Odds are you already have an opinion on Yes, and since you're reading this website, there's a good chance that your view of them isn't a favorable one. Despite the fact that a formidable portion of the music we love (anyone from Radiohead and Super Furry Animals to Hella) is directly influenced by Yes and their prog-rock peers, we tend to look at the early 70s through punk's distorting lens, and that lens shows us images of dinosaur muso wankers lumbering from stadium to stadium with comically oversized light shows and Victorian clothing (never mind that punk itself became a mill of convention and spectacle in only a few short years).
Of course, there's quite a nugget of truth to that image; on-again-off-again Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman staging his Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table album as an ice show alone demonstrates how out of hand things could get when the budget was too big and judgment was lacking. When you move beyond the pageantry and pomp, though, you're left with some pretty interesting music. Yes were the most popular and longest lasting of the quartet of bands that defined progressive rock in the early 70s. Genesis, ELP, and King Crimson were the others, and listening back to them, it's easy to see why Yes won out. For all their lengthy songs, virtuoso musicianship and softheaded philosophical musings, Yes were fundamentally approachable, even radio-friendly. Try listening to "Roundabout" or "I've Seen All Good People" without getting them stuck in your head. Of course, there's a certain ridiculousness to the grandiose Roger Dean artwork, would-be poetic lyrics (random sample: "Battleships, confide in me and tell me where you are!"), and multi-part suite naming formulas-- but then, that's part of why Yes got listened to in the first place.
Nevertheless, a past penchant for prog is a major skeleton in the closet for a lot of people, but as Rhino reissues the first eleven Yes studio albums, it feels as good a time as any to let the bones rattle in public. Feel free to forgo the band's first two albums with guitarist Peter Banks (we did), records that feature a band still finding its feet and occasionally hitting on something great, like "Astral Traveler", but often stumbling.
Yes had already released two albums, but 1971's The Yes Album was the record that put them on American FM radio and into millions of living rooms around the world. With guitarist Steve Howe on board for the first time, it also established the classic Yes sound, where essentially any instrument could take the lead at any time. Drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Chris Squire (the only member to appear on every Yes album) were a tight and angular, almost funky rhythm section by this point, while Howe's slashing guitar parts fit nicely into that mix. The two-part "I've Seen All Good People" is one of the band's best singles, while Howe's slow, spacey guitar build at the end of "Starship Trooper" is one of the great Yes moments. Howe also shows off his acoustic chops on "The Clap", a rollicking rag that bears little resemblance to anything else in the band's catalog (the original album version was a live recording, the reissue also appends a slightly crisper studio version). This album showcases Yes at their most concise, and is probably the best starting point.
1972's Fragile introduced Yes' highest-powered line-up, as the silver-cape wearing, 12-keyboard-hauling Rick Wakeman replaced the mediocre Tony Kaye. But the question is, what was "fragile?" Their egos? The battle between the perfectly balanced arrangements-- as on classic rock radio staples "Roundabout" and "Long Distance Runaround"-- and each virtuoso's need to grandstand, vented through five solo interludes (most memorably Steve Howe's "Mood for a Day")? All that firepower could have ruined the band, yet on Fragile, they put songcraft firmly over indulgence. The intriguing middle section of "South Side of the Sky" might've blown up like a laser light show had they recorded it in the late 70s, and even though the band had a knack for crescendos and flighty, eagle-centric lyrics, they were more likely to get high through chugging guitars and Bruford's precise drumwork than outright bombast. "Heart of the Sunrise" still holds up as a deftly constructed proto math-rock epic, and Jon Anderson would never sing a lyric as plainly as "I feel lost in the city" again.
The band's crowning achievement, Close to the Edge, contains only three lengthy "songs," but each one is an absolute epic. The title track dominates all of side one of the original LP, rushing in with a burbling, dissonant intro, Howe's jagged riffing and Wakeman's fluttering fingers building a dense, overpowering texture. Squire's bass in the majestic "Total Mass Retain" section could liquefy solid tissue at the right volume; it's almost impossible to believe it hasn't been made into a hip-hop sample yet. Most importantly, the title track has a sense of coherent progression, tension and release that most of the band's other side-filling epics lack. "And You and I" is arguably the ten most gorgeous minutes Yes ever laid to tape. It begins humbly, with twelve-string acoustic guitar, rises through mellotron-soaked crescendos, and then does it all again, building to a huge closing climax called "Apocalypse", essentially laying out the blueprint for Sigur Rós. That leaves "Siberian Khatru" to close out the album with nine minutes of hook-stuffed organ and guitar interplay, understated harmony vocals and more of Squire's chunky, front-and-center bass playing. This record is an essential document of just how powerful prog could be when focused.
It couldn't last. On 1974's Tales from Topographic Oceans, they simply took things too far. Anderson's lyrics (supposedly based on Japanese "shastrick" scriptures, wtf?) are pure astral hogwash, and even worse, they're printed so you can read them. The band seems totally disinterested in communicating musically, and each of the four twenty-minute compositions (that's right, a double LP with four songs on it) squanders its few inspired moments. "The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)" is the most promising, opening with what should be an exhilarating passage of rushing keyboards topped by a blistering solo from Howe, but new drummer Alan White can't keep up the intensity like Bruford (by then defected to King Crimson) had, and it collapses under its own weight. Likewise, a pretty choral verse intervenes toward the end of "The Remembering (High the Memory)", but comes too late to salvage the listless keyboard washes and lame noodling. It was exactly this type of excess that had fans saying "no" to Yes for the first time in their career. Even Wakeman was so disgusted that he quit after the album's completion.
Possibly to recoup their rep, Yes quickly made for the studio in the hopes of turning out another masterwork. However, in spite of the flashy musicianship that made Relayer a fan-favorite, the record is all but unlistenable to the rest of the world. Noisy and grotesque, it betrays some of the most atrocious taste of any Yes record. Temporary member Patrick Moraz shows up with his own bank of keyboards that sound even more tweaked than Wakeman's, and he pushes the band to garish new soundworlds; "Gates of Delirium" is a kind of nightmare children's book story about men (or elves? hobbits??) going to war. The band recreates the battle in a jaw-droppingly over-the-top instrumental that fades into a longing, eerie finale. That's followed by "Soundchaser", a vomit stew of jarring rhythms and bastardized funk climaxing with Anderson's infamous "cha cha cha" section. And "To Be Over" would've been pretty if they hadn't jammed it with instrumentals. Someone once told me that this is what they should have blasted at Noriega to drive him out of that nunnery; casual listeners turned their backs on this mess, while fans that could appreciate its dissonant, virtuosic extremes hid under their headphones and just kept basking.
After an extended hiatus following Relayer, Yes regrouped for 1977's Going for the One, bringing grand old ham Wakeman back to record an album of much fewer pretensions than anything they'd done since Fragile. Of course, that really meant only one 15-minute epic instead of four, but right down to the non-Roger Dean cover art, it signaled a new start for Yes. The title track, with Howe's great steel-guitar opening riff, did indeed reveal a band that still knew how to rock even if lyrics like, "Get the idea cross around the track, underneath the flank of a thoroughbred racing chaser," exposed their hippie-mystic trappings. However, Squire's "Parallels" and the Beatlesque "Wonderous Stories" forecast the band's 80s rebirth as pop stars. Furthermore, the album's lone concession to headier days and side-length symphonettes, "Awaken", was a fairly amazing example of how Yes could fuse new age sentiments and reverb-drenched tinker-bell soliloquies, yet somehow come out unscathed. Sure, it went on a bit too long, but in retrospect, it was a fine last gasp for a band concerned with "progress" in the 70s.
Perhaps inspired by the fact they didn't all hate each other after finishing Going for the One, Yes took the same lineup in for 1978's Tormato. However, even as streamlined song-lengths and a couple of attempts at pop crossover appeared, the band sounded desperate rather than invigorated. Primary offenders on an album among the most hated of all hated Yes records include the flat, rigid "Don't Kill the Whale", in which Wakeman managed to insert ridiculously baroque synth stylings into a would-be Greenpeace disco protest anthem, while Anderson pleads with us to "dig it." And whomever thought it was a good idea to invite Anderson's kid to twee it up on "Circus of Heaven" should probably have been fired on the spot. Oh right: it was Anderson, and he left right after this record. It's too bad, because relatively aggressive, driving numbers like "Future Times" and the fusion-tinged "On the Silent Wings of Freedom" weren't bad, even if the album's lack of punch throughout sucked the life out of most of the music.
With Anderson's and Wakemen's defections, Yes recognized that they could no longer continue in the same lackluster manner as on Tormato. At the end of the 1970s, the band finally felt ready to embrace a new era. A Buggles era! Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, possessing neat new synthesizers and actual MTV experience, joined for 1980's Drama, and paved the way for a decade of Yes at their most pop-friendly. The transition, however, was not an easy one. For starters, longtime fans weren't fooled for a minute by Horn's vocals, which didn't quite hit those high notes as easily as Anderson. Also, songs like "White Car" and "Into the Lens" just didn't sound like Yes, rather like Yes-influenced, overblown AOR fare. However, "Machine Messiah", "Does It Really Happen?" and especially the new-wave-meets-prog of "Tempus Fugit" were better than anything the band had done in years and, doubtlessly due to the Buggle-presence, sparkled with state-of-the-art production sheen. Of course, this lineup would disband shortly after the record, but lessons were learned and the next time Yes graced the world with an album, the world listened.
On Drama, Horn had simply attempted to emulate Jon Anderson, but by the time he produced 1983's 90125 for the (yet again) newly reformed and reconfigured Yes, he had become the synth-pop genius behind ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Zang Tuum Tumb label, and gets no small share of credit for reinventing Yes as a hit 80s pop band. The extensive drum and horn samples on "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and the glowing a capella on "Leave It" turned those songs into radio hits; but just when you think they've sold out, they write elaborate pop songs like "It Can Happen" or characteristically bizarre lyrics like, "This world I like/ We architects of life," or, "Your heart is inside your head." This line-up formed practically from scratch, bringing Squire and White back together with Anderson and the long-lost Tony Kaye; Trevor Rabin-- the only one who didn't bleach his hair-- completed the band with an 80s hard rock guitar sound that's the most dated thing about the record. Still, if you can handle the style-disconnect, 90125's songcraft makes it one of their tightest records.
Yes may have disappeared commercially after 90125, but they're still active today in varying lineups, and have a full nine subsequent studio albums that Rhino has wisely chosen not to reissue. The much-delayed follow-up to 90125, Big Generator, was a dud of spectacular proportions (in all seriousness: 0.0), and few of their subsequent releases are much better. For all intents and purposes, the band that tours now is something of a traveling history lesson, so it'll be interesting to see how hindsight treats them in another twenty or so years, when they've finally hung it up and rested on their laurels. For now, don't surround yourself with yourself and move on back a square. Yes would love to meet you.
