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Thread: Late-period Yes fan comes out of the closet

  1. #26
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    The only one of their albums after the 80s I play much is 'The Ladder'-a very solid album, IMHO. 'Magnification' was weighed down by the orchestra but there's some good material on it (and some bad). I seldom play the other albums. Too many changes in direction to the point it must have been confusing for those buying these on release as to what Yes was anymore.

    'Fly From Here' I listened to a great deal when it came out. Not much since- if one can see past the decades-old material used it's not bad, but it is lacking in instrumental firepower. Have yet to buy H&E.

  2. #27
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    I've been thinking about the best way to define the various Yes eras (while keeping things relatively simple). This is what I came up with:

    Early

    Yes and Time and a Word

    Classic

    The Yes Album through Drama

    Rabin

    90125 through Talk

    Late Anderson

    Keys to Ascension through Magnification

    Post Anderson

    Fly From Here and Heaven & Earth

  3. #28
    Member Wounded Land's Avatar
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    I love 90125 and Magnification. The rest, not so much.

  4. #29
    Drama, 90125, The Ladder, Symphonic Live, and Fly From Here are the only latter-day Yes for me. I rate the live album above the three studio albums. Of the studio albums, I rate The Ladder on top, 90125 second, Fly From Here third, and Drama fourth. I have most of their studio releases from Drama on, but rarely listen to them.

  5. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Jubal View Post
    Drama, 90125, The Ladder, Symphonic Live, and Fly From Here are the only latter-day Yes for me. I rate the live album above the three studio albums. Of the studio albums, I rate The Ladder on top, 90125 second, Fly From Here third, and Drama fourth. I have most of their studio releases from Drama on, but rarely listen to them.
    The Ladder is an odd choice IMO, not much to like!

  6. #31
    Member Man In The Mountain's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rufus View Post
    Never understood any love for the Key Studio tracks, sound like half finnished demos to me!!!
    The point is valid (maybe not half backed demos, more like half backed studio tracks), but at the same time, the material was really good and a harken back to the prog format. Yes, it all seemed a little bit under-cooked at times, and tinny, but the songs have stood the test of time with me.

    After all the smoke has cleared over the years, the YES music I love is all of the 70's albums, about 1/2 of ABWH, and all of the Key's studio cuts. The rest I never listen too.
    Last edited by Man In The Mountain; 02-20-2015 at 09:14 AM.

  7. #32
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    Things started getting spotty (for me) with Tormato or maybe even Going For The One. I have a soft spot for 90125, Big Generator, and The Ladder. Other than that, it could be an interesting exercise (for me) to see how few discs-worth of material I'd keep from Tormato through present-day stuff...I think it would only be 2 or 3 discs. I might even include one or two songs from Open Your Eyes.
    <sig out of order>

  8. #33
    I think one's stated opinion of Drama is generally based on if you're comparing it to what came before, or what came after (as a body of work).

  9. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by malgeo View Post
    I've been thinking about the best way to define the various Yes eras (while keeping things relatively simple). This is what I came up with:

    Early

    Yes and Time and a Word

    Classic

    The Yes Album through Drama

    Rabin

    90125 through Talk

    Late Anderson

    Keys to Ascension through Magnification

    Post Anderson

    Fly From Here and Heaven & Earth
    I think in terms of broad chapters, this works well. I note that what you basically have is 4 transitions: Howe joins, Rabin replaces Howe, Howe returns for good, Anderson leaves.

    As you say, "keeping this relatively simple", you've captured the most important shifts. I'm now going to abandon simplicity to make some further comments! Yes's history is a long, complex narrative, and there are continuities and changes at every stage. So, Howe joining and The Yes Album are important moments, but there is plenty of continuity from the earlier band and the change really comes in stages (finish Time and a Word, Howe replaces Banks for touring in support, then make The Yes Album, then start on Fragile, then Wakeman replaces Kaye, then finish Fragile).

    There is also an important change across Going for the One, from a band that is growing in success, innovating and making what will become their most popular material, all under a driving vision from Anderson (initially largely working with Squire, and then with Howe), which then becomes a band often looking back stylistically, adrift from changes in popular music culture, and lacking the same direction. The breakdown of the Anderson/Howe writing partnership is very significant here, I think. After Tormato, the band falls apart, with the social relationship between Anderson and Howe/Squire sundered, leading to Drama as a coda.

    There's a very obvious split between Drama and 90125, and yet also a lot of continuity. "Run Through the Light" (first developed for Tormato), "Run with the Fox" (the Squire/White Xmas single of 1981) and "It Can Happen", for example, are quite similar pieces. There are musical ideas inherited from the Drama sessions then used in XYZ (1981 abortive Squire/White/Jimmy Page supergroup) and even Big Generator. (And, of course, some of what would have been a follow-up to Drama then re-surfaced on Fly from Here.) We also have other continuities, like an early plan for Cinema being to have Trevor Horn on lead vocals.

    Indeed, one could advance an argument that the big shift is from Anderson in charge to Squire in charge that happens with Drama and kind of continues through to Union. While Talk, although lumped in with 90125 and BG as a YesWest album, is a very different affair as it sees Squire taking a back seat as Rabin switches to working with Anderson.

    Henry

    PS: A house guest of mine has been very much enjoying "Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport".
    Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
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  10. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by trurl View Post
    I think one's stated opinion of Drama is generally based on if you're comparing it to what came before, or what came after (as a body of work).
    I prefer Drama to the majority of what came after and the majority of what came before. I think it's my third favourite Yes album.* Meow.

    Henry

    * Close to the Edge, Fragile and then it depends how I'm feeling about The Yes Album.
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  11. #36
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Rael, do you like Bumpy Ride from Fly from Here?

  12. #37
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    To punish Chris Squire, we should all unanimously agree that his bass work on H&E is his definitive musical statement

  13. #38
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    I've liked Drama since I first heard it. It's better than Tormato. But better than their 1971-7 stuff? Not in a million years for me personally. I've never been that fussed about the too-short 'Man In A White Car' or the too New Wave-y 'Run Through The Light'.

  14. #39
    Member 2steves's Avatar
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    I love everything up to and including Drama, most prog bands would only wish they had this much creativity ---Yes west doesn't hold up for me as classic or timeless, rarely listen to them but there are a few good songs---think Mind Drive and That, That is shows it matters who is in Yes as the classic line-up comes up with some great classic Yes prog, the other songs on those albums were rehashed ABWH stuff that doesn't completely work---Late Anderson was typical of today's Anderson---some good ideas and lot's of junk---but, think Mag is a flawed masterwork----totally enjoy both Fly from here and Heaven and Earth, neither are perfect but a great listen and overall more consistent than late period Anderson, plus if this is what they want to do in their old age--fine, but still look forward to a new recording with maybe some more adventurous instrumentals from the original 3 and Downes and less singing from Davidson---think guess player Moraz would spice things up too.

  15. #40
    90125 and Big G are both fairly decent products of their time and age, although there are stinkers to be had. Other than the very odd exception, I can not stand that which came after.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  16. #41
    Quote Originally Posted by bondegezou View Post
    I prefer Drama to the majority of what came after and the majority of what came before. I think it's my third favourite Yes album.* Meow.

    Henry

    * Close to the Edge, Fragile and then it depends how I'm feeling about The Yes Album.




    it's in my top 5 as well (Relayer being at the top) and most times is at spot 2 when I take Fragile, Close to the Edge and The Yes Album for granted (overplay and FM success')


    Drama was 'my' album and the first one I bought out of the box on release day. I was 11. alas I was too young for my Mom to take me to see the touring Yesshow that year. I clearly remember being at my Father's business partner's home while he and his sons went to the show that night at the Spectrum. I'd have to wait a few years for the 90125 tour. but anyway . . . .


    ----


    I think one could argue that Drama has the best recording and mix since Fragile. there's a real analog tape quality about it; all tracks sound rich and full spectrum'ed. the mix has plenty of space.


    the added overdub touches glisten on the top of what I think is Squire and White's, maybe not best (as Relayer is quite the accomplishment) but certainly tightest performance as a team. especially if you look their parts and arrangements from a songwriter's POV and not just as 'big Yes pieces'; these are cool songs. sometimes opinions on Yes music forget about their arranging prowess and get lost in the 'proggy' POV; for every natural player's performance like the coda on 'Does it Really Happen' there's 'Into the Lens' amazing arrangement of 'I Am A Camera'; this track to me is a perfect example of Yes' original spirit: Arrangement


    sometime I'd like to compare Howe's equipment list for this album verses his other catalog. he really stretches out here. I've always had a soft spot for his little flamenco part on Run Through the Light. all those touches seem really inspired. his dual Fender work on Camera alone.


    honorable mention for Downes' Hammond too . loved subsequently hearing that the HSW trio appreciated that Downe's was bringing that back to the Yes sound



    Fragile, The Yes Album and Drama are my 3 favorite SOUNDING albums. the material and historic nature of F and TYA is obviously top notch, but Drama is certainly a huge achievement given what the band went through those several previous months.

  17. #42
    Ha!
    What I love about all of this is thread is that every single post-Drama album has been cited as someone's favourite!
    In England at least, it is almost considered an act of treason in some quarters to reference Yes post-Going For The One.
    I know someone who actually walked out of a Drama concert! but then this guy has seen Topographic Oceans performed at the Rainbow in London prior to it's release... now that's what I call a concert!

  18. #43
    Member zorknapp's Avatar
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    I agree about latter day Yes, there's lots to like, and for the stuff I don't, there's the skip button.

    I've said here before that I think That, That Is is a much better long track than Mind Drive, but I hear the critique of tinny-ness on some of those KTA2 tracks. They should have been mixed/produced with the "balls" knob turned up above 2.

    I also will vigorously defend "Love Shine" from OYE, as I really dig that track. I never quite understood the hate for it, there's a cool pop-rock song there.

    The Ladder has some great tracks (Homeworld, New Language, Face to Face), and some dreckishness, and could also have used more balls.

    Magnification has some beautiful moments. The ending of In the Presence Of is fantastic, especially live with the orchestra.

    FFH has some great material on it, the FFH suite is solid, and the shorter tracks on side 2 generally work for me. I still need to listen to Heaven and Earth more, but it's not as bad to these ears as some others have painted it. Damning with faint praise? Perhaps. I'm cool with that.

    Mike

  19. #44
    Member Brian Griffin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rael74 View Post
    I know someone who actually walked out of a Drama concert!
    Was it Alan White's drum riser that put him over the edge?

    BG
    "When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."

  20. #45
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    I remember Fish's radio show around 2007 or so on Planet Rock. He said on that he saw Yes on this (Drama) tour and laughingly recalled it having the single most hostile atmosphere he'd ever encountered at a concert!

  21. #46
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    Post Dharma holds many a-delights and some considerable frustration for me. 90125 is an unassailable stadium rock classic, well written and performed with lots of energy. Pig Penetrator is often slagged off, but apart from “Almost Like Duff”, most of the tunes are fun. Standouts include “I’m Running” and the sparse (for Yes) “Shoot Up, Get High”, apparently a meditation on the then ongoing war in Nicaragua.

    Things get decidedly iffy from there on. As has been discussed ad nauseam, Anderson Walkman Butthole and How is marred by a tinny, overtly digital production. However, the tunes themselves don’t do much for me either, even though “Birthright” and a few bits here & there are promising. By comparison, Union isn’t really all that bad – there’s about 35 minutes of decent stuff to be extracted, if you can be bothered. By far the best track for me is “Miracle of Life”.

    Talk was Yes’ last truly forward-looking album. Cons: Rabin’s over-the-top production (the drums!) and the almost pointed lack of Squire’s signature bass sound. Pros: Except for the pedestrian “Walls” and the pseudo world muzak® of “Where Will You Pee”, them’s good songs. There, I said it. Listen to the various bootlegs from the subsequent tour to hear them come alive.

    The Keys to Dissension project is a bit problematic. A huge chunk of the studio effort is too retro-prog by numbers for me, with various parts sounding like they were phoned in; an all too calculated effort to appeal to the old farts. In saying that, though, there *are* some sublime moments: Howe’s intro to “That, That Is” is as spellbinding as anything he did on “And You And I”. And how about that second part of “Children of Light”? Yes going all ambient? Nice!

    Then, what did they do? Ditch the darn prog and make a pop record, of course. Open Your Eyes, another widely maligned album, isn’t as terrible as the commoners would have you believe. At least the title track along with “Universal Garden”, “Fortune Teller” and “The Solution” are all fine & dandy. Follow-up The Bladder continues in a similar vein, despite the two longer tracks, and it isn’t too shabby either. Much of it comes across like an Anderson solo record, sure, but it’s much more focused and we finally get to hear Squire again. Having an outside producer breathing down their necks didn’t seem to have hurt one bit.

    Crapification, Anderson’s swan song with Yes (so far, you never know with those nutters) is a pleasant, lush, summer-y oeuvre. Replacing the keyboards with orchestral textures was a worthwhile experiment, even though Howe has expressed reservations about the whole thing. Like most of the post Pig Penetrator albums, it would have benefitted from some editing.

    That leaves us with the last two studio albums: FFH was a strong return to form. Though I rarely listen to it, I never skip anything when I do. Who cares if they pulled songs from twenty years ago out of the fridge? Again, having a real producer to judiciously trim the fat (save for “Bumpy Hide”) was the right decision.

    Unfortunately, that trick didn’t quite work out on H&E. Why, for example, must “The Game” drag on for nearly seven minutes? Cut it down to half its size and you have a solid pop song. IIRC, Howe has insinuated that working with RTB was fraught with friction and it shows. Furthermore, he has mentioned in at least one interview that the whole affair was rushed, something he objected to but was overruled. Maybe next time, they’ll listen to him?

    Whether or not Dharma & all that followed constitutes *real* Yes is for others to decide; best to keep a lid on that can of würms. Just watch the Classic Artists documentary and see what Mike Tait, their erstwhile road manager & lighting director, has to say about that. Me, I take the good with the half-baked. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of the former in Yes’ catalog, even post 1980.

  22. #47
    Member Brian Griffin's Avatar
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    In NY they sold out the 3 Drama tour shows I attended at Madison Square Garden, but did so months in advance and "forgetting" to mention Jon had left

    A far worse transgression than the APB's studio CD "misunderstanding" from where I was sitting

    BG
    "When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."

  23. #48
    I'm realizing now that I've never actually heard Union (I have heard a few tracks, though I couldn't tell you which ones), Open Your Eyes, or Talk. I did hear the "epic" from Talk once, but I turned it off before it was over as it was grating on my nerves (I can't recall the details now......probably should give that whole album another chance). I heard the entire Ladder album once, and found it inoffensive but really not interesting enough to get a copy. I really liked the Keys material when I first heard it, but further listens revealed it wasn't really that great. Though I still love Mind Drive (though I wouldn't rank it in the same league as Close to the Edge) and a couple other tracks. Magnification was great musically, but I found for the first time in my life that I couldn't stand Anderson's incessant new age warbling. I just felt like they had created this lovely musical canvas, only to splash large amounts of hideously colored paint over the whole thing. Too many vocals, not enough instrumental breaks, IMO. Though again, Dreamtime and In The Presence Of are still great songs.

    FFH is actually a pretty decent album, and despite my reservations about it I found it was mostly pretty well done. It's geriatric in it's tempo's and performances, but the music itself is pretty decent. I don't listen to it anymore, but I can't really say too many bad things about it in general. I still feel it's hard to call it Yes when most of the material was from 20 years ago and not even written by the core members. H&E I don't own, and I haven't heard the whole thing. I heard the first two tracks, and the last track. In each case I felt like brain death was imminent if I didn't turn them off quickly. Probably not giving it a "fair" listen, but I'm just not sure that would be possible based on what I heard (and considering the final track is supposed to be the token "prog rock" number, I really don't think I could stand the rest of it for long if that is stand out number).

    Anyway, I am an unapologetic fan of the 70's material of the band and I don't find much else worth my time (though 90120 was a favorite when it came out and I'd never heard Yes before really....and I was 13 and hadn't really started exploring music in depth yet). Drama I've heard more recently, and it's not bad is about all I can say. I really like Machine Messiah, but the rest is just okay. I don't own it and probably never will.

  24. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Griffin View Post
    In NY they sold out the 3 Drama tour shows I attended at Madison Square Garden, but did so months in advance and "forgetting" to mention Jon had left

    A far worse transgression than the APB's studio CD "misunderstanding" from where I was sitting
    The North American leg of the Drama tour went on sale a long time in advance and before the band had announced the line-up changes, indeed before the band had actually determined themselves what was happening. I think the band were hoping Anderson/Wakeman would come around.

    The news was out before later North American dates and the European leg went on sale and the album was out before touring began. However, back in 1980, news travelled slower, with no ProgressiveEars.com to spread the latest info, so many bought tickets and attended shows without knowing about the changes despite the information having been announced. I'm sure the same happened on previous tours -- how many buying tickets for the Close to the Edge tour knew Bruford was gone? -- but obviously the Anderson/Wakeman->Horn/Downes change was rather more... dramatic.

    Henry

    NP: "Lightning Strikes", The Ladder
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  25. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by bondegezou View Post
    PS: A house guest of mine has been very much enjoying "Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America's Favorite Spectator Sport".
    Ha! Thank you for the plug, Henry.

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