New book "Yes is the Answer"

[JJ88]

Well all those critics back then had to love Springsteen because of what he represented. Music heavily inspired by the music of their youth in the 50s and 60s with 'regular guy' lyrics. I class 'Born To Run' in particular as one of my favourite albums of the period, but it's a sound Springsteen uses to this day. He does what he does very well indeed, but it's not an innovative sound IMHO. Nevertheless I believe there's more than room enough for that rock-and-roll-meets-singer-songwriter sound of Springsteen and progressive rock, though. I don't get the 'either/or'.

You look at some of the reviews that someone now seen as a 'critics' darling', David Bowie, got for a few of his albums in the 70s, and it's clear some big critics of the time didn't get it. 'Low' for instance is now seen as probably the single most influential album on a strand of post-punk, but it had a few really negative reviews then.

[Surfink]

For anyone in the Los Angeles area Cinefamly theatre http://www.cinefamily.org/ is having an event on June 15, 7:45pm about this book and also slowing a prog concert film.

[progguy]

Well all those critics back then had to love Springsteen because of what he represented. Music heavily inspired by the music of their youth in the 50s and 60s with 'regular guy' lyrics. I class 'Born To Run' in particular as one of my favourite albums of the period, but it's a sound Springsteen uses to this day. He does what he does very well indeed, but it's not an innovative sound IMHO. Nevertheless I believe there's more than room enough for that rock-and-roll-meets-singer-songwriter sound of Springsteen and progressive rock, though. I don't get the 'either/or'.

You look at some of the reviews that someone now seen as a 'critics' darling', David Bowie, got for a few of his albums in the 70s, and it's clear some big critics of the time didn't get it. 'Low' for instance is now seen as probably the single most influential album on a strand of post-punk, but it had a few really negative reviews then.

It's interesting to compare the critical reactions to Springsteen and a band such as, say, ELP. Springsteen's first two albums were commercial flops but critical favorites. Critics like Hilburn and Jon Landau helped to generate a "buzz" around Springsteen that eventually paid off when "Born to Run" was released. ELP, on the other hand, was an instant commercial success, with their first album entering the top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic, even though critical opinion was, at best, split. And, of course, ELP had some high-profile detractors, such as John Peel.

Of course, this should not be construed as a criticism of Springsteen or a vindication of ELP, by the way. My point is simply to illustrate the power of media hype to help shape perceptions.
"b

[mogrooves]

"Born to Run" was released. ELP, on the other hand,

Ironically, the former was as "bombastic" and overwrought as anything the latter was accused of....

[N_Singh]

Ironically, the former was as "bombastic" and overwrought as anything the latter was accused of....

And it give rise in the generalized, popular mind of the following illogical musical equation: Saxophone = Big Man. Not taking about Coltrane, of course. Who's that???

[progguy]

Ironically, the former was as "bombastic" and overwrought as anything the latter was accused of....

Did you ever notice that, in critical discourse, the term "bombastic" is sometimes used as a compliment? In heavy metal and hard rock circles, for example, bombast is often regarded as a positive indice of a band's propensity to aggressively pursue a larger-than-life, damn-the-torpedoes musical vision? It's only in the land of prog where such tendencies are construed as connoting a lack of "taste" and "economy"...

[Mister Triscuits]

Ironically, the former was as "bombastic" and overwrought as anything the latter was accused of....

Not to mention that Springsteen's whole badass living-on-the-mean-streets pose was as pretentious as anything in prog.

[mogrooves]

Critics like Hilburn and Jon Landau

Educated middle class white guys romanticizing working class "authenticity". A tiresome trope.....

[Jefferson James]

The pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times for most of the 70's and 80's was Robert Hilburn.

"What does Robert Hilburn know about rock and roll?" -- Stew, The Negro Problem

[JKL2000]

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopcontent.asp?type=Top 51

May I suggest guys that the critics out there take a good look at Cherry Reds Top 51 physical sellers between January and March this year--see above--- Cherry Red cover a very wide range including soul, 80's indie, Prog/classic rock (with ourselves) soundtrack------allsorts. Prog sells consistently better than most other genres, whether its trendy and loved by critics or not it has a loyal and decent sized fanbase --so stuff the critics. I can assure you my Warrior on the Edge of Time remaster will sell 3 times as much as some much loved critics acts--that are cool to mention but not remembered well enough to actually "mean enough" to many customers to actually buy. Im pretty sure the April to June top 4 will be (and Im not sure in what order) Todd Rundgren , Hawkwind, The Fall and Big Country. Not all prog by any stretch but certainly a wide range of tastes--much wider than than the average critics who seem to live in a world only ever inhabited by The Clash, Iggy, Bowie, Brian Eno, velvet Underground, Scott Walker, Nick Drake and Bob Dylan.(most of whom I like by the way) but I feel get way too much coverage when others get the crumbs.

Agree 100%. Articles like that are written to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately the NY Times has way too much of that, lately.

[frippster]

Educated middle class white guys romanticizing working class "authenticity". A tiresome trope.....

A-freaking-men. See also the modern equivalent: white, middle class, suburban hipster boys waxing glowingly about the hardships of poor, black, inner-city hip-hop artists.

Re: Springsteen. Though he's never done much for me, I can tolerate some of his stuff. That said, the importance of the rock critic heirarchy in his early success cannot be overstated. Lest we forget, Jon Landau, at the time a well-established critic from the RS camp, penned the famed "I have seen Rock and Roll's future and it is Bruce Springsteen" essay that's generally regarded as launching Springsteen's rise. He soon became Springsteen's manager, which he remains to this day.

[Baribrotzer]

It also raises the question of why rock critics became "purist" in their thinking so quickly.

I suspect that the original generation of rock critics weren't rock fans at all, at least in one sense - that, in fact, they came more out of the folk boom of the early Sixties and from the Beats. Think about it: The coffeehouse folkies and their fans were the hipster intellectuals of the day, and Dylan's lyrics made his the first rock tracks that could be taken seriously on an intellectual level. Is it too much of a stretch to see those critics as espresso-slugging journalism majors who listened to Dylan, Ochs, Baez, et al for "serious" popular music, but let loose and danced to R&B and played Motown at parties, and who came to see those as the two poles of worthwhile popular music?

And as for purist thinking? The folk crowd were always obsessed with "authenticity", even from before rock 'n roll existed as such. They spent considerable time and energy looking for the oldest Ozark back-porch picker playing the most ancient of old-timey music, the Mississippi sharecropper whose "deep blues" remained unsullied by jazz or Tin Pan Alley, the bar-room Mexican accordion-pumpers and Cajun fiddlers who represented the true tradition, the "genuine music of the people". Only among them could be found the real art: the music of desperately impoverished subsistence farmers untainted by grubby middle-class commerce or upper-class hothouse complexity.

[Esoteric]

It is of course "not good form" to say you arent actually over fond of say "The clash" . The average middle class hipster white and male music journalist inhabits a club where only certain acts are permitted to "join the club" . I am still waiting for the day when one of the Mojo guys fresh from waxing about the Clash and Bob Dylan and Tom Waits etc comes clean and says actually he goes home and listens to nothing but Genesis, Floyd, Deep Purple and Sabbath.

[strawberrybrick]

I got into a fight with someone because I told him I didn't like the Clash.

[Jefferson James]

Only among them could be found the real art: the music of desperately impoverished subsistence farmers untainted by grubby middle-class commerce or upper-class hothouse complexity.

This bought a big fat smile to my face this morning; thank you.

[bill g]

Funny, I've only heard 2 Clash songs, and I rather like them somewhat. Heard a Ramones live album once, thought it was about the worst album I've ever heard, and I've never ever heard The Sex Pistols or The Damned. Just never interested me. But there has always been a whole lot of music I've personally really enjoyed, just could never be coerced into liking what the critics and the media tried to shove down my throat.

And fully agree that Springsteen is as pretentious and cheesy as they come.

[Scott Bails]

But there has always been a whole lot of music I've personally really enjoyed, just could never be coerced into liking what the critics and the media tried to shove down my throat.

[Jeremy Bender]

HUGE Clash fan here. I heard Train in Vain on the radio in 1980 and wasn't too impressed, but then my friend played me the US version of the first album and I went nuts for it. Then I got the second album, Give 'em Enough Rope, and I was totally blown away. 30 years+ later, it's still one of my Deserted Island discs, I still play it pretty regularly. It was a quantum leap forward from the first album in terms of production, songwriting and playing. Got London Calling and Sandanista! and while they both are too long, with too much filler on them --I didn't need children singing Career Opportunities--, the best songs on them are fantastic. We won't mention Combat Rock or especially Cut The Crap, but I saw them 5 times in 1982 at the Hollywood Palladium and they were incredible. The Friday show is still one of the very best shows I've ever seen. It's too bad they ended so badly, with drugs and jealousy and personality conflicts.

Loved Never Mind The Bollocks, I played the God Save The Queen and Anarchy in the UK singles constantly. Never got much in to the rest of English punk, but I definitely got in to punk when the local (Los Angeles/Orange County) scenes blew up, with bands like the great X, Bad Religion, Black Flag and The Minutemen; there was also the awesome Dead Kennedys from the Bay Area, loved Jello Biafra's lyrics. I hated the frat boy side of the scene, all the jock types I'd loathed in high school showing up just so they could slam dance and pick fights. Still, give me the first X album (RIP Ray Manzarek) any day over the entire oeuvre of *shudder* The Eagles *shudder*, Jackson Browne, Linda Rondstadt, the Buckingham/Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac and all the other Laurel Canyon hippies that you couldn't escape if you lived here.

[bRETT]

Re: Springsteen. Though he's never done much for me, I can tolerate some of his stuff. That said, the importance of the rock critic heirarchy in his early success cannot be overstated. Lest we forget, Jon Landau, at the time a well-established critic from the RS camp, penned the famed "I have seen Rock and Roll's future and it is Bruce Springsteen" essay that's generally regarded as launching Springsteen's rise. He soon became Springsteen's manager, which he remains to this day.

He wrote it in Boston's Real Paper, not Rolling Stone, and it came within a long think piece about where rock had been and where it was going (he first talked about "rock and roll past" and then the correct quote is "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen"). It's an exaggeration to say that quote launched Springsteen's rise, but it reached more people when it was later used by the label to promote "Born to Run." After that both Time and Newsweek did cover stories, and THAT launched Springsteen's rise.

It's dubious to say that critics were buying into Springsteen's "working class authenticity"-- More likely it was the transformative power of his live shows, which by all evidence were mighty impressive at the time.

The whole idea that "the press," "the critics" etc were lining up to sink prog is easily debunked-- check Rolling Stone's reviews for Close to the Edge, Fragile, Thick as a Brick, etc (granted, Topographic and Passion Play were less well received even in the UK). At any rate we're talking about something that happened or didn't happen 40 years ago-- There is no criticial consensus on anything at the moment, other that that 95% of most current music criticism is positive reviews.

[bill g]

The whole idea that "the press," "the critics" etc were lining up to sink prog is easily debunked-- check Rolling Stone's reviews for Close to the Edge, Fragile, Thick as a Brick, etc (granted, Topographic and Passion Play were less well received even in the UK). At any rate we're talking about something that happened or didn't happen 40 years ago-- There is no criticial consensus on anything at the moment, other that that 95% of most current music criticism is positive reviews.

You'll note that any positive reviews were pretty much 1973 and earlier. By mid 70s, find me one positive review of any prog album.

[progguy]

He wrote it in Boston's Real Paper, not Rolling Stone, and it came within a long think piece about where rock had been and where it was going (he first talked about "rock and roll past" and then the correct quote is "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen"). It's an exaggeration to say that quote launched Springsteen's rise, but it reached more people when it was later used by the label to promote "Born to Run." After that both Time and Newsweek did cover stories, and THAT launched Springsteen's rise.

It's dubious to say that critics were buying into Springsteen's "working class authenticity"-- More likely it was the transformative power of his live shows, which by all evidence were mighty impressive at the time.

The whole idea that "the press," "the critics" etc were lining up to sink prog is easily debunked-- check Rolling Stone's reviews for Close to the Edge, Fragile, Thick as a Brick, etc (granted, Topographic and Passion Play were less well received even in the UK). At any rate we're talking about something that happened or didn't happen 40 years ago-- There is no criticial consensus on anything at the moment, other that that 95% of most current music criticism is positive reviews.

Certainly, rock critics did not unanimously hate prog throughout its heyday. However, there was a discernible change in the press reception of prog around 1974. From that point on, it was increasingly difficult for prog bands to get sympathetic coverage in the major magazines/newspapers in the US and UK. Of course, there were exceptions -- such as Melody Maker's Chris Welch -- but they merely "proved the rule." I should also note that prog musicians were treated more sympathetically by publications that were geared towards professional musicians.

The question of how much influence the hostile press reception had on the subsequent history of progressive rock is not easily answered. Prog's rise and fall was the result of a multiplicity of factors. I would argue that the hostile press reception was an important but not decisive piece of the puzzle.

[bRETT]

You'll note that any positive reviews were pretty much 1973 and earlier. By mid 70s, find me one positive review of any prog album.

Going for the One
Yes
Atlantic SD 19106

Rock & roll's dependence on, and imaginative extension of technology makes it a science-fiction medium by nature. Even Chuck Berry, whose images of transcendence -- cars -- were mechanical, was able to suggest an otherworldly dimension by idealizing his cruising machines into virtual rocket ships. "You Can't Catch Me" is a science-fiction hymn.

By the late Sixties, rock festivals had become explicit science-fiction landscapes, and groups began to produce program music for drug-inspired futurist fantasies. But it wasn't until the current decade that rock bands began to institutionalize sci-fi -- the utopian idealism of such Sixties sci-fi masters as the Jefferson Airplane was replaced by the dispassionate technology of Led Zeppelin and Yes.

These bands saw themselves as component units of a record industry that had mutated its psychology and become a quasi-totalitarian science-fiction setting itself. Festivals were eliminated in favor of controlled indoor arena programs where virtuoso instrumental technique (Jimmy Page/Steve Howe, John Paul Jones/Rick Wakeman) and sci-fi-inspired fantasy lyrics (Robert Plant/Jon Anderson) became fundamentals.

Yes has always represented the lighter side of this process, its members trying to project themselves as organic, life-affirming good wizards as opposed to Zeppelin's demonism. This was especially true of their music, which was programmatic in its tonal airiness (especially Anderson's voice and Howe's guitars) and in the intricacy of its often classically inspired arrangements. They didn't nail this image down until Fragile, the first album to use illustrator Roger Dean's visual images of their cosmic programs. The group's style changed at the same time, when keyboardist Tony Kaye was replaced by Rick Wakeman and his overbearing flash.

Yes had solved its programming goals, but like all closed systems it was subject to entropy. As the band continued to run through the possible program readouts, less and less creative energy became available and Yes sank into cosmic torpor.

Going for the One reverses this process in a fascinating move that ties the band even more closely to Zeppelin. The title track is the most vital piece of music Yes has recorded since The Yes Album, opening with Howe's fiercest guitar playing in years, a gut-wrenching slide pattern pinned down by Alan White's straight-ahead rock drumming. Howe's tone is darker here than it's ever been, and the newly returned Wakeman refrains from throwing wholesale Bach clips into the arrangement, instead using his keyboards for tasteful fills and added texture. Even Anderson's normally squeaky voice is a lot less stylized than usual -- he actually sounds like part of the band. He even includes a few self-critical lines:

Now the verses I've sang
Don't add much weight to the story in my head
So I'm thinking I should go and write a punch line
But they're so hard to find
In my cosmic mind

A sense of humor is the last thing I expected from this band. Anderson goes on to sing percussive, four-syllable couplets over Howe's wobbling electric guitar, a totally Zeppelin-like trick that works extremely well.

"Turn of the Century" is more typically Yes, a mostly acoustic cameo about a sculptor trying to preserve the memory of his lover in a piece of art. "Parallels" uses Wakeman's church organ to good effect and features another gritty guitar solo. "Wonderous Stories" and "Awaken" are more fantasy/sci-fi mythologizing, with Wakeman playing nicely layered Polymoog backing on the former and Howe adding Page-like guitar (while White slugs out John Bonham-like garbage-can drums behind) on the latter.

By letting the Chris Squire-Alan White rhythm section construct a bottom for Howe's guitar, and by using Wakeman's unquestionable keyboard talent intelligently, Going for the One takes the right step toward downplaying Anderson's conceptual stranglehold on the band. Entropy can work to your advantage. You just have to be selective about where the energy is taken from.

- John Swenson, Rolling Stone, 9/8/77.

[rcarlberg]

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. - Frank Zappa

[bRETT]

The question of how much influence the hostile press reception had on the subsequent history of progressive rock is not easily answered. Prog's rise and fall was the result of a multiplicity of factors. I would argue that the hostile press reception was an important but not decisive piece of the puzzle.

I would say that the press-- or at least the critics who happened to write those reviews at the time-- objected most to the moments when prog got really excessive-- namely TFTO, Relayer, Passion Play, maybe BSS too (not Works I, which RS generally liked). These of course are the albums most treasured by the kind of people who post here.

I think the most decisive vote was cast by Chris Welch, who was a big fan of prog in general, but was really turned off by TFTO, Passion Play, and the Lamb. The bands took him most seriously, and were most stung by him, because he'd been a fan in the past (and supported all those bands again in the future). He's known as the most prog-friendly critic, but if anyone killed the concept album it was him.

[progguy]

Going for the One
Yes
Atlantic SD 19106

Rock & roll's dependence on, and imaginative extension of technology makes it a science-fiction medium by nature. Even Chuck Berry, whose images of transcendence -- cars -- were mechanical, was able to suggest an otherworldly dimension by idealizing his cruising machines into virtual rocket ships. "You Can't Catch Me" is a science-fiction hymn.

By the late Sixties, rock festivals had become explicit science-fiction landscapes, and groups began to produce program music for drug-inspired futurist fantasies. But it wasn't until the current decade that rock bands began to institutionalize sci-fi -- the utopian idealism of such Sixties sci-fi masters as the Jefferson Airplane was replaced by the dispassionate technology of Led Zeppelin and Yes.

These bands saw themselves as component units of a record industry that had mutated its psychology and become a quasi-totalitarian science-fiction setting itself. Festivals were eliminated in favor of controlled indoor arena programs where virtuoso instrumental technique (Jimmy Page/Steve Howe, John Paul Jones/Rick Wakeman) and sci-fi-inspired fantasy lyrics (Robert Plant/Jon Anderson) became fundamentals.

Yes has always represented the lighter side of this process, its members trying to project themselves as organic, life-affirming good wizards as opposed to Zeppelin's demonism. This was especially true of their music, which was programmatic in its tonal airiness (especially Anderson's voice and Howe's guitars) and in the intricacy of its often classically inspired arrangements. They didn't nail this image down until Fragile, the first album to use illustrator Roger Dean's visual images of their cosmic programs. The group's style changed at the same time, when keyboardist Tony Kaye was replaced by Rick Wakeman and his overbearing flash.

Yes had solved its programming goals, but like all closed systems it was subject to entropy. As the band continued to run through the possible program readouts, less and less creative energy became available and Yes sank into cosmic torpor.

Going for the One reverses this process in a fascinating move that ties the band even more closely to Zeppelin. The title track is the most vital piece of music Yes has recorded since The Yes Album, opening with Howe's fiercest guitar playing in years, a gut-wrenching slide pattern pinned down by Alan White's straight-ahead rock drumming. Howe's tone is darker here than it's ever been, and the newly returned Wakeman refrains from throwing wholesale Bach clips into the arrangement, instead using his keyboards for tasteful fills and added texture. Even Anderson's normally squeaky voice is a lot less stylized than usual -- he actually sounds like part of the band. He even includes a few self-critical lines:

Now the verses I've sang
Don't add much weight to the story in my head
So I'm thinking I should go and write a punch line
But they're so hard to find
In my cosmic mind

A sense of humor is the last thing I expected from this band. Anderson goes on to sing percussive, four-syllable couplets over Howe's wobbling electric guitar, a totally Zeppelin-like trick that works extremely well.

"Turn of the Century" is more typically Yes, a mostly acoustic cameo about a sculptor trying to preserve the memory of his lover in a piece of art. "Parallels" uses Wakeman's church organ to good effect and features another gritty guitar solo. "Wonderous Stories" and "Awaken" are more fantasy/sci-fi mythologizing, with Wakeman playing nicely layered Polymoog backing on the former and Howe adding Page-like guitar (while White slugs out John Bonham-like garbage-can drums behind) on the latter.

By letting the Chris Squire-Alan White rhythm section construct a bottom for Howe's guitar, and by using Wakeman's unquestionable keyboard talent intelligently, Going for the One takes the right step toward downplaying Anderson's conceptual stranglehold on the band. Entropy can work to your advantage. You just have to be selective about where the energy is taken from.

- John Swenson, Rolling Stone, 9/8/77.

Good find. However, Rolling Stone also massacred Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer several years earlier.