20 to 1 - 50 years of Yes Music
When discussing anything related to Prog rock, two things are generally agreed: the '70s were its golden period, and the leading lights of the genre can be distilled to the 'big 6': ELP, Genesis, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Yes.
Of these, only Crimson and Yes are still going strong as a live act under their original name, which when you think about it is incredible. Half a century of creativity is rightly being celebrated this year, and in the case of Yes one thing holds true - despite the ever-revolving door of personnel, the legacy of this remarkable band remains intact.
To mark fifty years of Yes music, we've taken each and every one of their twenty studio albums and attempted to do the improbable - rank them accordingly. It's completely subjective of course, but hey, that's what makes these lists the fun they are.
20. Heaven and Earth (2014)
What a pity that the late Chris Squire’s swan song with Yes
was such a damp squib. With Jon Davison
firmly established on vocals, Yes seemed to play it oh-so-safe here with only
closer Subway Walls having any of the flair and fire of earlier glories. And is
that really the same Alan White who played drums so joyously and powerfully on
The Gates of Delirium? (Although perhaps we should point the finger at the
paper thin production values for stifling the vim and vigour that all Yes
albums should contain). It’s probably all of the above so let’s move on.
19. Open Your Eyes (1997)
Falling firmly between two stools, Yes tried to please everyone
with Open Your Eyes but ending up pleasing almost no-one with this disjointed
affair. The old harmonies are there in abundance and pop and sparkle at times,
but something’s missing and on tracks like No Way We Can Lose they sound like a
poor parody of themselves. Most fans sadly agreed with the critics’ disdain
with album sales well down on previous releases.
18. Union (1991)
Where do you start with Union? It was of course anything but
a Union, with tracks pulled in mostly from the two factions of Yes that existed
at the time. If you have love for Union, fair enough, there are some great
songs on it, not least the delightful Lift Me Up but take a look at how many
people took part in the recording sessions (10 synthesiser players??) and ponder just how accurate Rick
Wakeman’s eye-stinging ‘Onion’ assessment was.
17. Magnification (2001)
For some, Yes ended here -Magnification
was Jon Anderson’s last studio album with the band (at least to date). It’s
not a bad album by any stretch and probably deserved to do better than it
actually did, such was the strength of many of the songs (and despite
Anderson’s occasionally cloying lyrics). The use of additional strings provided
depth but were also divisive - it meant that keyboards were sacrificed,
something unthinkable for most Yes aficionados.
16. Fly From Here (2011)
An album of two halves, the ‘epic’ title track, mostly
composed some 30 years earlier has some wonderful flourishes (We Can Fly and
Madman at the Screens take a bow) and singer Benoit David does a sterling job
despite being handed a thankless task. However the rest of the album was
worryingly bland with compositions such as Hour of Need ominously pointing the
way as to what was to come with Heaven and Earth a few years later. The fact it was remixed, remastered and Trevor Horn's vocals added for the 'Return Trip' version recently only adds to the confusion.
15. The Ladder (1999)
Let’s get one thing straight, opening track Homeworld is
(almost) up there with the great Yes tracks, Squire has his mojo back and
Anderson’s vocals are as superb as ever. The rest of the album subsequently falls a little short of this
outstanding high (although New Language comes mightily close). There was more
than enough on The Ladder to give fans fresh hope that Yes would be a force to
be reckoned with going into the 21st Century.
14. Tormato (1978)
Coming off the back of the triumphant Going For The One, Yes
seemed to have had a new lease of life which makes the steep dip which was
Tormato all the more baffling. It’s a good album but simply cannot compare to
what went before. For the first time since 1970’s Time and a Word there wasn’t
a track over eight minutes long, maybe a sign of the times but this brevity
coupled with the thin production did nothing to enhance the music on offer.
Squire’s Onward and On the Silent Wings of Freedom were outstanding but in
hindsight, this feels like an unsatisfactory ending to 70s Yes.
13. Keys to Ascension 1 & 2 (1996 & 1997)
We have taken the studio tracks from the Keys albums (see the
Keystudio album from 2001) and put them together as a whole for the purpose of
this countdown, and in doing this it shows that Yes definitely still had it.
What’s perhaps surprising is that this is (currently) Rick Wakeman’s farewell
to Yes’s studio output but as with anything Yes related never say never.
Highlights include the lengthy Mind Drive and That, That Is, along with the powerful
yet subtle Be The One but there isn’t a duff track in sight which makes
Wakeman’s resultant departure all the more disappointing.
12. Yes (1969)
History tells us that Yes’s debut album was full of promise
and was truly the start of something special, but fifty years ago it would have
taken some strong conviction to believe that they would go on to become one of
the giants of Progressive Rock. With the band pulling in influences from
everywhere in the musical spectrum, there is a lot to admire here and the band
are clearly trying to hit their stride very quickly but compared (unfairly
perhaps) to what was to come, the album stumbles somewhat as it reaches to
achieve the standards they were trying to set themselves.
11. Big Generator (1987)
There are similarities to Tormato in that Big Generator was
also a bit of an anticlimax after the superb album that went before. In truth
Yes probably left it a little too late to capitalise on the success of 90125
but a recent reappraisal of this album has demonstrated that there were some
gems hidden in the 80s production, namely the sublime Shoot High Aim Low and
the anthemic I’m Running and in Love Will Find a Way, Yes should have had a hit
single on a par with Owner of a Lonely Heart.
10. Talk (1994)
We’d probably struggle to find another equivalent list with
Talk so high but indulge us. With the disorganised chaos of the Union era well
behind them, Yes reverted to the 90125 line up and produced a corker of an
album. Some long-term fans lamented the rocky, more direct approach but
with Trevor Rabin taking the band by the scruff of the neck (and the production
is so crystal clear it’s almost sterile) there is real power and beauty here,
in particular the euphoric I Am Waiting and - in a nod to ‘classic’ Yes - the
15 minute, three part Endless Dream. It wasn’t to last though, as Yes switched
back to the more traditional sounds and personnel of earlier times soon after.
9. Time and a Word (1970)
Yes’s follow up to their self titled debut saw the ambition
reaching even further as they started to really build on the foundations of
their earlier release. The opening track, a cover of Richie Havens’ No
Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed, stretches the envelope wonderfully
well and is all the more extraordinary when it throws in excerpts from the
classic Western movie The Big Country. Using strings so early in their career
was a bold move and caused some internal conflict which in part led to
guitarist Peter Banks bowing out, but Yes were starting to get on a roll and
Banks’s departure made little difference to the juggernaut that was about to
take the progressive world by storm.
8. Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973)
Overblown, overbearing, remarkable, ground breaking. So many
adjectives have been written to demonstrate how divided people feel about the
double album behemoth from 1973. Four tracks spread across four sides of vinyl,
critics were mostly positive at the time and are kinder now as well but were
scathing and harsh of the self indulgence in the years in between as Prog fell
out of favour in the 1980s and 1990s.
Wakeman’s disillusion caused him to depart at this point although his
attitude to the project has softened over the years. There is a lot love for
Tales in 33.3 Towers but we’d be lying if we said our attention doesn’t drift
at times, particularly on some of sides 2 and 3 (in old money that is) but when
they get it right, it’s as good as anything Yes ever did.
7. Drama (1980)
There will be some that will never accept Drama as a true Yes
album but frankly it’s their loss as in our opinion it’s well worthy of its
lofty heights in our countdown. From the prototype Prog-Metal stomp of opener
Machine Messiah to the whirling breathlessness of the glorious Tempus Fugit,
every track is a fine example of a middle finger up to those that said it could
never work with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes in the band and the sublime 80 or
so seconds of White Car showed that Yes could do short as well as epic. It
sadly didn’t last with Howe and Downes swiftly departing to form Asia and Horn
returning to his first love of production but the Drama era line up and album
burned very brightly- if briefly.
6. Relayer (1974)
Coming off the back of the double whammy of …Topographic and
Wakeman’s departure a year earlier, Yes could have been forgiven for adopting a
somewhat more accessible approach to their seventh release, but nothing doing.
With jazz influenced keyboardist Patrick Moraz on board, Yes roared back with
Relayer, their most harsh, metallic sounding album to date. The Gates of
Delirium, loosely based on Tolstoy’s War and Peace, was an epic to end all
epics spread across nearly 22 minutes of
music and sounded sonically wonderful. The two tracks taking up side two
were Yes at their most experimental and if they didn’t quite match the genius
of side one, they did a damn good job in trying. The surprise departure of
Moraz after the Relayer tour heralded a three year hiatus for the band during
which the musical landscape in the U.K. changed dramatically.
5. 90125 (1983)
Over the years of their existence, Yes have pulled victory
from the jaws of defeat a number of times but none more so than on their 1983
release 90125. Yes were effectively dead after Drama, and Squire and White
started working with South African guitarist and vocalist Trevor Rabin on
material for a new band to be called ‘Cinema’. Jon Anderson heard some of the
early material and was blown away by it – so much so the other three asked him
to put some vocals down. This combined with a call to original keyboard player
Tony Kaye later, and Yes were back. And how. Opening with the smash hit Owner
of a Lonely Heart, 90125 propelled Yes into levels of popularity previously
unseen even by their standards and deservedly so. A few curmudgeons in their fan
base fell by the wayside but with tracks like the moving Changes and the
stirring Hearts, Yes opened up a path to a whole new audience.
4. The Yes Album
(1971)
With new guitarist Steve Howe on board Yes truly exploded
onto the music scene with their magnificent third release. Tracks such as the
brooding Yours Is No Disgrace and the celestial Starship Trooper still sound
relatively fresh nearly half a century on and in I’ve Seen All Good People they
found the anthem they were searching for. It appeared that the final piece of
the jigsaw had fallen into place but instead it signalled the end of Tony
Kaye’s first tenure with the band as Yes looked to embellish their keyboard
sound even further. Kaye’s replacement was a master-stroke and elevated the band even further into superstar status.
Enter Rick Wakeman.
3. Fragile (1971)
With 22 year old Wakeman now part of the band and artist
Roger Dean designing their album covers, Yes were on a real creative charge
with their second album of 1971, Fragile. Although it was perhaps a little
surprising that five of Fragile’s nine tracks were solo compositions and
performances, that mattered not a jot as the remaining four tracks took up most
of the album’s duration and were simply astonishing in their depth and dexterity.
Roundabout is a bona fide classic across any genre and closes Yes’s live shows
to this day; Heart of the Sunrise demonstrated a band seemingly at the peak of
its technical and melodic powers. However, that proved not to be the case
because even as Fragile was released Yes were already plotting to scale even
greater heights.
2. Going For The One (1977)
After a three year absence (a hell of a long time in 1970s
terms) and with Rick Wakeman back in the fold, initially as a session player
then swiftly as a full time member, Yes produced a stunning and triumphant
comeback with Going For The One. The title track was a euphoric rabble-rousing
rocker which incorporated Steve Howe’s string bending performance on steel
guitar and Anderson hitting notes so high they nearly disappeared off the
scale. Turn of the Century highlighted the band’s brilliant story-telling
abilities and in Wonderous Stories, they unexpectedly hit the U.K. top ten
singles chart for the first time. However, with the astonishing Awaken they
saved the best till last. Reaching out over nearly sixteen minutes of
perfection, they produced arguably their finest ever track. Anderson cites
Awaken as everything he wanted to accomplish with Yes encapsulated into one
piece of music and who are we to argue? It’s bloody magnificent.
1. Close To The Edge – (1972)
The motherload. Yes’s one true fully fledged masterpiece was
released in September 1972 at the pinnacle of Progressive Rock’s golden age.
Comprising of just three tracks it catapulted Yes fully into the big time and
was the culmination of everything the four earlier albums were trying to
achieve. The eighteen minute title track - broken down into four exquisite
movements - was and still is a roller coaster of genius from the frenetic opening
of The Solid Time of Change through the calm of I Get Up I Get Down, to the
final swirl of Seasons of Man. It confidently set out a blueprint for
Progressive Rock that so many bands that came after tried to follow. And they
weren’t finished there, And You And I saw Yes at their most majestic, painting
as it did a musical work of art and album closer Siberian Khatru pounds along
at a furious rate of knots and shows another, slightly funkier side to this
ever developing musical entity. Yes’s defining moment came at a cost
however. The seemingly endless hours it
took to create took its toll on founder member and drummer extraordinaire Bill
Bruford who departed for the jazzier and more spontaneous King Crimson shortly before
the subsequent tour, leaving replacement Alan White having to rapidly and
bravely learn the tour set list in a very short space of time. Close to the
Edge remains a benchmark not only for Yes but for a whole genre, which tells us
all we need to know about its genius.
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