A band album that does not bear the bands name. And the other way around.

[trurl]

ABWH is horrible. It's appalling. It's cheese. It's bad. The sounds are bad. The drums are bad. The only thing on it that is listenable is Brother Of Mine. The rest of it- I would rather hear Almost Like Love on an endless loop. OYE is not great but most of it is marginally better than most of ABWH.

[Digital_Man]

On principle, sure.

But when I put the album on and it sounds good, I really couldn't care less who is playing on it.


Why let something so stupid rob you from enjoying good music?

Well that for me is stretched to the max when thinking about or listening to Union. SO much of it was made by ghost musicians pretending to be Yes members that it's hard to really respect it and enjoy. That said I do like Union to some degree but I can understand why it's panned by most hardcore Yes fans. The ABWH thing, if actually true, pales in comparison as far as lack of musical integrity goes. I'd go with ABWH as the better album regardless though.

[GuitarGeek]

What did Jonathan Elias have to do with the ABWH album? You guys seem to be confusing that album with Union.

No, we're talking about the ABWH tracks on Union. If you recall, on Union, the material is divided into two groups: there's the ABWH material (which was pretty much enough for an album by itself), and then there's the Squire/Rabin/White material (which I think amounts to an EP's worth of material, maybe a little more). I think Chris Squire did some vocal harmonies on the ABWH tracks, to "Yes-ify" them, and of course Jon is singing on at least some of the Squire/Rabin/White material.

The Union album was a bit of a sham, as a whole. You had two groups of material, made by mostly two separate groups of musicians, being billed as some big "mega-reunion" project. Even in the video they did for Lift Me Up, you've got all eight musicians miming the track (well, seven, I'm not sure if they ever actually show Howe pretending to play the song, I think I just use some random rehearsal footage in slow motion or something). There's even that bit at the beginning of the video where all eight of them are lip synching the acapella intro. Yeah, like Bill and Rick ever sang.

And then top it off, we eventually find out at least two of the musicians were mixed out on most of the material they had played on.

[GuitarGeek]

Well that for me is stretched to the max when thinking about or listening to Union. SO much of it was made by ghost musicians pretending to be Yes members that it's hard to really respect it and enjoy. That said I do like Union to some degree but I can understand why it's panned by most hardcore Yes fans. The ABWH thing, if actually true, pales in comparison as far as lack of musical integrity goes. I'd go with ABWH as the better album regardless though.

I think the problem was that ABWH owed Arista another album, and those four really weren't in a place where they should have been in the same band. They committed to something for all the wrong reasons, and then when it became obvious they had made a mistake, they had to figure out a way to fulfill the obligation. And that's how Union came together. And then they had to pretend that "It's great to be back in the band", when they were probably thinking "Now I remember why I left this stupid band in the first place".

[JIF]

No, we're talking about the ABWH tracks on Union. If you recall, on Union, the material is divided into two groups: there's the ABWH material (which was pretty much enough for an album by itself), and then there's the Squire/Rabin/White material (which I think amounts to an EP's worth of material, maybe a little more). I think Chris Squire did some vocal harmonies on the ABWH tracks, to "Yes-ify" them, and of course Jon is singing on at least some of the Squire/Rabin/White material.

The Union album was a bit of a sham, as a whole. You had two groups of material, made by mostly two separate groups of musicians, being billed as some big "mega-reunion" project. Even in the video they did for Lift Me Up, you've got all eight musicians miming the track (well, seven, I'm not sure if they ever actually show Howe pretending to play the song, I think I just use some random rehearsal footage in slow motion or something). There's even that bit at the beginning of the video where all eight of them are lip synching the acapella intro. Yeah, like Bill and Rick ever sang.

And then top it off, we eventually find out at least two of the musicians were mixed out on most of the material they had played on.

Actually, we were talking about the ABWH album, because some people consider it another Yes album(hint:read the thread topic).

[Wisdomview]

Rain Tree Crow = Japan

[Trane]

Abraxas Pool had all the members of the original Santana band except Santata (Michael Shrieve, Neal Schon, Gregg Rolie, Jose Areas, Alphonso Johnson, and Mike Carabello). That may seem like a stretch, but even without Carlos, they sounded more like Santana and the time (1997) than Santana did. And I love Santana.

Alphonso Johnson was not an original Santana player... I beileve that even Rauch's predecessor Brow,n was not an original member

[Scott Bails]

Actually, we were talking about the ABWH album, because some people consider it another Yes album(hint:read the thread topic).

Cool down with the snark, JIF. Elias had nothing to do with the ABWH album. He didn't become involved until Union. Your posts were confusing, as they seemed to be addressing two different albums.

[JIF]

Cool down with the snark, JIF. Elias had nothing to do with the ABWH album. He didn't become involved until Union. Your posts were confusing, as they seemed to be addressing two different albums.

Scott, look at post #68, then get back to me. I didn't say that Elias had anything to do with ABWH. I know he produced Union. I used to have The Ultimate Yes, and read the liner notes. Yes was produced by Paul Clay, Time And A Word was produced by Tony Colton, The Yes Album-Relayer were produced by Yes/Eddie Offord, Going For The One and Tormato were produced by Yes, Drama was produced by Yes(backing tracks produced by Eddie Offord), 90125 was produced by Trevor Horn(Hold On produced by Yes), Big Generator was variously produced by Yes, Horn, and Rabin, ABWH was self-produced, Union was produced by Jonathan Elias, Talk was produced by Trevor Rabin, Open Your Eyes and Magnification were produced by Yes, The Ladder was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, and Fly From Here was produced by Trevor Horn. I didn't state that Elias had anything to do with ABWH, someone else did. I made the comment that Matt Clifford played keyboards on ABHW to cover up Rick's parts. Stop putting words into my mouth, Scott, and stop getting on my case.

[Rune Blackwings]

Only in PE can ABWH start a war

[trurl]

Only in PE can ABWH start a war

That is part of the charm

[Spiral]

Using the Heaven And Hell name I thought made sense, because it telegraphed the idea to everyone what the band was. Using the Black Sabbath name, you'd might get people showing up who might disappointed they weren't seeing a band fronted by a reality TV show star/ad spokesman (ya know, the one married to the talk show host/ad spokeswoman). Even if without the original lineup reunion, you had the same problem Yes had during the 90's, when you said "Oh, Black Sabbath is touring..." the question would be "Who's in the band this week".

The other cool thing was that not using the Sabbath name absolved them of the "need" to play War Pigs, Paranoid, Iron Man, etc, and thus allowed them to focus on the material recorded by the Dio fronted version of the band.

Absolutely--you're talking about different music even if the personnel was largely the same. This is the same reason I consider ProjeKct X a separate entity from the King Crimson of the time. One name was meant to represent the band and everything that entailed, one signified a different kind of music (improvised rather than composed, chopped up and processed rather than performed live). In both these cases, the names alone prevented a lot of possible confusion.

Generally I figure the artists are the proper authority when it comes to deciding what to call themselves. Rain Tree Crow wasn't Japan, so it was the right thing not to call it a Japan album. Arch/Matheos is a very different animal from today's Fates Warning, so it feels right for them to go under a different name.

The one undeniable exception I can think of is Wurdah Itah. It may have been released under Vander (legal reasons? I've never been sure), but on my Ipod it's labeled Magma.

[yoyiceu]

Regarding 'Welcome to the Canteen', I think the second Traffic album didn't have the band's name anywhere in the cover... just the 'symbol' they used at times.

[JIF]

ABWH is horrible. It's appalling. It's cheese. It's bad. The sounds are bad. The drums are bad. The only thing on it that is listenable is Brother Of Mine. The rest of it- I would rather hear Almost Like Love on an endless loop. OYE is not great but most of it is marginally better than most of ABWH.

I love Almost Like Love.