Revisiting Classic Yes

The six 2003 remastered classic Yes CDs from my music collection.  From The Yes Album (1970, upper left) to Going for the One (1977, lower right).

I mentioned the progressive-rock band Yes in passing on this blog ten years ago.  I listened to a favored song by them, as I was inspired by a distant thunderstorm.  There was a time when Yes captivated me with their mysterious new age acid rock music.  I used to listen to them far more regularly.  Recent happenstance motivated me to pull a set of Yes CDs from my collection and spend many hours revisiting this wonderful, unique music.

Fragile by Yes (1971) was one of the first albums I ever bought.  I was maybe 13 and I liked their hit song “Roundabout” (hearing it on Top 40 radio stations for a couple of years) so I bought the album.  Of course, the LP version of  "Roundabout" was a good bit longer than the single I had been hearing.  I was literally amazed that this was the same song yet with all these really cool extra parts added.  It changed my young perspective on music.

I remember having mixed feelings about the tracks, however.  Some were so foreign to my (in)experience that I found them unrelatable.  But I enjoyed it well enough to buy Relayer (1974) when it came out.  I was 15 and the album was so strange and powerful that it blew my mind.

After I got to college I became better acquainted with Yes.  They were one of my most favorite bands well into my twenties when their music morphed into pop and became less interesting to me.  Their good stuff all sounded the same in my head at the time.  A later attempt by the band to redeem the past with a series of more “classic” type albums in the 1990's was like drinking a Coke gone flat.

But that did not change the original experiences I had listening to the band in high school and college.  They were an important rock group.  Across the board, they featured some of the the most gifted musicians throughout rock music.  So, back in 2003 when “newly remastered” versions of the original 1970's albums came out, I bought all my favorites.  Six consecutive albums that feature some masterpieces of long, themed instrumentals and uplifting lyrics of a metaphorical nature.  Yes created and celebrated intense, unique music intended to move the listener with an implied spiritual dimension.

The Yes Album (1970) features three “core” classic Yes members, all virtuosos in their craft.  Steve Howe on guitars, Chris Squire on bass, and Jon Anderson on vocals are extraordinarily talented.  You hear their future potential with flashes of greatness on this album.  Bill Bruford is magnificent on drums, more of a jazz drummer playing rock, cool and distinctive.  He would remain with the band for the next couple of albums.  Tony Kaye covered keyboards.  

“Yours Is No Disgrace” starts things off, a driving almost 10-minute song that still sounds great.  Its expansive format was experimental but proved to be a natural fit for the band's immense talents.  This remains one of their best songs.  “Starship Trooper” is a strong 9+-minute piece featuring several named sections, an early representation of how the band attempted to craft stories both lyrically and musically.  This is the album's best offering and it was the most influential on the band's future direction.  (See a great "first reaction" video here.)

“I've Seen All Good People,” a memorable song about chess of all things, is a fine example the softer lyrical side of the band before shifting up into boogie mode for its second half.  “Perpetual Change” was an early fan favorite, sophisticated with multiple sections.  It always seems to me that they are just noodling without the cohesion found on the other tracks.  Nevertheless, this is an amazing, breakthrough album for the band.   

Yes is infamous for their casting changes throughout their 50-year career though things got far more confusing after the period I am addressing here.  Kaye would leave the band after this album, to be replaced by Rick Wakeman.  This turned out to be just the extra ingredient the band needed for Fragile, which launched Yes into super-stardom.  

“Roundabout” got the popular attention that made the band an international success.  I really enjoyed this song in my pre- and early teen years, especially the LP (longer) version of it.  An awesome song that really grips you as a listener.  The sophisticated yet accessible energy created by the band here is so rich. (See really great recent "first reaction" videos for "Roundabout" here, here, and here.  It is so much fun seeing these younger people feasting on this music for the first time.  They are amazed.)

A lot of the album features tracks by the individual members.  Wakeman performs “Cans and Brahms” which offers a variation based upon a movement from Brahms Symphony No. 4.  (He was under contract to another record company at the time and could not legally compose original material for/with the band yet.)  Anderson shows his incredible multi-track vocalizations on “We Have Heaven.”  Bruford confused my young mind with the percussion-driven nonsensical “Five Per Cent of Nothing.”  Howe shows his classical guitar chops on the very accessible “Mood for a Day.”  Squire is superb on “The Fish” which is a musical continuation of “Long Distance Runaround,” a fun song and crowd favorite.  

Squire was also the driving force behind “South Side of the Sky” which many Yes faithful hold in high esteem.  The moody song never felt like it all fit together for me.  But “Heart of the Sunrise” left me speechless.  This was magnificently inspired music that was really more than my youthful brain could comprehend.  Through the subsequent decades “Heart of the Sunrise” has lost none of its magic for me.  One of their best tunes, this large-scale 10 and half minute masterpiece is another evolutionary step taken toward the larger scale material to come.  Though all the band contributed to the development of the music while recording, the trio of Anderson, Howe, and Squire already formed the solid core guiding Yes.

With Close to the Edge (1972) all the multifarious pieces came together.  These five musicians were certainly among the finest to be found in all of contemporary music.  Each was a master of his craft and all show it on an 18-minute masterwork,  “Close to the Edge” (CttE).  I was staggered by this music when I first heard it in college many years after its release.  CttE actually contributed to my interest in classical music back in the day.  At the time, I saw little difference between what Yes did on this song and a classical symphony.  

It has the structured nature of “Starship Trooper” but it is far more ambitious.  Astonishingly, no matter how many times I listen to it, CttE remains an immersive musical journey every time, a piece to be invested in with an open imagination.  It isn't party music.  This is sit down and listen to it music.  (See this composer's reaction to hearing the piece for the first time.  Great stuff!)  It captures the remarkable beauty, spacious complexity and raw chaos of experiencing the natural world. 

The band creates a vast restful space in the middle of this piece.  A large church organ explodes this magic and transitions by various keyboards into a marvelous triumphant climax.  CttE is an amazing sonic experience.  I have sat and listened to it probably dozens of times in my life but not lately.  I just kept listening to it over and over recently.  They nailed it here, no doubt.  It's brilliant.

On the flip side of the album is another favorite Yes song, “And You And I.”  This stunningly beautiful song creates a different sort of space and vibe but no less vast, only now made more intimate.  This is a powerful, uplifting 10-minute piece of music.  It is followed by “Siberian Khatru” which  understandably feels like filler compared to the rest of the album.  It has a nice groove though, if a bit overblown.  Bruford quit the band after this and Alan White became the Yes drummer.

Overblown was originally how many critics (and myself) felt about the next Yes project Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973).  Pretentious and excessive also come to mind.  This double-album set features four epic songs, each trying to capture some of the magic in CttE.  That was expecting too much.  And yet much of what transpires throughout this ambitious 84 minutes contains flashes of brilliance as we had on The Yes Album.

Part of the struggle many have with this album has to do with the simplification (but not subdued) of the keyboards stemming from fact that Wakeman had no desire to perform these overly long pieces.  Anderson and Howe felt they were on to something though.  

Anderson got the idea from a footnote in a book by a Hindu yogi regarding four scriptures relating to religion and life (one song for each scripture).  Howe had a multitude of musical ideas to play with Anderson's mystical lyrics, the band worked out the rest of the music as they went along in the studio.  Though he contributed to the creation of these pieces, a disgruntled Wakeman was not adventurous and refused to perform any of it live.  He left the band when recording finished.  In 1973, the new Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz would tour the material Wakeman previously recorded.

None of the songs were written before they were recorded.  They were literally written as the band experimented in studio.  The same thing is true of “Close to the Edge” but this time, putting the pieces together in the editing room didn't yield the lofty results Anderson and Howe anticipated.  

Actually, revisiting this material after a pause of many years I am more impressed with it.  I was always agreeing with "everyone" that this was too much Yes and the band lost its way trying to make a grand concept album.  Listening to the music now, however, is as if I've never heard it before.  These four songs are almost like new Yes material in my mind.

Anderson and Howe were creative enough to see a possible epic grandeur to it all and it is a valid attempt.  I ended up over the past few weeks listening to these four massive pieces more than anything else on this collection of albums.  Some days I would just listen to them over and over again.  The best of the bunch is the 22-minute “The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn).”  This song was fresh and exciting for me and it deserves to be considered among the best classic Yes material.  I like pretentious indulgence more than I once did.

Relayer followed in 1974.  I was aware of the band and bought the album at the local Five and Dime when I, unexpectedly, discovered Yes had put out something new.  Relayer made an enormous impression on me at so young an age.  I had not even read Tolkien yet nor discovered the concept albums of Pink Floyd.  That was all still in my future.  

I listened to Relayer over and over on my parent's old console stereo which was moved into my bedroom.  In my childhood innocence, craving something more, I listened to Relayer almost every day for months.  I had few record options back then, I hardly owned anything.  I listened to it many times before hearing either Close to the Edge or Topographic Oceans.  So my personal experience of this band was originally disjointed, out of chronology.

The 22-minute “The Gates of Delirium” is the summit of Yes.  There are plenty of debates online as to whether CttE or “Gates” is the better song.  (See the same composer as on CttE above react to hearing "Gates" for the first time.  He is practically speechless.)  Mostly, CttE is preferred.  I can't argue that it is not deserving to be so.  And yet my vote is for “Gates.”  This song is absolutely as incomparable as CttE.  You will never hear anything else like it, another truly astonishing sonic experience.

Based upon Tolstoy's War and Peace, the band produces another sectioned masterpiece, more unified and far more intense than CttE.  That is a turn off for some, but for me it pushes things as far as Yes could while still pulling off an unparalleled musical achievement.  Behold!  Prog rock at its best, an extended musical exploration of the anticipation of battle, the horrors of battle itself, and the aftermath.

And what an aftermath!  “Soon” was released as a single in 1974 to try to garner more airplay.  But here in “Gates” it is this wonderful expanse of space and clarity slowly manifesting out of the chaos of battle.  It is the culmination of a fantastic and horrific adventure, easing into an ironic peace.  The bi-polar extremes of “Gates” are one reason I prefer it to the more gentle and accessible CttE.  

Each band member contributes to this triumph of music.  Specifically, Moraz masterfully covers for the missing Wakeman and White powerfully handles the void created by Bruford's exit.  It is all incredible to hear.  Roughly divided into three 7-minutes sections, the third part is just...you have to hear it.  This is optimum Yes.  In my teens, I would listen to this laying back in my bed, eyes closed, imaging.

I always put “Sound Chaser” on the same level as “Siberian Khatru.”  It sounds like filler to me compared with the other stuff on the album.  Once again, it is strange, interesting, a bit of an adventure, and even has a groove to it. I never really connected much with this song and I still don't.  “To Be Over” is a 9-minute fantasy piece, a slow celebration.  For a long time, this was my favorite song on the album, before I comprehended the greatness of “Gates.”  This is a wonderfully gentle, mystical, flowing piece of music filled with unconditional love.

By 1977, Moraz was out and Wakeman returned.  During the intervening three years Yes toured a lot while each artist pursued solo careers, of which Wakeman was probably the most successful with his Journey to the Center of the Earth and Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. When the team reassembled they had no overarching concept to be fleshed out in numerous studio sessions.  Instead this material was all more fully composed before recording started.

The result was Going for the One (1977) which I remember buying at the same Five and Dime store during the summer before I started college.  All these tracks are engaging and uplifting, captured with a high-degree of craftsmanship.  “Going for the One” has all the regular Yes multi-layered magic with a funky rock beat.  “Turn of the Century” is one of my personal favorite Yes songs.  It is simply exquisite and tells a fabulous romantic story.  Here Yes exhibits how they are equally adept at taking the soft and gentle path with a marvelous crescendo.  To me, the song feels like it captures light itself and sounds just as fresh and remarkable today as when I first listened to it 44 years ago.  

Originally, “Parallels” was my favorite tune on the the album.  Wakeman's organ, Howe's electric guitar, and Squire's bass provide a strong, head-bopping backbone to this strong musical exploration written by Squire.  The song still holds up well but these days I prefer other material off this album.  “Wonderous Stories” is another short, catchy tune by Anderson which is a crowd favorite along the lines of “Long Distance Runaround.”

“Awaken” is a splendid attempt at a “traditional” Yes long mystical composition.  At 15 and a half minutes, this seems to be the one tune off this album that most Yes fans still rave about today.  Sort of like with Topographical Oceans, I didn't particularly like this piece when I first heard it.  Only later did I come to appreciate its unique, sophisticated power.  Still, it feels a bit like they are trying to replicate CttE and the song isn't that good.  It marks Yes's last successful foray (in my opinion) into lengthy composition and rewards the effort made to get to know it.

I continued to buy Yes music up through Drama (1980).  After that they fell off my radar for over a dozen years and I was on to other stuff, including a lot of classical music, which I had not listened to that much at that point in my life.  Yes went on to become a pop music sensation for a few years with hits like “Owner of a Lonely Heart” before losing steam.

 
In the 90's they made many failed attempts to recapture the past magic that is best represented on this set of six CDs.  They came closest with “Homeworld” off The Ladder (1999).  Through those many years everyone except Chris Squire left and came back, inter-switching with still more artists not mentioned in this post.  Yes has one of the most confusing group member chronologies of any band in rock history. 

One of the highlights of classic (and, later on, post-pop) Yes were the distinctive paintings of Roger Dean.  In this regard, Tales from Topographic Oceans was, perhaps, the best album art of all the Yes discography. Here, I unfolded the 2003 remaster CDs to reveal the paintings.  At the top is Fragile followed by Relayer, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and the inside cover art for Close to the Edge.  As revealed in the CttE work, you can see that the discs were printed to match the original labels of the vinyl LPs.

Back in 2003 I bought these six CDs because they are the heart and foundation of the band.  The remastered sound is fresh and vibrant in my Bose headphones, which is as close as I can come to sitting in front of those console speakers.   Listening to them these past few weeks has be a wonderful immersive experience, stitching old memories together, hearing this great band.  

Each CD captures the look and feel of the original album art.  Each disc is designed to replicate the original vinyl record label and comes with a special booklet of album photos, art, and a short essay on each album.  These are well-done and I am grateful I have them to listen to anytime.  They are old friends from a simpler time.

Each disc also contains bonus tracks which offer rehearsals, alternate takes, other songs recorded but not placed on the albums.  The most significant of them is the full-length version of Yes covering the Paul Simon song “America.”  Previously, it was released on the band's first compilation album, Yesterdays (1973), which I had owned in college but traded away before I went to India.  In 2003, the complete version was released as a bonus track on Fragile.  

Personally, I don't like this cover but the band (particularly Anderson) was certainly into the song back in the day.  Going for the One has a cool, rough rehearsal version of “Turn of the Century” that is worth a listen.   That CD also features “Eastern Numbers” which is an earlier version of “Awaken.”  It is interesting to hear how the music evolved as the band continued to refine these songs in studio.

I have a bunch of other Yes albums, some of the solo works by the band members, and off-shoots like Asia.  1979's The Steve Howe Album, for example, introduced me to the wonderful second movement Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D, which is a good example of how my interest in the band morphed into a broader interest in classical music.  In fact, I would venture to say that the “classic” Yes material mentioned in this post has more in common with classical symphonic music than it does with progressive rock music.  Yes was truly an early enabler for my now expansive interest in classical music.  

Along those lines, Magnification (2001) was the last CD of new material I purchased by Yes.  It features the San Diego Symphony filling in for the vacant (again) keyboardist spot.  Although the songs "Magnification" and "In the Presence Of" are both worthy efforts, this time I found most of the tracks to be just variations on the same well-worn musical ideas.  Yes played so distinctively for so long that they became, for me, a cliché of themselves.  

Sometime during my circa 2003 re-obsession with the band I also purchase two DVDs of Yes in concert. By the middle of the first decade my interest in Yes waned until this recent revival of my obsession.  Symphonic Live is the 2001 tour promoting Magnification.  It features the European Festival Orchestra adeptly filling in for the keyboard sections of many great Yes tunes including ambitious full-length renditions of "Close to the Edge" (on Youtube presented Part One and Part Two) and "Gates of Delirium" (also in Part One and Part Two).  

While I applaud the effort, neither of these versions move me much.  It is a lot to tackle and your expectations need to be adjusted accordingly. Still, watching it again recently, I enjoyed this experiment with live orchestra.  The best rendering seemed to be this version of "Starship Trooper."  This is a two DVD set with the second disc being devoted to an interesting documentary about the background to Yes's "symphonic era."

The other DVD is Live at Montreux videoed in 2003.  This brings together again the original classic 70's Yes line-up including keyboardist Wakeman.  Here we have splendid offerings of "Heart of the Sunrise" and "And You and I."  Once again, however, the extraordinary virtuoso studio performances set such a high standard that, for me, these live renderings are slow, less distinct and not as intense of the magnificent originals.  Of course, the performers were much older at the time, which contributed to performances. Nevertheless, I'm glad to have this visual document of the band's best members working together in a live setting in the 21st century before an adoring audience.

Yes is unquestionably one of my all-time favorite bands and re-experiencing their music has brought back a flood of good memories and of positive musical enjoyment.  Their unique sound has a densely packed potency compared with today's k-pop, hip-hop and low-quality MP3 driven music world, reflecting a more innocent, optimistic time.  And yet, the Youtube reaction links I have scattered  throughout above serve as testament to how great this music remains compared with the contemporary music scene. 

But also, this outstanding music reveals what is possible when extraordinarily talented musicians get together and push the boundaries of what is maintream at that time, becoming wildly successful in the endeavor throughout the 1970's and beyond.  This music is genuine Art.  It is hard to believe that Fragile is 50 years old!  As the reaction links above attest, this music is as fresh and joyful as ever.  All of the Yes music from this time period is truly timeless.  As an unexpected surprise for this year, I can see myself continuing to listen to Yes regularly again.  You only live once and these guys are way too talented to be partly-forgotten.

My “Top Ten” Yes songs put “Close to the Edge” and “Gates of Delirium” tied for first place (it really depends of whether you are in the mood for something expansive or something intense), “Heart of the Sunrise” in third, followed by “And You and I” fourth, and “Roundabout” fifth.  I put "Starship Trooper" sixth, "Turn of the Century" seventh, "Yours is No Disgrace" eighth, followed by "Revealing the Science of God" and "Awaken."  If a few of these songs are all you ever hear of Yes then you will know the 1970's version of the band (the best version) well enough.

My recent renewed interest in Yes prompted me to purchase a new tee shirt.  I chose a "sublimation" shirt featuring the album cover from Relayer.  I was not aware that the shirt would be so "red-shifted" compared with my original album cover.  All the greens are tuned to red instead.  Bummer.  The greener album cover hues would look better on me.  Oh well.  Next time I'll stick with a black shirt with the album cover printed on it.

It is still a cool shirt though, even if it doesn't match the original album colors.  Another fantastic painting from Roger Dean.