Yes!? NO! - The all purpose Yes arguing and complaining thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Harvest Your Thoughts, Jun 27, 2014.

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  1. ledsox

    ledsox Senior Member

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    San Diego, CA
    Alan is hanging fine. I wish he would smile once.
    Steve's Roundabout intro change up is weird for me. Never heard him play it like that before but the rest sounds pretty darn good.
     
  2. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    I hope someone is recording this set. It's cut out a couple of times and I don't actually have time to watch now.
     
  3. zakyfarms

    zakyfarms White cane lying in a gutter in the lane.

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I believe it will be archived for later viewing.
     
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  4. Raynie

    Raynie Hyperactive!

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    Snortland, Oregano
    Don't hate or like 'em. They are sound technically but their music is cliche and unimaginative. Just my opinion.
     
  5. JimW

    JimW In the Process of Becoming

    Location:
    Charlottesville VA
    I've seen many critiques of Yes, but cliched and unimaginative? That's a new one. Hard to fathom how you arrived at that. Unless you're talking about post-70's output; I can see a case being made for that. But Fragile, CttE, Relayer... I'd like to know what cliches you find in those. And no matter how many times it's been done since, it can't be a cliche if you did it first.
     
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  6. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    Yeah, I guess writing 20 minute epics is a bit of cliche - most bands do that.
     
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  7. ledsox

    ledsox Senior Member

    Location:
    San Diego, CA
    They pretty much nailed Fragile tonight. Really enjoyed the main songs. The solo segments are a bit bizarre but they came off really well. Great Fish and Mood for a Day.
     
  8. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    I missed the first half of Brahms but what I heard sounded good. Even 5% sounded ok but the mix was pretty rough so it was a bit hard to tell.
     
  9. NorthNY Mark

    NorthNY Mark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canton, NY, USA
    Scott, I appreciate your perspective and don't want to keep drawing this out, but your position pretty much depends on your interpreting "faithful to the original arrangement" as being "note for note," and you have insisted pretty forcefully that those terms are synonymous. I disagree, and would contend that the quotation you offered, while not using the word "relatively," also does not claim note-for-note recreations, and I think my interpretation is supported by his statement that TK's parts "are very much period pieces, but [...] I try to remain faithful to the original recordings." Note that the aspect of Kaye's parts he specifically identifies is their "period" aspect rather than their relative ease or difficulty--he is being faithful to that old hammond sound and style from the album, rather than "updating" it with a more "modern" sound like RW might have. It is like what I mentioned before regarding "South Side of the Sky"--to me, GD is more faithful to the original recording than RW's was, even if RW didn't miss a note. "Faithful to the original recording" is a relative phrase that different musicians and listeners will interpret differently--I don't understand why you are so convinced that it has an absolute definition, or (consequently) that GD knowingly contradicted himself. I think he plays the parts more faithfully to the original recording in the ways that matter most to me than most other keyboardists Yes has used, even if I too occasionally notice what sounds to me like a minor simplification here and there--it is still faithful to the original in that it doesn't try to "update" the sound and atmosphere. I honestly believe that is what he is attempting to convey in that quotation, though given that you seem to prefer to think in terms of absolutes, I can see why you would interpret it as you do.

    As far as your lack of generosity in describing what you see as his failings, well, that's entirely your choice. It should be obvious that I have yet to hear anything from GD on this tour that I would even remotely think could fairly be described as "butchering" or "epic and cataclysmic failings," though I came at least close to feeling that way when I first heard RW's rearrangement of "SSotS," which was a rarity that I had been hoping to hear live for as long as I'd been a fan of the band. I'd so much rather hear a version with some minor (to me) missed notes than something that is, well, completely unfaithful to the original version. Perhaps if it had been performed as often as some other tracks, like "Roundabout", I would be less bothered by the lack of faithfulness and more open to experimentation (though I thought his choice in that instance was just about the worst he could possibly have made). Anyway, this is what I think GD intended to convey in the quotation you provided--that he would not make such drastic and especially anachronistic changes. I think he has kept that faith.
     
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  10. 24voltsdc

    24voltsdc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indianapolis, IN
    "Were talking epic and cataclysmic failings in some cases."
    Wow. You sure are more than a little melodramatic! Yeah we get it. You don't like Geoff Downes. :blah:
     
  11. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    If nothing else, this thread has taught me that some Yes fans are prone to massive overreaction, a lack of objectivity and some are also a bit bonkers.
     
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  12. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    I would take it as a valid argument, but would argue my point nonetheless. Relayer is a very interesting and surprising album indeed, with Sound Chaser as the highlight, but in my opinion it has its flaws, mainly in the compositional department, just like Tales. Anyway I can easily understand anyone preferring Relayer or Tales to Keys.

    However, I cannot seriously take a critique of Keys studio from someone, who lambastes it as not up to a Yes artistic standard and at the same breath lauds any of their other albums released in that period. If for someone Keys (or Wakeman playing) is too much Kenny G and not enough Coltrane, then let him/her be honest and apply the same criterion to "Talk", "Open Your Eyes", "Ladder" and "Magnification" (or the keyboard/orchestra work on those albums).

    I feel uneasy about this whole situation, because I really do not like to put down any music I do not happen to like too much. I stand up only to defend the Keys material, which has been unfairly maligned for too long. And indeed I feel that this sharp critique comes mainly from the fans, who embraced the new era Yes without major qualms, which all too frequent attacks on Rick Wakeman only confirm it to me.

    That is why, I am repeating it again, it would have been much healthier for everyone if they had had stayed with the Cinema moniker. Old school fans would have had occasional classic Yes reunion tours and albums (with Anderson and Wakeman on board), new rite fans would have had frequent Cinema tours (with whomever Chris Squire finds fit to play in that band), albums like Keys would have been dissected/praised/lambasted against the classic Yes output and Cinema stuff (and their live gigs) would have been dissected/praised/lambasted against similar AOR(-prog) music (e.g. Asia, Styx, Saga, Arena, Magnum, Toto, Foreigner), right where it belongs and could shine.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
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  13. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    I was unaware that people didn't like the Keystudio material. I've always thought it was great.

    I guess it's worth remembering that a lot of it was based on material from XYZ going back to the early 80s and elsewhere.
     
  14. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    Must say I don't understand the whole "they should have called themselves Cinema" argument. Four of the five guys were members of earlier editions of the band. Why should they be required change their name? Because they have a new guitarist and a different sound? What about 90s and 00s Yes, are they permitted to use the name? Personally I think 90125, while clearly an 80s-influenced sound, is in many ways more faithful to the Yes feel than most of what has followed.
     
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  15. jay.dee

    jay.dee Forum Resident

    Location:
    Barcelona, Spain
    Let me quote the analysis of the Keys material, which my adversary wrote on another forum, responding to my first attempt to defend it (Mark, I hope you have nothing against bringing up your post from a different site):
    http://www.progressiveears.org/foru...ur-kind-of-YES?p=275134&viewfull=1#post275134
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
  16. JimW

    JimW In the Process of Becoming

    Location:
    Charlottesville VA
    Really? You're just learning this? Never spent much time around Yesfans before, huh? :D
     
  17. Meng

    Meng Forum Resident

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. JimW

    JimW In the Process of Becoming

    Location:
    Charlottesville VA
    Every time I hear someone complain about the "cut-and-paste" way that TTI was composed, I wonder how they can forget that that was exactly how they created CttE (the song). While the transitions might not be as seamless as they are in CttE, that's due to execution, not the process itself. But combining a number of different compositions into an epic, i.e. songs within a song, has long been Yes' modus operandi. What that analysis seemed to be saying was that the writer did not like all the included songs and transitions between them.
     
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  19. vinylphile

    vinylphile Forum Resident

    Well that's what it always comes down to - whether the writer / listener likes it.
     
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  20. DLeet

    DLeet Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chernigov, Ukraine
    Exactly. The album was a revamp, just like Discipline for King Crimson. Different sound, but it was still faithful somehow to what the band was faithful to in the 70s.
     
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  21. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    If they were going to change the name from Yes. the time to do so was with Drama, and the departure of one of the last two founding members, who was their primary writer, personality, and visual focal point (along with Wakeman, who was really the second highest profile figure in the band).

    I vastly prefer Drama to 90125, but band names change more with personnel than with sound, and that was the key personnel change.
     
  22. JAG

    JAG Forum Professor with Tenure

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    how can you judge people because they have an opinion? my opinion on everything is the complete opposite of yours but I would never call you "bonkers". you take an anonymous music forum quite seriously huh?
     
  23. JAG

    JAG Forum Professor with Tenure

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    you do know kaye isn't on the album right? and had a keyboard player under the stage playing for him on the tour right? anderson was brought in after the album was finished to add parts? it has nothing to do with the sound it has to do with the fact the band themselves wanted to call it cinema until the corporate suits changed it for them. this was a rabin project with a new rythmn section that turned into yes from corporate
     
  24. Harvest Your Thoughts

    Harvest Your Thoughts Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    I don't judge people on their opinions. If your opinion is the opposite to mine, it would suggest you don't like a single Yes album.

    You must be confusing my posts with someone else if you think I take this forum seriously.
     
  25. JAG

    JAG Forum Professor with Tenure

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    "If nothing else, this thread has taught me that some Yes fans are prone to massive overreaction, a lack of objectivity and some are also a bit bonkers." - ramblin

    this thread has taught you some are a bit bonkers.....you judge people on this forum as bonkers based on this thread, THAT IS JUDGING PEOPLE ON THEIR OPINION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
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