S'cuse me whilst I geek out on Yes...

[Tusker]

19 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

I think the "other side" of Close To The Edge (i.e. "And You and I" and "Siberian Khatru") is fantastic. But I never much cared for CTTE itself. Blasphemy, I know. 

 

Nothing wrong with a little prog blasphemy brother. We are all different.

 

The CTTE album for me was their miracle album and everything else came close, but there were some biases in that opinion which I can see more clearly now. First is the sequence in which I encountered the albums. My first exposure was Tales (!), then CTTE, then The Yes Album, then Fragile, then Relayer, then the rest. I remember recoiling from the Yes album because it wasn't as orchestral as what I was expecting after Tales. Tales was a bit too over the top so the CTTE was my goldilocks album. For awhile I overlooked some great songs on Fragile because I was comparing them to CTTE. Another personal bias is that CTTE has a bit of church music in it. I was playing pipe organ and involved in choral groups at the time so it was a blast to hear these brilliant rock interpretations of those idioms.

[AnotherScott]

Yeah, I think the order in which you're exposed to a band's albums can affect how you feel about them. 

 

In the case of Yes, I got Fragile first (it was their newest album at the time), then Yes Album and then, when it came out, CTTE.

 

To me, CTTE (the piece, not the album) has too much dissonance, and some of the core melodies are weak, and even the lyrical hook is kinda lame (I get up, I get down). I also think it was the first time Howe really emphasized the "angular" aspect of his playing, i.e. his lines were less melodic and flowing as they had mostly been previously (or as they still were on the other two songs on the album). In terms of "album side length" pieces, I think Topographic side 1 and Topographic side 2 are both stronger than CTTE (or at least, to me, more enjoyable overall), but in the end, I think the "sweet spot" for Yes has been in their "mid-length" pieces... the stuff between, say, about 7 and 11 minutes, long enough to stretch beyond the typical pop song constraints but short enough to remain focussed.

[PianoMan51]

In scientific fields we know about confirmation bias.

 

I know that I have a bias in the arts for loving the particular piece (film, novel, recording, etc.) in which I first ‘got’ the artist, and this is often the first time I experienced that artist.

 

The first novel by the writer I read: Charles Dickens David Copperfield

 

The first film by the director I saw (on TV): The Paths of Glory Stanley Kubrick 

 

The first album by the guitarist I heard: Pat Metheny Group Travels

 

 Now back to Yes. Probably heard them for the years at friends between 1970 and 1974. Intriguing, but didn’t capture my awe. Then I bought my first album (Tales) and put in the work to really listen. “Hmmm. Okay, I’m a classical musician, I get this.  Long form is a tough sell in the 3:05 world, but this is incredibly creative stuff”.  But I still had one hesitation. The lead vocals sounded so weird. They sounded to me, and I’m a singer before pianist, like a studio creation for the sake of differentiation.  Ersatz. 
 

The change in my attitude was only due to seeing them live. Spectrum, Philadelphia, 1974 on the TFTO tour. And I saw Jon Anderson perform. This guy was totally real. No Bowie-like stage creation. He was diminutive, awkward, and absolutely forthright. NOW I ‘got’ Yes. Anderson’s performance was from this spirit, his soul. Of course the other bandmates knocked me on my musical ass. And yes, they did play CTTE.

 

That witnessing of a performance set a pin in my mental map of music. Tales will always have a special place in my heart. It’s like a mental snapshot of the first time you saw a person you fell in love with. There’s no critical review desired. The love becomes a kind of faith in its inherent goodness. 
 

Other people find other pins in their maps My 50 year old nephew (bless his heart) has Les Claypool. Chacon a son gout!

[DovJ]

While we’re all focusing on CTTE, Tales and the like, how about “South Side of the Sky?”

 

Hearing/seeing this incredible cover reminded me what an amazing piece of story-telling this song is:

 

 

If you like this cover, listen to the others on the channel NelyTotevaSarah. These are incredible musicians who display a rare passion for some of the gems of 70’s prog.

[Tusker]

43 minutes ago, DovJ said:

These are incredible musicians who display a rare passion for some of the gems of 70’s prog.

Yes, the passions absolutely coming through for me. I like all the players and the singer but "Steve Howe" is ridiculous in how he is totally nailing the personal style. LOL.

 

Yes pulled this song out from hiatus, I believe in the 2001 (or was it 2003) tour. It went down really well with the crowd. They couldn't stop cheering. I remember Rick saying in an interview that when they were making Fragile he was already a known quantity. However the middle bit of South Side of the Sky on the piano is when the band members perked up and he began to feel had something he could contribute. Great song.

 

[Iconoclast]

90125 ain't no CTTE but I love that album and I do consider it to be totally Yes. To me Hearts and Changes are pretty high in my list of great Yes songs.  I feel the same with Machine Messiah and a lot of Drama.  I love that they could switch out players and you could still hear the core influence.

Now...any of the Modern Yes, I've tried to like, but I just don't find any of it compelling.

[AnotherScott]

47 minutes ago, Iconoclast said:

Now...any of the Modern Yes, I've tried to like, but I just don't find any of it compelling.

 

The last album that had stuff I really liked on it was Magnification.

[ksoper]

I always enjoyed Yes in its various incarnations but was happiest during the Rabin years, if for no other reason than to hear Howe's parts played well. 

[apple]

Huge Yes fan as well. Remember hearing Roundabout on the radio, bought Fragile and then every album thereafter when it came out. Prog bands were my favorite then and now. Finally way later, maybe 20 years ago I finally got copies of the first two albums Yes, and Time And a Word. I've got to say, and I'm sure I'm well in the minority here that these have been my go to Yes records for a long time! Of course Fragile, CTTE are masterpieces, and Relayer is jaw dropping at times but there's something about the first two records that has a period character that's so different. Still in the first couple innings of what became prog without a blueprint; scents of 60's psychedelia, experimentations and arrangements of copy songs, a sound combination of jazz drumming, lead bass, pinched distorted but interesting guitar, and especially the growling Hammond organ! Love Tony Kaye's aggression, taste. This first Yes generation came up with something at the start, laid the creative blueprint to be greatly expanded later by monster mufos Howe and Wakeman. Not everything worked, not all the singing is on key. They jumped in and were hungry, no success guaranteed. I hear the beauty and innocence on these records, they are seldom mentioned, and I love 'em!  

[Mark Schmieder]

Perhaps the ultimate geek moment of Yes fandom: at rehearsal last week, we played "Every Little Thing", and I accidentally veered into the Yes arrangement.

[harmonizer]

When I was a teenager back in the 1970s I liked Fragile better than CTTE. Roundabout was the leading reason for my interest in Fragile, and I found some of "in between" songs really interesting. Later I came to feel like those were more like experiments, and the three songs of CTTE felt more like the finished product. I just love those 3 songs on CTTE. I've never really thought about whether side 1 or 2 of the LP was better (side 2 contains songs 2 and 3). Re which side of the CTTE LP is better, I always assessed the two sides of the CTTE LP separately, considering them to have different ambitions. Maybe side 2 is better if you really look at the lyrics, but I have always considered side 1 to be so special for what it accomplishes musically that I did not examine its lyrics with that scrutiny.

[wjwilcox]

I bought CTTE when it first came out and, after really enjoying The Yes Album and Fragile, I really disliked it.  Shortly after that I say Yes in concert (with Poco as the opening act) and completely changed my mind.  Masterpieces all.

[GRollins]

I came across Yes by accident. There were some guys up the street who were into them...but they weren't the kind of guys you'd think would be the Yes sort--more redneck. However, they turned me on to the material available to that point (this was summer '71 to summer '72, then we moved away) and it stuck to me like glue. They were also into Jethro Tull. I don't remember that they were very big on ELP, and the other "prog" bands, such as Genesis, etc. weren't even on their radar at all.

 

One way or another, Yes and Tull are still with me today.

 

Grey