Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe - almost 35 years on

[Sputnik]

Well, Battle of Epping Forest doesn't have structural problems, but I find it tedious to listen to. The joke aspect is prominent but not supported by interesting musical material, unlike, say, Get 'Em Out by Friday, which I always liked much better.

I do think it has some structural issues, at least parts both lyrical and musical that are not very strong, but I basically agree with you. I also like Get 'Em Out by Friday vastly better.

Bill

[chalkpie]

I would consider "Suppers Ready" through-composed, which is a deliberate decision when composing. There is no recapitulation because of that fact.

[aith01]

I would consider "Suppers Ready" through-composed, which is a deliberate decision when composing. There is no recapitulation because of that fact.

Agreed. It's a stylistic choice that works too.

While I love "Firth of Fifth", I have never been nuts about the "verse" sections ("The path is clear, though no eyes can see..."). But I put up with that part because of the rest of the song.

[Sputnik]

I would consider "Suppers Ready" through-composed, which is a deliberate decision when composing. There is no recapitulation because of that fact.

It is basically through composed. They do recapitulate the first theme at the end, as well as Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man, rather dramatically and prominently, but otherwise it is through composed.

Bill

[Batchman]

Agreed. It's a stylistic choice that works too.

While I love "Firth of Fifth", I have never been nuts about the "verse" sections ("The path is clear, though no eyes can see..."). But I put up with that part because of the rest of the song.

That is the crux of my point. The instrumental sections are superb. The vocal section has never really swayed me. The dramatic parts seem awkwardly placed. Not like in, e.g. The Musical Box where there is a long buildup to the climactic section that truly pays off.

[vostoklake]

I think Horn, as producer, did plenty more on the song. But what he gets a co-writing credit for is re-writing some of the lyrics.

The most brilliant thing IMHO is faithfully recreating Rabin's acoustic guitar noodling from the demo with sampled keyboards.

[vostoklake]

You say here in greater detail exactly what I had hinted at before. I think you capture it perfectly, and this ability to work out effective bridging sections and find organic ways to move between parts or integrate sometimes disparate musical ideas is exactly what Yes lost post GftO. It was less of an issue on Tormato and Drama where even the longer songs have fewer parts to contend with, though I'd argue you do get a hint of it on Machine Messiah and Into the Lens, which have never rolled as smoothly to me as I'd like. Even the much ballyhooed Changes is a bit of a cut and paste job. The transition from the opening lick to the main "Message in a Bottle-like" riff is perhaps the most compositionally clumsy moment on 90125.

But it really starts to show on ABWH where the longer form compositions truly reassert themselves. They're not horrible, but it's not as seamless and organic as it was before, and there are some jarring and what I think are fairly weak moments. I think this does come down to time and attention spent, and also the degradation of relationships that people just weren't willing to hash it out in person anymore with people they fundamentally don't like that much. It gets horrible to my ears on Keys to Ascension, where the longer tracks just feel lazy and almost haphazardly thrown together. It's too bad because there are some great moments, but they're just continually undercut by poor transitions and other parts that are weak. I think this has plagued the band since then, and they've never really solved it on their more ambitious tracks.

Bill

The thing about "Into the Lens" is that I see it a return to Yes's roots of doing gonzo cover versions. "Into the Lens" is to a Buggles song what "America" is to a Simon and Garfunkel song - i.e. a pop song gone baroque. You could say that "Changes" is a similar thing done to a Trevor Rabin song. There's that tradition in Yes, and the "clip together an epic from stochastically-arranged pieces of smaller original songs" tradition, and I think they should be considered separately.

[vostoklake]

Anyway, back on topic: the bits that I don't like about ABWH are the bits that sound like it was supposed to be an Anderson solo album but then got shoehorned into a new project. Those bits for me are "The Meeting", "Quartet", "Teakbois" and "Let's Pretend". Those aren't all *bad* (well, bits of "Quartet" are bad) but they don't have anything to do with a "group" sound, even though Howe and Wakeman wrote parts of them.

This is related IMHO to the way that bands in the early CD era were hassled to fill 74 minutes of music, whether it was all quality or not. Although I think Roger Waters is a thundering disgrace for his recent political interventions, Is this the life we really want? benefits greatly for being kept to 45 minutes or so.

[moecurlythanu]

I guess I grade ABWH on a curve. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it as good as any from the classic run? (Which I'll extend through Drama, for argument's sake.) No. Is it better than the 2 80s albums with Rabin? Yes. I haven't heard all of the Yes albums that came after, but ABWH is better than all that I have heard. So, grading on a curve, it's not great, but it's pretty good. Good enough to be in the occasional rotation, such as it is.

[revporl]

I remember it nostalgically as I went to see the tour which was my first Yes show but listening to it now it doesn't hang together as the work of a band at all. It's all over the place. Drama is sonically coherent, 90125 is very much coherent and sounds like the work of a proper band (it's my number 2 Yes album, between CTTE and Relayer, I'm eclectic!), Big Generator a little less so but it hangs together. But ABWH (and Union) could be a compilation of JA solo tracks done with a whole variety of different people. Some of it is quite good though, but a lot of it is wish-washy. Weirdly, what I didn't like about it on release was that (on cassette at least) the guitars were really quiet but it sounds better on CD and streaming.

[Interstellar]

My introduction to Yes was unusual. As a teenager I discovered the existence of the band with Owner and its big success. I heard someone say that it was a new incarnation of an old 70s band. In record stores I started looking at those fascinating Roger Dean sleeves, wondering what kind of music there was behind all this. But there was no internet at the time, and I didn't hear a note. (And I didn't have much money to buy records.) Anyway, the story fo that band sounded complicated and fascinating.
A few years later, a fellow student lent me a tape copy of Fragile. The music was interesting, but the sound quality was so bad it didn't make a lasting impression. Then I borrowed Big Generator at a library (it was the only available one). I couldn't connect with this music that felt lifeless.
And then I saw adverts for ABHW (which suggested it was the new/old 'Yes'), and saw that that old artwork was back. It had to be more interesting than BG. So it was the first 'Yes' record I bought and really listened to. It sounded interesting, and rather progressive for those times, but it was uneven and all over the place. I thought 'OK, maybe Yes is not for me after all'.
Twenty five years later I finally started listening carefully to the classics - The Yes album, CTTE, etc. and I realised what I had missed. There was a chemistry and an intensity in the various 70s line ups and albums that ABHW didn't have. ABHW somehow succeeds in bringing more colour and more life than other 80s releases, but it doesn't feel like a cohesive project or a group effort. It also highlights the role of Squire's sound and style in the sonic fabric of Yes.
I was a weird introduction to the band, but after all, why not ? The whole history of Yes is so complicated.

[Sputnik]

The thing about "Into the Lens" is that I see it a return to Yes's roots of doing gonzo cover versions. "Into the Lens" is to a Buggles song what "America" is to a Simon and Garfunkel song - i.e. a pop song gone baroque. You could say that "Changes" is a similar thing done to a Trevor Rabin song. There's that tradition in Yes, and the "clip together an epic from stochastically-arranged pieces of smaller original songs" tradition, and I think they should be considered separately.

I don't particularly care what the basic source material is. A well-arranged piece is a well arranged piece, regardless, and "clipped together" or not, how you clip things together is the only consideration to me. I think Yes' America is brilliantly arranged and feels completely organic. By comparison, Into the Lens feels a bit herky-jerky. It's not terrible, but to me it doesn't show the level of integration and thought that America does, or the ingenuity and sense of "reaching" in something like Everydays.

As far as Changes, that's not really a "cover." I'd compare that more to Long Distance Runaround where the basic idea came from one band member and got run through the "Yes blender" (though, in a sense, I think you could very much argue the same thing for I Am a Camera/Into the Lens). Here, the contrast of the two couldn't be starker. Long Distance fully integrates the added ideas across the entire piece, making it something else entirely. The riff in Changes is pasted onto the beginning and end. I admit, it's a cool little riff, and definitely among the most interesting moments on 90125 (which for me total up to about five minutes, tops), but this illustrates exactly what I'm talking about. The riff is used more as an "ornament" that just sort of hangs there in its own space rather than really being integrated into the song, and the transition from that part into the main body of the song sounds tremendously clunky to me. The ideas in Long Distance don't feel that way. They are integrated.

That's the fundamental difference I, and some others, are talking about, and that has nothing to do with the source of the material. It has to do with the thought, care, and effort the band put into arranging and/or composing their music and bridging sections. That represents one of the biggest changes, especially when you get past the Yes-West period and into ABWH and Keys, but I think the issues become apparent prior to that in small ways.

Bill

[Man In The Mountain]

Could it be that YES was better produced in the 70's, with Eddie Offord on board from the early YES through Relayer? Yeah GFTO holds together nice, but then it crumbled from there. There's also the way albums were made going forward with ABWH and later with KEYS, with file sharing and not having the band together hammering things out together all day until 2am at night. That's why the 60's and 70's will always stand out, the art of making albums and crafting epics was done in an organic manner, rather than cut and paste in a digital frame. All the various takes of Beatles cuts, over and over and over, until the perfectly crafted song was developed. Those days be gone.

[miamiscot]

I like it but I never learned to love it.

[Rarebird]

I like it but I never learned to love it.

You like it now, but you learn to love it later

[Sputnik]

Could it be that YES was better produced in the 70's, with Eddie Offord on board from the early YES through Relayer? Yeah GFTO holds together nice, but then it crumbled from there. There's also the way albums were made going forward with ABWH and later with KEYS, with file sharing and not having the band together hammering things out together all day until 2am at night. That's why the 60's and 70's will always stand out, the art of making albums and crafting epics was done in an organic manner, rather than cut and paste in a digital frame. All the various takes of Beatles cuts, over and over and over, until the perfectly crafted song was developed. Those days be gone.

Production may have been part of it, but then many say Horn's production of 90125 was brilliant. In a sense it was, for that type of album, but I don't think he was well-attuned to certain things, where perhaps he shone in other areas. File sharing may have been a part of it too, but lots of bands have made fine records since file sharing became a thing. File sharing is just a tool. It doesn't change the game that much, and can actually make many things far easier. It's all in how you use it.

In the end, with Yes, I think it came down to egos, damaged relationships, the effects of drugs and booze, and a sort of creeping laziness born from the raving commercial successes of their most simplistic music. Why work so hard to make something brilliant when many fans will buy pretty much anything you toss a Yes logo onto? It makes going through the aches and pains of complex creation just seem not worth it, and "good enough" quickly becomes just that. ABWH was the last point I heard anyone actually trying to really make it work with music that is materially similar to Yes' 70s pedigree, and I think a lot of that comes down to Bruford, who never allowed that laziness, or dope and booze, to creep into his development as an artist.

Bill

[Jacob Holm-Lupo]

I guess this has become a bit of a 90125 vs ABWH thread. That can be interesting, even though it's apples and oranges to some extent.
90125 is the more complete and cohesive record, with the larger portion of strong material. Horn's production is fantastic, and for the most part what Horn and Yes created were sharp, focused slices of prog-pop. The Achilles heel of 90125 and the other Rabin-Yes albums, is Rabin's propensity for banal writing. I quite enjoy his talent for AOR on his solo albums, I think especially Can't Look Away is a strong album. But that's AOR songs within an AOR context. Yes is not an AOR context, which is why some Rabin-Yes material fails. As much as people seem to love Changes, I think Changes and Hearts are the two weakest songs on 90125, since they unsuccessfully try to merge "classic" Yes tropes with Rabin-AOR. In my ears it doesn't work. The truly successful songs on the album are the ones where Horn's production/arrangement inventiveness, Rabin's riff-mastery and Anderson/Squire's melodic/harmonic sensibilities are fully integrated into songs that do not aspire to be more than what they are: Inventive pop songs. Owner, Our Song, It Could Happen, Leave It are all great examples of that.

Big Generator has some similarly good moments, but fewer, and sorely lacks Horn's hipness.

ABWH lacks both good pop tunes and hip production, but it has other qualities. It's a step back to Drama and pre-Drama era Yes in terms of challenging music and impressive instrumentalism. Compositionally it's only partially successful: Themes and Fist of Fire are brilliant, IMO. Themes especially showed an alternative path Yes could've taken, merging their own mystical prog with 80s KC-like intricacies. And Fist of Fire is like a dark twin to Anderson's new age stuff - very cool. Brother of Mine has a lot of great music in it, although the "chorus" is kind of flat. Birthright is magnificent. The rest of the album has its ups and downs. But one thing I like about ABWH - and this might be subjective - is that I sense a vision behind it. 90125 is great, but it is "just" a collection of mostly great songs. ABWH might not hold up on a song-to-song basis, but it has what I feel is an over-arching vision, which is something we hadn't heard from Yes in quite a while. Maybe it's the music's (sometimes awkward) ambition, maybe it's the socially and ecologically conscious lyrics (and then I count Vultures as part of the album, which it should have been). That's my sense, anyway.

[Sputnik]

I guess this has become a bit of a 90125 vs ABWH thread. That can be interesting, even though it's apples and oranges to some extent.
90125 is the more complete and cohesive record, with the larger portion of strong material. Horn's production is fantastic, and for the most part what Horn and Yes created were sharp, focused slices of prog-pop. The Achilles heel of 90125 and the other Rabin-Yes albums, is Rabin's propensity for banal writing. I quite enjoy his talent for AOR on his solo albums, I think especially Can't Look Away is a strong album. But that's AOR songs within an AOR context. Yes is not an AOR context, which is why some Rabin-Yes material fails. As much as people seem to love Changes, I think Changes and Hearts are the two weakest songs on 90125, since they unsuccessfully try to merge "classic" Yes tropes with Rabin-AOR. In my ears it doesn't work. The truly successful songs on the album are the ones where Horn's production/arrangement inventiveness, Rabin's riff-mastery and Anderson/Squire's melodic/harmonic sensibilities are fully integrated into songs that do not aspire to be more than what they are: Inventive pop songs. Owner, Our Song, It Could Happen, Leave It are all great examples of that.

Big Generator has some similarly good moments, but fewer, and sorely lacks Horn's hipness.

ABWH lacks both good pop tunes and hip production, but it has other qualities. It's a step back to Drama and pre-Drama era Yes in terms of challenging music and impressive instrumentalism. Compositionally it's only partially successful: Themes and Fist of Fire are brilliant, IMO. Themes especially showed an alternative path Yes could've taken, merging their own mystical prog with 80s KC-like intricacies. And Fist of Fire is like a dark twin to Anderson's new age stuff - very cool. Brother of Mine has a lot of great music in it, although the "chorus" is kind of flat. Birthright is magnificent. The rest of the album has its ups and downs. But one thing I like about ABWH - and this might be subjective - is that I sense a vision behind it. 90125 is great, but it is "just" a collection of mostly great songs. ABWH might not hold up on a song-to-song basis, but it has what I feel is an over-arching vision, which is something we hadn't heard from Yes in quite a while. Maybe it's the music's (sometimes awkward) ambition, maybe it's the socially and ecologically conscious lyrics (and then I count Vultures as part of the album, which it should have been). That's my sense, anyway.

I agree entirely with this. Well stated!

Bill

[aith01]

I guess this has become a bit of a 90125 vs ABWH thread. That can be interesting, even though it's apples and oranges to some extent.
90125 is the more complete and cohesive record, with the larger portion of strong material. Horn's production is fantastic, and for the most part what Horn and Yes created were sharp, focused slices of prog-pop. The Achilles heel of 90125 and the other Rabin-Yes albums, is Rabin's propensity for banal writing. I quite enjoy his talent for AOR on his solo albums, I think especially Can't Look Away is a strong album. But that's AOR songs within an AOR context. Yes is not an AOR context, which is why some Rabin-Yes material fails. As much as people seem to love Changes, I think Changes and Hearts are the two weakest songs on 90125, since they unsuccessfully try to merge "classic" Yes tropes with Rabin-AOR. In my ears it doesn't work. The truly successful songs on the album are the ones where Horn's production/arrangement inventiveness, Rabin's riff-mastery and Anderson/Squire's melodic/harmonic sensibilities are fully integrated into songs that do not aspire to be more than what they are: Inventive pop songs. Owner, Our Song, It Could Happen, Leave It are all great examples of that.

Big Generator has some similarly good moments, but fewer, and sorely lacks Horn's hipness.

ABWH lacks both good pop tunes and hip production, but it has other qualities. It's a step back to Drama and pre-Drama era Yes in terms of challenging music and impressive instrumentalism. Compositionally it's only partially successful: Themes and Fist of Fire are brilliant, IMO. Themes especially showed an alternative path Yes could've taken, merging their own mystical prog with 80s KC-like intricacies. And Fist of Fire is like a dark twin to Anderson's new age stuff - very cool. Brother of Mine has a lot of great music in it, although the "chorus" is kind of flat. Birthright is magnificent. The rest of the album has its ups and downs. But one thing I like about ABWH - and this might be subjective - is that I sense a vision behind it. 90125 is great, but it is "just" a collection of mostly great songs. ABWH might not hold up on a song-to-song basis, but it has what I feel is an over-arching vision, which is something we hadn't heard from Yes in quite a while. Maybe it's the music's (sometimes awkward) ambition, maybe it's the socially and ecologically conscious lyrics (and then I count Vultures as part of the album, which it should have been). That's my sense, anyway.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. Big Generator definitely suffers somewhat without Horn's involvement (even though I still love BG).

"Hearts" is really the only song on 90125 that kinda falls flat for me. I've just never warmed to that one. But everything else on there is so good that it never really mattered to me. The bonus tracks on the remastered edition are pretty cool too. 90125 is a Top 5 Yes album for me, maybe even Top 3 depending on the day. I know not everyone agrees with this but it was cutting edge, forward looking and -- like you said earlier in this thread -- made Yes relevant again.

ABWH is much more uneven than either of the Rabin-Yes albums, IMO, but I still enjoy quite a lot of it.

[arturs]

I'm a huge fan of 90125. It was Yes for the 1980s. Sleek, metallic (the cover was perfect), clever, and surprisingly relevant at the time. Way beyond most AOR in terms of scope and vision. I can understand some of the downsides you all mention about the simplicity. There are places where I wish the Yes of the 70s had been there to add more interesting bits. But to my ears the music commanded exactly what was delivered. My impression is that Horn should get a lion's share of the credit for this masterpiece. Rabin's songs on their own, as per the "90124" release, were mediocre. Catchy but mediocre.

As for ABWH, I agree with the consensus here: Themes, Fist of Fire, Birthright are great tunes. Brother of Mine and Order of the Universe are good if a little clumsy. Those five should have been the whole album. Like Union, too much material was stuffed on to the record and the overall quality is diminished as a result.

[Firth]

I can’t remember when I last listened to 90125 or ABWH albums. However, I saw those tours and they were great. I would be OK if I never heard Owner of Lonely Heart, but with lossless Apple Music, will check out those albums.

[chalkpie]

"Let's Pretend" seems to get a bit overlooked, but it has that classic Jon-hippy-dippy-cosmic aura with great acoustic playing from Howe. It's sort of like "Holy Lamb", a nice coda to the album. Not a throwaway for me. BG and ABWH were both albums that were released during my Yes discovery phase (in high school), so there are going to be folks here who have that emotional connection.

[Kcrimso]

I agree entirely with this. Well stated!

Bill

+1. Well said.

[dropforge]

"Let's Pretend" seems to get a bit overlooked, but it has that classic Jon-hippy-dippy-cosmic aura with great acoustic playing from Howe. It's sort of like "Holy Lamb", a nice coda to the album. Not a throwaway for me. BG and ABWH were both albums that were released during my Yes discovery phase (in high school), so there are going to be folks here who have that emotional connection.

I like it, too. A co-write with Vangelis.

[Kcrimso]

"Let's Pretend" seems to get a bit overlooked, but it has that classic Jon-hippy-dippy-cosmic aura with great acoustic playing from Howe. It's sort of like "Holy Lamb", a nice coda to the album. Not a throwaway for me.

I agree.

In my review I had very similar thoughts about "Let's Pretend".

"Like so many other Yes albums, ABWH ends with a short song that serves as a kind of light epilogue to the whole album. These songs are often a bit forgotten and it’s hard to consider them as true Yes classics, but I personally like most of the songs in this range. The album-closing ”Lets Pretend” is a beautifully simple song accompanied by Howe’s acoustic guitar and light synthesizer breaths, sung by Anderson in a delicately vulnerable voice. It’s a delightfully fresh breath of light air after all the wailing and pathos heard above. Vangelis was given composition credit for the song as it is one of the songs Anderson wrote with him on Hydra before the ABWH project."