The Yes Album by Album Thread (Part 2)

I like that bit of creative editing. The way it blast right into GFTO. I used to wonder about that segue.
Also like the "soul show tour jam" before Ritual. "Get that funk out of my face". The boys were having fun.

 

It's those little moments that show that Yes weren't quite as po-faced after all. Things like the tour song and covering songs like I'm Down, Purple Haze and Gimme Some Loving - not to mention a declaration of the love of reggae in the later years.

 

90125

Released November 1983
Produced by Trevor Horn and Horn/Yes on Hold On

Jon Anderson – vocals
Tony Kaye – keyboards
Trevor Rabin – guitars, vocals, additional keyboards
Chris Squire – bass, vocals
Alan White – drums, percussion, backing vocals

Some highlights of the songs-

Owner of A Lonely Heart(Rabin, Anderson, Squire, Horn)
Based on an A Minor power poppy chord progression that is very catchy. The chords are dropped thirds so it is tough to tell if it is minor or major. The melody is based in minor pentatonic. The riff stays pretty much the same over the verses and chorus. Lots of processing on the guitars including compression. The chorus deceptively moves to A Major pentatonic at various points. The song modulates to F at the tail. Great song.

Hold On(Anderson/Rabin/Squire)
A doo wop tinged mid tempo rocker in D Minor. Great chorus with Jon and Chris soaring. Alan shakes up the tempo with offbeat accents.

It Can Happen(Squire/Anderson/Rabin)
Starts with an Indian tinged sitar line in C Major. The chorus starts off the song. Chris plays a cool bassline which cements the song. The verse then shifts to a somber D Minor sound. The song playfully shifts between the somber minor and major sound. Great song mostly written by Chris. Some lines from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest under the guitar solo.

Changes(Rabin/Anderson/White)
Opens with some Brazilian type percussion which is always thought was in 14/8. In fact it is a crazy multiple meter of 4/4, 6/8, 4/4 and 12/8....shades of "Old Yes". Another somber verse in D Minor. Lots of minor key stuff on the album.

Cinema(Rabin/Squire/White/Kaye)
Won the band a Grammy for best Instrumental. Another minor key brooding piece with ethereal vocals.

Leave It(Squire/Rabin/Horn)
A song like this IMO was inevitable considering Chris Squire's love of West Coast Beach Boy's type vocal harmonies. Think back to his the opener on his solo album. Deceptively shifts key between C and D.....kind of like how Brian Wilson does it on songs from Pet Sounds. Killer song and a Yes favorite of mine.

Our Song(Yes)
IMO a very Steve Howe type song with Steve like riffs but the melody is very Jon like. Great chorus.

City of Love(Rabin/Anderson)
Starts out Beatles like then goes into a pretty standard power pop sound. Good chorus though. Not a favorite of mine to say the least. Some mediocre guitar fills IMO.

Hearts(Yes)
Another somber sounding D Minor based song. Starts out like it could have been a section in Awaken. Somewhat plodding but has some interesting sections especially the vocal harmonies. Jon's melodic style is all over the song. Possibly the most "Old Yes" type song on the album.

The band's reformation album after effectively splitting in 1981. Squire, Alan White and guitar player Rabin originally formed a new band "Cinema" and had recorded some of Trevor Rabin's songs to be released at some point. IIRC, they met via Rabin's attempt to land the guitar playing job with Asia. I suppose Steve Howe had some influence in getting Chris, Alan and Rabin together. Later, Jon got involved and liked the songs recorded by Cinema and the guy's eventually decided to release the album under the Yes name due to Jon's input on the songs and Tony Kaye rejoining the band after a long absence.

A great album IMO however, I was never a fan of Rabin's guitar tone.....very dated 80s compressed sound that was the rage back then. Great songwriter though and he was instrumental in helping the band gain a new wave of fans into the 80s and the era of MTV.

 

Not going to be able to offer much to the thread for a while now.

Other than to say it really rankles with me that it's the best-selling Yes album. That ain't right, and no-one will convince me otherwise.

 

90125 – a great record by anyone's standards; simply brilliant.

 

Owner of a Lonely Heart was a mixed blessing for Yes. On the upside it brought them high record and single sales, brought them new and younger fans and suddenly Atlantic records remembered where they had kept Yes' old royalty checks and belatedly distributed them to the group. On the downside, promoters often keep insisting they play it to this day, regardless of how it fits in with the rest of their set list.

I never really thought about Hold On as being an update of take on Doo Wop but when I think about it now I can hear the similarities. Frank Zappa had done a rocked up 80's take on Doo Wop around the same time with Doreen off You Are What You Is.

It Can Happen is one of my favorite 80's Yes tracks and I think it's a real shame that it's never been played live since '85.

The intro to Changes can be partially traced back to the group's early 1980 rehearsals when they were briefly down to just a trio. One of the rehearsal tapes from that time has a jam which has elements that were used later in Changes and I'm Running from Big Generator.

To me, Changes and Hearts sound like how Drama might have been if Jon had stayed.

Our Song sounds like a tighter, more focused version of the kind of stuff Yes were working on in '78.

Lyrically City of Love is really out of left field for Yes, it's so weird hearing them sing a rock song about Harlem street life and prostitution.

I like that they put a vocal only mix of Leave It out as a b-side, it's a total vocal arrangement master class.

The downside of 90125 was that it was the start of a lot of legal battles, record label pressure and band power struggles.

"It was the beginning of a golden era for lawyers..." from Neil Innes and Eric Idle's The Rutles - All You Need is Cash.

 

Sorry to see you can't participate for a while. Join back in when you get the time.

 

I did not think about how Hold On had that Doo Wop type vibe until a week ago or so. I was listening to a Doo Wop compilation CD around the time I was listening to 90125 and it hit me. The tempo has that finger clicking feel to it to my ears.

 

I watched the first few minutes of the clip and will finish it. What a great clip. Thanks for posting that.

 

No problem. The main point Horn makes is that he got Yes to unlearn a lot of their 70's habits.

 

Overall, the album has a somber tone to me due to the minor chord progressions, the melodies, harmonies and the production. Trevor Rabin IMO was probably the reason for the tone of the album since he was a major contributor to the chord progressions in the songs.

 

Frank Zappa - Bamboozled by Love live with a jam based around the Owner of Lonely Heart riff.

 

I loved Leave It and remember watching all of the different versions of the video on MTV. Those were the days when I had time to waste. I just wish they would stop playing Owner of a Lonely Heart in concert. It sounds terrible.

 

Steve Howe's thoughts on being more commercial in the 80's, both his experience with Asia and Yes' with 90125. He mentions being impressed by Changes once he finally heard more of 90125 beyond Owner of a Lonely Heart.



I've read some interviews with Steve from when he first joined Asia and back them he said he was frustrated that Yes never got to enjoy the kind of mega success that Pink Floyd enjoyed in the mid 70's with Dark Side of the Moon. He must have been really frustrated that when Yes finally experienced that with 90125 he wasn't able to be a part of it.

 

I thought about the possibility that Steve might have thought he missed the fun and success of 90125. This clip confirms that. He did pretty well with Asia though. Funny thing is, I think Trevor Rabin had more classical type training than Steve did.

 

Weird Al has some fun with the Owner of a Lonely Heart music video

 

And here's Beavis & Butt-head's take on it

 

I forgot about their riffing of the song. I think I will watch some of my Beavis and Butthead DVDs tonight.

 

Up next-

 

This is where I officially discover Yes, at age 6. My older brother owned 90125 on cassette and was heavily played for a good two years. I personally love 'Changes' & 'Hearts'. Very Yes sounding. 'City of Love' I like, but the arena rock style is very out of character for the band.

I have the LP, 3 CDs (80s ATCO, '02 HDCD, '04 Rhino) and the 12 Inches on Tape compilation. Hey Rose River Bear, you should review the '12 inches on tape' collection.

 

90125-- I still like it.

Working for WEA at the time, I got to hear it on vinyl right before release and we knew it would a big comeback album for the band. One of the great comeback stories in rock.
Listening to my RL vinyl promo tonight it sounds like a great sunshine pop record of the 80s (even with the minor chords) . It's so big and bright sounding.
It's a bit too 80s glossy at times but the ideas and playing are very good, even if they are simpler, and they shine through.

It's not classic Yes but it's a classic album of the 80's and to me it's very much a Yes album too.

I never heard that Rabin was in the discussion for Asia. He really brought the goods in replacing the great Steve Howe, but in very much his own style.
In Yesstories he says that he came up with the "Owner" bassline while in the bathroom. They really worked that song into a huge hit.
Great Trevor Horn stories in the vid posted above.

I was really happy that Yes was still going and I saw some some great shows on the 90125 tour. Just a few weeks ago I got a copy of a tremendous show I saw in Philly in Sept '84.
I like the first Asia album a lot, too. I see that album and 90125 as a nice pair of pop prog albums that hold up well today.

 

It's not so much time - got plenty of that on my hands these days - it's more about trying to put into practice what my mother used to say to me: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."

Suffice to say I'm not keen on what the band became during the Rabin years - though I don't blame him for that.

 

I feel the same way really. I look at it this way. If this was the first album produced by "YES" I would like it the same way I liked 80's bands. I like Tears For Fears but am I a fan, probably not. The album is a good 80's product. I saw the tour and was just lost really. The electronics coming up from under the stage, the lasers, the crappy way the old songs were played, and those costumes they wore. I really wish they called the band something else.