The Yes Album by Album Thread (Part 3)

By the time of Keys I had been a fan for about 17 years. What's that, 17 line up changes?
I was very happy THE Yes band got back together for this. Bruford was an amazing drummer but White was more Yes to me at this time.
Rabin was a great Yes member early on but Howe really is the Yes guitarist.
Anyway, Keys led them back into the 'late glory' period of the band. Most of that glory for me was seeing them put on amazing live shows from 1998-2004. Many stunning performances.
It's too bad Rick could not hang in for much of this period but Keys was really a welcome back Yes moment after what had happened with Talk, Teakbois, Union etc...

 

The live album is enjoyable, if you can ignore the overdubs and the splitting across two albums. The setlist was excellent.

Be The One is meh, and That That Is has grown on me over the years. I love Howe's opening three minutes or so.

After the Rabin years, this was a little more like it.

 

My ears were elsewhere during most of the stretch from the YesWest years through here. Friends of mine who live in San Luis Obispo raved about this concert, so I got Keys to Ascension immediately. I was disappointed in the live stuff - it seemed slow in tempo and mild in energy, though competently played. Howe in particular seemed to have lost a lot of his fire. The studio stuff was well played, but not very memorable.

It was OK, nothing to be ashamed of, but not really at a level with their classic stuff. I will give it another listen soon to see if I still feel the same way about it. I never got the second volume.

 

Finishing up disc 1 (probably won't get to disc 2 today) and I'm pleasantly surprised at these version of America and Onward.
America has a bouncier, more fun vibe than any of the version I've heard from the 70s. Perhaps it being cover frees them to loosen up a bit, I dunno, but I really really like it.
Onward replaces the bouncy organ sound (whatever the heck Wakeman was using) with acoustic guitar. I like Wakeman fine but Howe > Wakeman and guitar > keyboard and this song is so much improved here, allowing the listener to (re)discover the lovely melody Anderson provides.

The rest is like ok. Siberian Khatru has a kind of an odd mix or something and Revealing Science is and Awaken are fine but I don't think add anything to the original studio performances, and Awaken was never my favorite Yes pieces to begin with.

 

I really, really wanted to like it, as to some extent it is exactly what I had always longed for Yes to try to do since I first became a fan during the 90125 era and discovered I enjoyed their earlier work so much more. However, although I agree with RRB that the live tracks were very well done, I found the overall effort oddly disappointing--perhaps not as much as Union, but probably more so than the first ABWH album. I think the live album is hurt by only being half a concert, rather than the whole thing, so it feels fragmentary. As for the studio songs, I always felt like they had many of the right ingredients, but they somehow just didn't come together in a way that worked for me. I was actually pretty happy with "Be the One" at first, though its appeal faded somewhat over time. "That, That Is," on the other hand, was a big disappointment to me right from the start. I do really enjoy two of its parts: Steve's acoustic intro, and the "All in All" section RRB praised above. But to me, the main body of the epic feels dominated by the "Crossfire" section, and for some reason, that section is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Part of it is the infamously awkward lyrics about Shirley on "crack time." But even beyond that, the music feels almost equally awkward to me, with Rick sounding more like Rabin or Billy Sherwood than himself, playing what strikes me as a numbingly repetitive circus-like theme that feels mockingly inappropriate to the urban setting the lyrics try to evoke. The rest of the epic features some interesting moments, but I always leave with the impression that the acoustic part and the "All in All" part could have been made into something truly worthy of an "epic," but instead were awkwardly fused to what sounded to me like half-baked Union leftovers.

 

I think I enjoyed this live "Onward" better than the studio version as well, but I'm pretty sure the repeated motif is Steve (on electric guitar) on the studio version as well.

 

Excellent feedback. Thanks for the lists and the additions. My disc is pre-90125 and only non proper albums tracks and runs pretty nicely as a lost odds and ends album.
I'll have to search for the Drama Trio rehearsals. Don't think I have those.

 

The Keys to Ascension releases coincide with when the internet really took off and went mainstream and I enjoyed getting constantly updated information about it and reading fan opinions and reviews. The music, both live and studio didn't exceed my expectations but it certainly met them. I wasn't expecting something as good as '70 - '77 Yes material but I was expecting something better than Tormato, Union and Talk, on that front the material delivered.

With volume one, I thought Siberian and America were sounding a bit slow but I was very pleased with the versions of Starship Trooper and Awaken and was impressed by the inclusion and arrangement of Onward although it would have been better if they brought a guest on to play the horn part. Revealing Science was the big standout for me, I thought they really nailed that one.

Be the One sometimes sounds a little too close to Asia but I still prefer it to anything off Talk and That, That Is is my favorite later period Yes epic. It almost seems like I'm Running writ large to me and the intro and "These days..." sections are nice call backs to Turn of the Century and the I Get Up, I Get Down section of Close to the Edge respectively, without being completely derivative.

 

I wish the band had played a bit more together and gotten some of their respective chops back before KTA was put together. As mentioned Howe and Squire both seem to have taken the early 90s off and it shows on this collection. When you combine Wakeman's bad sonic choices you get a forced sounding collection here. The production values strike me as rather low by Yes standards. There is a fullness missing to the studio tracks.

Despite my misgivings, it was exciting that the boys were back, but the thrill was short lived.

 

Keys was a very welcomed change back. The live tracks here are terrific just like our thread host said. I think this is some of the last good studio material they wrote. Volume 2 gets weird with the vocals and lyrics (I am a big Anderson fab BTW). Not sure about the whole volume 1 and 2 then the video decisions but it is what it is. Too bad the intended tour got cancelled but in a few years we got a terrific return to form but it will become the last hurrah.

 

I was never sure of the repeating motif myself. I have not listened to it on headphones but it does sound like all guitar but it may be a loop?

 

I am glad to see others like the live version of Onward. The acoustic guitar does sound better to me also. Not a big deal but believe it or not, Chris wrote the entire song including the melody. It does sound like a melody Jon could have written though.

 

Until just a few years ago, headphones were my only way of listening to music (outside of the car). I think the guitar timbre is probably a bit more evident that way.

 

OK, I'll notice the elephant in the room:
I don't understand how Wakeman could leave so many times, it really was getting old by now.

 

I like Something's Coming from this a lot. Still don't know why it wasn't included on Yesterdays.

 

I don't like the live songs on Keys very much. After hearing the band filled out on the ABWH and Union tours, I thought some of the parts on Keys sounded thin (and a little slow). Song selection was nice. They sounded better on the Masterworks tour, Ladder tour, and the Magnification tour.

As for the studio tracks, Be the One was a throwaway - one of my least favorite Yes songs. It's just bad music.

That That Is has that spectacular Steve Howe acoustic part that should have given way to a phenomenal Yes epic. Instead, they got much of the rest of the song wrong. The mix doesn't work very well, and Jon's tough lyrics seem a little too exposed in that arrangement. The rest of the song has some interesting work, but it doesn't hang together as well as the first few minutes do. As a band, I think they sounded better and more together on the Keys II studio material.

 

I'll add the OYE tour. Better keyboard sounds were a major factor - arguably better keyboardists at that point, too.

 

I agree John. I think Chris Squire is awesome on that track.

 

Yes. I think Sherwood was a real asset as an extra vocalist, but I don't much care for his guitar playing. He's a much better bassist than guitarist.

 

I will be out of town for a few days. I will return with -

 

Hard to believe we have covered all of this-

1. Yes S/T
2.Time And A Word
3. The Yes Album
4. Yours Is No Disgrace Song Structure Breakdown
5. Fragile
6. Roundabout Song Structure Breakdown
7. Close to the Edge-Part I
8. Close to the Edge-Part II
9. Close to the Edge-Part III
10. CTTE Song Breakdown-The Solid Time of Change
11. CTTE Song Breakdown-Total Mass Retain
12. CTTE Song Breakdown-I Get Up, I Get Down
13. CTTE Song Breakdown-Seasons of Man
14. Yessongs
15. TFTO-Part I
16. The Revealing Science of God Song Breakdown
17. TFTO Parts II-IV
18. Relayer Part I
19. Relayer-Part II
20. Sound Chaser Song Breakdown
21. Relayer Part III
22. Yesterdays
23. Beginnings by Steve Howe
24. Fish Out Of Water by Chris Squire
25. Olias Of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson
26. Going For The One
27. Awaken Song Breakdown
28. Rick Wakeman-The Six Wives of Henry the VIII
29. Tormato
30. Drama
31. The Story of I by Patrick Moraz
32. Yesshows
33. Ramshackled by Alan White-Review by Mike B
34. 90125
35. Song of Seven by Jon Anderson
36. Classic Yes
37. Animation by Jon Anderson
38. 9012Live: The Solos
39. Big Generator
40. Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe
41. Union
42. YesYears
43. Talk
44. Keys to Ascension

 

Never heard KTA, dig Keystudio, but will have yo relisten to comment.

Didnt see much point in picking up more live stuff when I had the studio versions, and was not even aware it contained studio tracks until Keystudio came out.

 

I deliberately skipped Keys when it showed up. 2 discs, only 1/4 of which is new music? Pass.

One might have gotten the impression Yes was unable to create new material. One might have had that impression reinforced with Keys 2.

But I did spin it online some years later. And again today. And while my impression sticks, there are things to enjoy here:

The once-and-for-all departure of Rabin. Buh-bye!
The re-formation of classic players. Good, not great.
A pretty decent live recording. Even if I didn't really want one.
Some semblance of quasi-symphonic song construction. Noble failure, despite TTI.

This is too little too late. The guys are older at this point; the energy drain is evident, both live and in the studio. They're not the first band to find themselves out of step with the times, but from BG on they just didn't know what to do with themselves. Prog wouldn't sell; pop would be disrespected. Cramming the two of them together was quite literally a trainwreck.

All that talent with no place to go.

Granted I'm biased here, but Fripp has always been able to change stripes, absorb the various decades and come up with unexpected, uncompromising material. Yeah, less quantity than Yes, less visibility than Yes, and less avarice than Yes. But so much more music. King Crimson ANYthing is a blind buy for me after 45 years. With Yes, I gotta think about it, and sample it on Youtube, years after release. And then decline it.

Nice bits and pieces on most every later album, but they died upon delivering Big Generator.

Tell ya what though – if Yes was gonna slowly fizzle out going forward, it wouldn't be on Roger Dean. Yet another spectacular cover. Now that guy gets better with age.

 

Another Yes album I bought on the day of release. I loved the live tracks, on the fence about the studio tracks though. Be The One came off boring for me and That, That is, I could get into, but put off by lyrics.

I do have the KTA DVD. Worst. Editing. Ever. Thankfully the audio was well mixed, so at least I had a 5.1 mix of the concert.

 

Recorded over two (three?) nights. I hate that in concert vids.