Yes - Going For The One and Tormato. Yes experts what say you?

I'm in a real minority here, but I never liked "Turn of the Century," which to me is where Yes really started going soft. After the grand concepts of TFTO and Relayer, a seven-minute tearjerker about a sculptor who brings his "lady" back to life? Surprised at how many Yes fans hate "Circus of Heaven" and love that. (Never liked the movie Ghost either!)

 

I don’t really look at Turn of the Century as Yes is going ‘soft’ or whatever that actually means. I look at it as an excursion into beauty and it’s inherent gorgeousness is what makes me close my eyes and take in all of the rapture this piece projects onto the listener. There’s a marvelous version of this piece on Keys To Ascension that made me go back and re-listen to it after years of just thinking it was ‘okay’. Sometimes that’s the way things work. Pieces that we don’t care much for from years ago all of sudden click and make complete sense. Simply put, I love Turn of the Century regardless of whatever criticism someone wants to hurl at it.

 

Going for the one is a great lp,don't care much for Tormato

 

The main problem with Circus of Heaven is the part where Jon Anderson's son is talking. I find this part to be too cutsey and annoying, though some people would say it adds to the songs charm and atmosphere. Musically, it doesn't do much for me either.

 

You draw some interesting "parallels" here, but to me the lyrical and musical approach to these two songs is completely different. "Turn" is pure gorgeous poetry in both words and music, while "Circus" is a misguided attempt to paint a portrait through a child's eye.

 

I'm not sure that there's anything particularly weird about songs like "Wondrous Stories" or "Don't Kill The Whale", their singles from this era. They're pretty conventionally structured songs with some nice instrumentation, nothing too flashy. Like a lot of the other progressive rock bands of the era, Yes seemed to reach maximum experimentation in '73 - '74 and then they pulled back and consolidated as the musical fashions shifted in the second half of the decade. Some bands were more successful at streamlining their sound than others (Genesis thrived while Gentle Giant failed, sadly).

 

Only the title track keeps GFTO from being as good as previous albums, IMO. I think it was a conscious effort to go back to a more melodic, less frantic approach than either "Relayer" or the spacier TFTO and I think it works very well in that regard. Sadly, the album is drenched in reverb and the songs deserve better production. I'm not sure why it sounds the way it does. "Tormato" is "Tormato". It's clearly Yes' worst album to that point, although I do like the tracks that bookend the album. But it's a heavily Jon influenced album and kind of foreshadowed the more twee aspects of Yes music that would dog the band through the 90s and 00s....at least for my taste.

 

Not much to add, agree with others here. GFTO is classic Yes despite the thin sound. A complete remix would likely be an ear-opener. Tormato is the sound of a band running on empty and getting on each other's nerves, the end of Yes.

 

There's a lot weird about both. I can give you some music-theoretical details for both if you want, although it's going kind of outside the scope of the thread.

 

I wasn't a Yes fan in the 70s, so my opinion may not carry the same weight.. (I was a youngin! Haha)!

But I love Going for the One. It's easily one of my most favorite Yes records.

Tormato is a mess but I dig a lot of it. Is it in the same league as the rest of the 70s records? no way. But It's a fun listen.

 

Yeah..that makes a lot of sense. Yes always got radio play in LA but I imagine anything from those 2 albums stopped being played quickly after the albums were released.

Yes is not a Hipgnosis band. Strange change. And not for the better, imo.

 

I don't think it's all that "ambitious" either. I do still think it is excellent though. And you may be right about the reason why it is rated lower by fans... (I'm not one of them, but..)

 

What about TYA and Fragile? They are two-thirds to the Yes Holy Troika!

 

This is just a hunch, but I think that some hardcore fans sort of look down on these albums because they were so successful and maybe a bit overexposed. "That stuff may be fine for a beginner, but Relayer is where the real action is."

 

I almost never listen to the actual the yes album as I find the live versions are way better of those tracks, I hate hearing starship trooper fade. and personally seen all good people is the worst of yes' known songs and way overplayed.

fragile to me has always been a bit mixed the actual yes songs are all great but the solo stuff is mixed and makes it a bit of a incoherent listen IMO.

 

Nothing could be MORE in the scope of this thread! Lay it on us.

I think a lot of people mock "Whale" and think it's weird because of the direct obvious hippie-dippieness of the lyrics.

I think TORMATO is an amazing record, yoking the strengths of this particular group of players to tight hard rock structures. I think "Arriving UFO" would do any modern Animal Collective-like "weird psychedelic" band proud, and blow them away. I wrote about my TORMATO love in the book LOST IN THE GROOVES, about unfairly neglected or ignored masterpiece LPs....

While I will say I love GTFO, despite having heard it like 30 times likely in life, I can't actually summon what any of the tracks besides title and "Wonderous" actually sound like by seeing title, but it all flows along lovely and strong to me when it's on.

 

I know for me at least, The Yes Album deserves all its hype and I think pretty much everyone agrees with that, however I'm one of the fans that believes Fragile is bogged down by the solo pieces, excepting Mood for a Day and The Fish. Gotta be honest, I don't really care all that much for Long Distance Runaround either. Though, I still think Fragile is really good, it does have Roundabout, Heart of the Sunrise, and I probably don't even have to mention the best track on the album, South Side of the Sky, but I personally wouldn't even put it in my top 5. I'd probably put it at 6 or 7, in competition with 90125.

 

Again, those songs are really only alright to me. Then again, I also think Drama is one of the weakest Yes albums, so what do I know.

 

Ok...to me it all revolves around melody, and accessibility. When Yes first starting getting airplay and success it was they combined the melodic sensibilities of artists like Simon and Garfunkel, and CSN&Y with incredible musicianship that was full of twists and turns. Take the song, Heart of the Sunrise, it starts off heavy...almost ominous, and keeps building and building. Then we get to the melody of the song. It's simple and beautiful. Then it absolutely soars. People can sing along to this melody.
After a frenzied back and forth between Wakeman and Howe, we are suddenly thrown back into the calm....and then this little swinging/lilting pop thing chimes in out of nowhere (about 8:05). Again, a simple melody with massive hooks that people can hum all day if they want. Wakeman's piano runs take us back to the main theme...again the melody here us absolutely stunning.

That three album run is chock full of songs like that. With Tales From Topographic Oceans, they started dissapearing up their backsides a bit. The melodies and playing starting becoming more frenetic and kinetic. Complexity for the sake of being complex. That's why I started forgetting what the songs sounded like immediately after hearing them. It was becoming harder and harder to connect with the melody.
I still don't know what Tormato really sounds like. It just slides ride off. That's the best answer I can give to your original question. They lost that magic combination they had. I still like the albums that followed. I don't like them nearly as much though. Nothing on GFTO really comes close either. That's my answer to your question.

 

Weird is relative. Rock bands had been dealing with ecological issues for years by the time "Whale" came out. The only thing that's unusual there is just how obvious the lyrics were, where in the past Anderson was more mysterious and inscrutable. It feels like a pretty conventional protest song. At least Crosby & Nash used actual whale songs in their ecological opus.

 

I was listening to Awaken last night and I realized it's really the culmination of much of their best work. I hear elements of Close to the Edge (middle part with organ build up) , The Remembering (climax), Gates... (ethereal ending), Roundabout (ending descending guitar figure). All built into another majestic masterpiece.

 

GFTO is very good. Tormato is ok. Both suffer from horrible production. Tormato has a demo quality that really hurts the few good songs it has.

 

I would agree, but at this point, they were just reworking the existing formula rather than boldly breaking new ground.

 

Huh? Awaken and Turn of the Century are as Majestic as anything on their classic three album run.

 

Pretty much matches my feelings about Fragile. Jon, Bill and Rick's solo bits were well-intentioned missteps in my mind that detract from the work as a whole. No doubt there's a bit of a subconscious "beginner YES" smug mentality to it as well, but then again I listen to the almost-as-overplayed Yes Album much more often than Fragile.