125' since! It seems to me the problem of having two different audiences appeared, with albums trying (and never quite succeeding) to please both. Say what you will about Genesis but they stuck to one path on their later 80s and 90s albums.
I had the impression that a lot of it was Rabin's doing. He's admitted to being a bit of a tyrant when it comes to how he wants the finished product to sound. He said one time the reason he and Anderson clashed was because Jon "tends to be free spirited" when it comes to working on new material, whereas Trevor wanted the finished tracks to sound more or less like his demos.
So maybe he was doing the same thing with Chris, saying "No, I want the bass to sound like THIS" or whatever. I know Chris himself once claimed that there were a lot of things on the Rabin era records where Trevor would just do the bass himself, or go in after basic tracks were cut and replace the bass parts. Of course, with Yes, you have to take anything any one band member says with a whole salt shaker, never mind just a grain.
And then there's the simple fact that you have to deliver a record that the label is going to want to release. I can well imagine the band playing some of the "work-in-progress" tracks for the studio chieftains and getting notes back to the effect that, amongst other things, ease up on the virtuoso rhythm section playing or whatever.
And as has been suggested by at least one other person in this thread, there's the possibility that Squire's extracurricular activities were getting out of hand, and therefore Rabin had to do the bass parts himself, if that's indeed what really happened. If your bass player is in the studio lounge recovering from whatever he's been doing for the last 24-48 hours, and you've got a deadline to hand in the album, you don't have very many options.
Well, one thing that happened is I imagine the record company wanted "another Owner Of A Lonely Heart", even to the point of them reverting to that lineup, under management/record company pressure, after the Union thing ground to a halt. So I think it's less a matter of trying to please that audience as trying to please the guys who are going to make it possible for you to even make the next record.
And I think trying to please any audience is a mistake. Later on, after Howe came back, I thought the mistake they made on the Keys To Ascension project was it sounded like they were trying to regain their old audience, ie "Hey, we're back to doing our old style music again" or whatever, which to me is just as bad an idea as trying to write a hit single. I think The Ladder and Magnification because they both sounded like they went and made whatever music that came out. By contrast, things like Mind Drive sounded like they were trying to write another Close To The Edge.
I certainly don't agree with you there. Whatever logic there was for doing things like Misunderstanding, Illegal Alien, No Reply At All or In Too Deep, I don't think it was the same logic that dictated the existence of stuff like Duke's Travels, Dodo/The Lurker, the Home By The Sea suite, or Domino.
^But none of those Genesis songs really *sound* like they did in the 70s- even the long ones. Whereas many later Yes (and ABWH) songs and albums have directly looked back to their 70s sound. Following up KTA2 with 'Open Your Eyes' is a good example of what I'm talking about...two radically different sounds.
I forget where I read/saw/heard this comment but nonetheless it is very true. (might have been a Trevor Horn interview, discussing the issues faced when they started to record Big Generator before he departed) When artists get to a point financially they tend to resist compromising or caring about what they're doing. Factor in to that drugs, personal life, blah, blah, blah and you know the rest. To many of these guys, it becomes more or less a job than their reason for existing. If you're not getting along with someone you work with than it starts to affect the work or work getting done.
I can't help but believe there was some of that at play between members of Yes during a few lineups of the band, including the 80s lineup. Too much money, too quickly, too many responsibilities because of said success is never good. Look what Dark Side did to Pink Floyd.
By coincidence, I recently listened to Foreigner, who I had not listened to any a very long time. I don't think "4", which was released in 1981, has the problem that Agent Provocateur had.
I was 13 when 90125 came out and had no idea how important a producer could be as I unfortunately discovered again with Big Generator...
Speaking of which, I don't feel like buying the box set yet but does anyone think the remastered Big Generator improves the overall CD much?
My understanding was Open Your Eyes was largely dictated by the record company again, and that most of those songs were actually intended for Squire's then work-in-progress solo album.
Foreigner's 4 sounds fantastic still. I think it's some of Mutt Lange's best work, along with AC/DC's Back In Black and Def Leppard's High 'N Dry. Those three all came out within about a year of each other, and it was afterward that Lange started overproducing everything. 4 is also an excellent example of tight, polished rock songwriting. I've always thought it unfortunate that Mick Jones pared down the lineup on that album and lost a lot of the more artsy touches that the first couple albums had, but the results were undeniably excellent on 4. The personalities never would have meshed, but it would have been interesting to hear what Lange would have done with Yes during the '80s.
As for Big Generator, I have the Japanese mini-sleeve edition, and it's a HUGE sonic upgrade over the original CD. To me, the original CD sounded horrible, which the LP did not. It was the first Yes album of the "CD era," and I've always wondered how they managed to screw it up so badly.
Foreigner 4 was Mutt Lange? I did not know that.
I hadn't either, until I picked it up on CD recently (I had the LP as a kid when it first came out). Once you know that, it makes sense. It's a very "Lange-ish" album sound-wise. Interestingly, since we're in a Yes thread, it was Roy Thomas Baker who produced Head Games before that. And it's pretty amazing how quite a bit of Head Games sounds like The Cars with Lou Gramm singing. It's too bad that RTB couldn't get that same kind of power pop energy and punch out of Yes this year. I'd be curious to hear the mixes he was working on before Billy Sherwood took over.
Excellent album and the production was top notch. Whether the Yes fan of the Fragile era could go along for the ride was another story. Anytime a band radically changes their sound, they are going to lose some of their base. It's whether they pick up more new fans than they lost that decides if it was successful.
I think Yes had some really good albums after this, and some duds too. I agree that it's was a problem that they couldn't decide on path to take. It couldn't help either that much of the news after this was negative.
I agree partly about statement on Genesis. While they did go in a more pop rock oriented way after SH left, they always had some of that on their albums before, and there was always a track or two that pointed back to their past( The Lady Lies, Fading Lights, The Brazilian, Dodo...).
Like I said, I hadn't listened to Foreigner for a long time but recently got the best of 2CDs and read the liner notes. Mutt Lange? seriously? Then read Baker produced Head Games.
I'll get shit for this here, but I really liked Bryan Adams' Into the Fire and bought Waking up the Neighbors, a multiplatinum album... which I hated after a couple of songs... so I nicely asked the good people at the record store for my money back. They understood. That was Mutt Lange as well.
I only had the cassette version of Big Generator. Was that close to the LP? "Shoot High, Aim Low" is great, but I remember thinking many of the other songs were near misses.
Didn't Jon Anderson make a similar observation that when it was suggested that Baker produce the follow up to Tormato? The band's manager or A&R guy suggested that they work with Baker. When Jon asked who he's worked with, the manager or A&R guy named Foreigner and The Cars. So the band listened to the records, and Jon noted they sound exactly alike, then turned to Alan White and said "That's the drum sound you're going to get!".
too many cooks in the kitchen seems to be a problem with the Yes in the 80's. too bad Big Generator was never remastered with bonus material. i'd be curious to hear demos from those songs. maybe it would give a clue to what went wrong. but Trevor is right, songs are developed during recording & engineering process change from what they were originally intended to sound like. too many people poking around and changing things for the 'better.'
Thing is, I think it's a sound that would have worked for Yes in their power pop mode. There's nothing anyone could have done to rescue the 1979 Paris Sessions songs, though.
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