Which Rabin-led Yes album is your favorite?

I am about to order Talk, but should i order the collectors edition or not? I am concerned about the possible compression and loudness issues. Advice would be appreciated. Thanks xx

 

Same for me. Big Generator is somewhere near the bottom of Yes' career in my opinion.

 

Two of my favorites which haven't been mentioned are I Am Waiting and Walls. No love for those?

 

Hearts is one of my favorites too - so powerful. Nice to see I’m not alone on that one.

 

Since ARW splits its set list between Rabin tunes and 70’s tunes I see this as a potential issue that affects the longevity of the band. There are only slightly more than 2 dozen Rabin songs to pick from. They can’t keep the set list stagnant indefinitely. Without a strong new album that they can tour behind, this year will likely be the end of the road. (I’m gonna get killed for posting this...lol)

 

I don't feel that album sounds at all dated. Big Generator does, mostly because of the horns, but I feel like 90125 is as fresh and lively today as back then. It has great ambience to it.

I'll bite: there's little need to rotate the Rabin-era songs. If we are being honest, a hardcore Yes fan that is going to see that iteration of the 'band' pretty much knows exactly what they want to hear. There may be 1-2 songs to swap out, but if you drop the core material, people are more likely to get angry than to lose interest. I am surprised at a couple songs they are playing, but those would be the ones that I'd expect to see rotated.

But for the band to open with Cinema and not play Leave It right after... That would just be too jarring for me. That's like hearing Eruption without You Really Got Me, Heartbreaker without Living Lovin' Maid, or We Will Rock You without We Are The Champions. They are just inseparable for me.

 

The original Victory cd is already on the loud side. I would approach any subsequent masterings with caution.

 

So, the original victory is my only option? I do so hate the loudness issues!!

 

90215.. I really liked that album a lot when it came out. I remember seeing a show in Philly from that tour, it was great. They played some old Bugs Bunny cartoons on a giant screen before the band played.

I also liked how Zappa used the Owner Of A Lonely Heart riff to solo over on his '84 tour.

 

You're not missing much with the bonus track if you go with the '94 edition.

 

90125 - B
Big Generator - B+
Talk - B-

I don't really consider this group to be Yes, and it wouldn't have been but for pressure from the recording label. Each album has good material; BG having the most, IMO. For the most part, I prefer this era of Yes to the ABWH/Keys/Ladder/Magnification era that succeeded it. I don't feel like there was any pressure for this group to "be" Yes, because the '80s was anti pretty much everything that '70s Yes was about, musically - so whether one looks at this as a continuation of the old band or a new band with an old name there really isn't any difference. They were doing their own thing and that thing wasn't '70s Yes. The ABWH/Keys/Ladder/Magnification version of the band had the weight of the pedigree and the hopes of a return to form to contend with. That version of the band mostly just reminded me of how far away from that, that they were.

 

Not a classic YES fan here, so, right, strongly favouring 90125. To be honest, it's the only YES Album i can enjoy as a whole (but i do hugely respect their skills in any musical term).
From Big Generator only Rhythm Of Love made it in my ears. It has a very commercial layout, ok, but it's incredibly fluent, powerful and catchy ... like Ownder Of A Lonely Heart.
(Never listened to Talk ... reviews had been too bad, sorry YES)

 

Talk is dynamic and perfect, as if Data from Star Trek TNG entered the Holodeck and ordered: "Play something in the style of how a Yes album would be nowadays".

I love it all from the Peter Max sleeve art to the intensity warning in the sleeve notes...

 

Well, if that request had been made in 1988 or 1989, maybe. . Whereas 90125 and Big Generator were very much "of their time" in terms of how they sounded, part of Talk's problem, in terms of getting people buy it, was that it sounded like a late '80s album but was released in 1994, after the landscape had completely changed.

And that wasn't even a new development - it had sounded like 1994 for a couple of years already...

 

Points taken but don't forget how with such penetrating insight the Star Trek universe has predicted the music of the future...

 

90125 got my vote. I like Union far more than Talk and think Lift Me Up is a good Rabin-penned song.

 

90125 is the obvious choice, but I do like Big Generator and Talk, although on a different scale. Big Generator's problem is that it had to follow 90125's huge success and I think it affected the songwriting in some ways. There's some great stuff to be found on it though, such as I'm Running, the title cut, Shoot High, Aim Low and Final Eyes, but it's just not a consistently satisfying album. Talk is a bit better than "Generator" if nothing else, on the strength of The Calling, I Am Waiting, Where Will You Be? and the Endless Dream piece, but the Rabin era is a totally different Yes for me. Not bad, actually very excellent and something unique when it works right, but I prefer 70's Yes overall.

 

If pushed, I'd probably say Talk, but I like all three a lot.


I've been known to have Shoot High Aim Low from The Word Is Live on repeat for hours at a time. It's just one of those songs.

 

Indeed it is. Puts the listener in a place described and defined by the music and lyric, but completely of your own imagination. Just love that song.

 

Big Generator, but 90125 got me into Yes.

 

So I would say that if you put Talk up against Dream Theater's Awake or Rush's Counterparts, which were the peer prog albums of that time, it holds up. Is it lighter? Yeah, but where it rocks, it rocks hard. But Yes were never about rocking hard. So in that respect, I feel that the ambience, and dare-I-say 'world music' vibe make it a timely album.

Love love LOVE Lift Me Up. I just know that Union has so much baggage associated with it that I didn't want to go down that road with this thread. I also love Saving My Heart, even though I understand Rabin was not happy with the final mix.

 

"Holds up" in what sense? It certainly doesn't sound anything like them, either in terms of the production or the style of music. Awake is a heavy metal album and Counterparts was Rush bringing back the guitars, to keep up with the times.

I'm not saying that Yes had any obligation to change their sound to adapt to what was current in 1994 - I'm sure plenty of people would have been thrilled if it sounded like a '70s album instead of an '80s album.

 

Close between 90125 and Talk but I have to give the edge to Talk. Mainly because musically it’s Rabin’s proudest moment with the band (he’s on record with that) and it just rocks. It came out at a bad time for “classic/prog” bands at the height of grunge/east/west coast hip hop. But those on this thread that haven’t heard Talk need to. Only then will you be able to truly see Rabin’s brilliance.

 

Totally agree.

 

IMO, there really isn't much connection between 90125 and Big Generator. Yes, BG was obviously intended as a follow-up, but the musical landscape had changed so much in the four years between fall 1983 and fall 1987 that all the momentum built up by the former had long since dissipated.

And while I still love 90125, I find BG hard to listen to. The main reason is the drums. The drums sound like someone hitting a thick plank of wood with a sledgehammer. There is zero subtlety to the playing, just endless thud-thud-thud impacting my brain, LOL.