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

I agree. To me the production on most of this album sounds sterile and antiseptic.

 

Going for the One is my second favorite Yes album
Awaken and Turn of the Century are the stuff of magic.
This is in high rotation

Tormato
The last good Yes album for me
I think there are too many throw away songs a few even repulsive
But Silent Wings of Freedom and Onward are vintage Yes

 

Tormato has among the worst cover art of any major-label pop music release.

I remember seeing rows and rows of rows of that album for 99 cents in the cutout bin.

 

I must have quoted him instead of the person he quoted, by accident. Oops.
No one argued with me, which is good, because even though most will disagree, it's only an opinion.
I also don't care for the iconic Yes logo.

I think Tormato and Going for the One have great covers. I've never just been a fan of Roger Dean's style of artwork, but I generally love the Yes music within. Magnification's cover is another one I like as well as the music within.
It's the last Yes album I care about.

Going for the One is classic Yes music, although Howe's tone on the rockers is a just a little bit irritating to me at times.
Tormato is also full of good songs. I don't mind the Howe/Wakeman battle to supply the most notes. I just think the mix isn't that good, as they both seem to lay on top of the rest of the music instead of existing within.

 

GFTO

It challenges direct as I see young stars assemble

 

Play it and you'll feel better.

I like the album myself.

 

I am not an Yes expert. Being a Yes fan I prefer "Tormato".

 

I just listened to Tormato for the first time in ages. Very enjoyable! I'd take Side 1 of Tormato any day over Side 1 of Going for the One (despite the lovely "Turn of the Century"). And people bash "Circus of Heaven" but it's worth it just for Chris' tasty bass work in that song.

 

"Whoever designed the cover was very cheeky" I see what you did there

 

Couldn't agree more. My favorite Yes album cover. Perhaps my favorite musically too.

 

I don't really care for the "suited guy with drumsticks" photo, but the tomatoes are great!

 

Either way, it's just too bad that Yes didn't take a hiatus immediately following the "Tormato" tour. I often wonder what could have been if they had time to recharge their batteries and take a break from touring and recording. As a Yes fan, I've never understood how a band could manage to release a catalog as strong as theirs from 1970-1977 and then spend decades fumbling one lineup after another with very mixed results in the studio and on stage.

 

Going For The One - Greatest album of all time

Tormato - This release saw the band continue in their progressive manner in a way that no other bands were doing in the late 70's. Very creative, with Squire and White never being more on top of their game. Love it.

 

Hell yeah. Down and Out, Burning Rope, Deep in the Motherlode and Undertow are all great Genesis tunes. It's not the best album Genesis released as a trio - that would be Duke - but it's still a fine record, even if it does have some throwaway songs.

 

In Chris Welch's bio, there's a clear cut observation from Bill Bruford in regards to post 70's Yes and his thoughts were, to paraphrase, that Yes were guided by money. Be it managers, lawyers or even the musicians themselves, regarding the various lineups and changes the band has gone through up to the present day. In my opinion, based on what I've read or heard in interviews, dating back to the Drama era with the Buggles, when Wakeman and Anderson left in '79/'80, then-Yes manager Brian Lane had a 3 month tour booked in advance and of course, what was left of the band(Steve, Alan and Chris) had continued working on what was to become Drama and they needed a quick decision for replacements in order to fulfill the touring commitments.

Despite the haphazard idea, I feel that this ad-hoc version of the band worked well, at least in the studio. I know live, Trevor Horn had a dismal memory of filling Anderson's shoes and while the shows in the States went down well, when they played England, the fans weren't having it. They probably should have taken time off when Jon and Rick decided to split, but it's possible that maybe the guys in the band didn't save money or invest properly and it could be a telling sign of why they've had such a revolving door of musicians coming through the ranks. If you can't sell a ton of albums, touring is your only bread and butter, but the aesthetic that I've perceived about Yes is that they've always been inter-changing. It seems to be something that keeps them going. Notice the split in ranks with the formation of Anderson, Rabin and Wakeman and the current lineup of Yes with Howe, White, Sherwood, Jon Davison and Downes. Personally, I think they should all be as one, but I don't think Howe would extend much appreciation to Trevor Rabin.

 

Any Yes with Wakeman is at the very least good Yes. I love both albums.

 

Yes would probably have sold a lot more albums (especially to teens at the time), and beat Van Halen to the punch, if they would have named it Going The For One.

Also, who names an album, Tormato? It is Torerrible.

 

I know it would be a legal nightmare, but the current lineup of Yes is only a drummer different than the surviving Asia. I think they should do a set list of both bands on tour. That's my two cents on the current situation. As to the albums at hand, I have only listened to Tormato once in the 25 years I've owned it. Does nothing for me. I enjoy Awaken when played live. Wondrous Stories is OK, like the guitar parts, but nothing special. And Going For The One title song just annoys me. Seems like it's even too high for Anderson to sing. Not his best vocals IMHO.

 

I like GFTO more now than I did when it was first released; I thought it was an OK album but lacked the energy and power of Relayer.

I bought Tormato when it first came out and remember playing it over and over thinking that this CAN'T be Yes. It was the last Yes studio album I ever purchased.

 

The title track of Song of seven would have fitted well on Tormato instead of the imO poor Circus of heaven.
Added a few Yes ingredients here and there and it could have been a very good track for the album.

 

For me, GFTO is a highlight of the band's career - they were clearly revitalised with Wakeman returning, and Awaken is one of the best things they did.

The bottom end could do with a remix boost, and it's a shame the master multi-tracks are lost, because Steven Wilson wanted a shot a remixing it.

Tormato, along with Drama, were my first introductions to the band. Drama definitely cut it on first listen - wasn't expecting it to be so heavy - but Tormato seemed a bit lightweight by comparison. Some of that can be attributed to Wakeman's choice of synths, sounding more stylophone than mellotron, but clearly the band were running low on inspiration during the recording sessions. Silent Wings is good though.

 

Yeah the synths are not as powerful....or maybe as sophisticated on Tormato as previous albums...
I still very much like the album.
Tormato is a sunny day type of album.

 

I think the strong songs are On the Silent Wings of Freedom, Madrigal, Onward, and Release Release. Strange album in that all the players seem to be playing on top of each other quite a bit. Except for the two slower songs, it doesn't sound like they were listening to each other all that well. I suspect the usual late 70s reasons are why that happened.

GFTO is fantastic and fits right in with their best albums. No weak moments on that one with the possible exception of the Parallels lyrics.

 

I like the ascending keyboard bit on Arriving UFO, but the rest of the song? They needed to develop that one a little more.