Like most think the new song sounds pretty ok all things considered. I hear Drama Yes in this. Love Drama. The thing that strikes me most about this is the structure, noting too inventive or complex but strikes a nice balance between a pop and "prog" sensibility. Not an easy thing to do.... the instrumental "workout" at the end though is fairly limp and goes on too long. Amazing that Howe always sounds like Howe, he likes his octave unison lines.
So the idea is actually Francis Monkman's, and Geoff Downes accidentally nicked it. Not the greatest look for the band but they seem to have solved this quickly... New YES album "The Quest" out 1 Oct - Page 20
I'm excited about the new album because it sounds real good so far. And because it seems to continue the thread of Drama and Fly From Here, which to me are very strong albums.
Even though to me Jon Anderson is a key part of Yes, I thought Fly From Here was the strongest album they'd made in some time, particularly the title suite. I really prefer the version with Trevor Horn singing - I think I understand from reading this thread that some felt the mix of that version was not as good, but it's never bothered me. I guess I'm not hearing that same strength from The Quest yet based on its first track. Trevor Horn's writing and singing added a great deal to the albums you mentioned - he's not Jon Anderson but he's his own guy with his own style, vision, and strengths.
I agree 100%! Love FFHRT with Trevor - honestly I wished they toured it with him and Davison. Let Trevor sing Trevor and JD sing JA.
Squire's bass wasn't as present overall in the Rabin years as it was in the 70's in the sense that his thunderous rumbling was kind of put aside for a more streamlined and pop rock approach at times for lack of a better term, but he is still all over those albums. I love the fact that his voice was so prominent in the Yes harmonies on 90125, Big Generator and Talk. I love a song like Love Will Find a Way where there are harmonies all over the place and which voice is the most prominent varies from line to line. That was very well done.
I think there are some great bass parts on 90125 and Generator. Much less of that on Talk because I believe Rabin programmed most of the bass, maybe using Squire samples. Except on Real Love which Squire wrote, he seems all over that one..
The bass playing is really cool and different on those 80s albums. The whole band was able to evolve. Good or bad. Good musicianship. Trevor Rabin is a great guitar player. Really defined a new thing on those records with him.
Ice Bridge is a pretty good song. A pleasant surprise. It's sounds very "clean" though. It's almost antiseptic. Maybe it's the lack of Squire bass.
Nice that Geoff and Francis worked it out, but still... it being library music, doesn't Universal (who now owns Bruton) own it regardless of who composed it? And don't they want a cut now?
I dunno if it’s a bad look, seems to have been an honest mistake and if they credit him, no big deal.
Kind of a nice compliment, really, to have picked the same idea out of the stash. Plus, there will be a check! I'm sure there are no hard feelings... The band sounds good on this although Anderson is missed. They would have been better off with no video at all, though.
New tweets from Geoff: Geoffrey Downes @asiageoff 1) Hi, in regard to my earlier tweet and to put the matter beyond any further debate…The Ice Bridge is sourced from a Francis Monkman composition “Dawn Of An Era” (Bruton Music) which I mistakenly assumed as being one of my own library pieces. 2) It is a simple error on my behalf which I own up to. The YES track will now be credited as a Davison/Monkman/Downes composition. I trust this explains the situation in full, and there will be no further comment forthcoming. GD
I am guessing Downes knew that and is only owning up to it because he got busted. Unless he is that dense as to have thought that it was his piece of music already. Wow.
While it's great to see this apparently honest mistake settled quickly and without any perceptible drama (pun definitely not intended), one mystery remains for me... According to someone over at the Yesfans forum, Geoff followed Trevor Horn in marking potential ideas on reels with his initials and a number that would correspond what I can only assume would be an internal documentation system. For example, two tracks intended for a second album with Yes were originally released on the expanded reissue of Adventures In Modern Recording, and long before these formed the core of the Fly From Here suite, they were referred to as part of a TCH demo tape from the winter of 1980. This would mean that Geoff was looking through his old archive for an idea that would either similarly be named GD## or presumably brought in by another writer and marked as such. At no point in the retrieval, development, recording, mixing, mastering or promotional process did anyone think to check such a detail. Now, can we really believe that, or was that latest statement insisting there would be no further discussion of this matter his way of closing the door on us asking perfectly valid additional questions in order to clear up any lingering doubts? At the very least, the way he's owned up and amended the credits has to be admired, even if it was perhaps done out of embarrassment. Back to patiently awaiting the arrival of The Quest, which might yet be able to rise above the notion that all publicity is good publicity, regardless of whether this is actually the case or not.
This is what the tape box looks like. They've really been digging in to this over at progressiveears: No. 9 is the center of controversy (isn't it always?). I imagine him listening through the tape and going "crap, crap, crap crap, crap, crap, crap, crap... mmm, tasty!" and not worrying too much about what "Library Track" could mean.
Folks, listen to what you are saying. You are assuming GD did this in ill will. Why on earth would he do that? I’ve heard recordings i supposedly did 30 years ago ,where i today wont have a clue if i had written it or not. And this was even longer ago AND he’s participated in so many recordings since. Man i don’t even remember where i played a gig 4 weeks ago, when you gig every week it just becomes a blur. So no reason to cast GD as a villain.
As a songwriter myself, I can remember every single song I wrote and every one I didn’t. That said, when a good tune floated in from my subconscious, I had to convert it to long term memory. If you were working on the fly and quickly moving from one idea to another, I can see how you could forget. The short term memory quickly fades, so I can give GD the benefit of the doubt over this.
I'm sure you can. But it can happen. Let me bring to front a very similar story that happened some years ago, to Steve Vai: In 1996 he wrote and recorded a fantastic epic instrumental called "Fire Garden Suite" for his forthcoming album (an album which became "Fire Garden"). The first 3 minutes of this epic number was a piece of music he had already written down on sheet paper some years ago in the 80s. He found the sheet paper at home and decided it was a very cool piece of music he had written down, and decided to record it and expend on it, turning it into a 12 minutes extravaganza. When he showed the final recordings to some friends, one of them told him that the beggining of the piece was in fact an instrumental composition from the musical "Chess" ! Yet Steve was sure he was the author of the piece, as he had found a piece of sheet music written by him of it. What had happened ? This: While in David Lee Roth's band from 1986 to 1988, Steve was the musical director of the band and was asked by Lee Roth to work out and arrange different bits and pieces of musicals, to use as "interludes" during the live shows. One of them was an extract form "West Side Story", another was this extract from "Chess". So Steve actually wrote a rock arrangement of thoses pieces, to be played by the band. Years later when searching material for his new solo album, Steve stumbled upon the sheet music he wrote from "Chess", thought it was one of his own composition, and did the "Fire Garden Suite" track. He had no recollection at all that it was actually a cover of something already existing ! This is just to show that what happened to GD is something not uncommon with pro musicians. (In the end, on the final album, the epic 12 minutes piece is on two separated indexes: -the first part is called "Bangkok" and is credited to the original writers (the guys from ABBA ! ), and the 2nd part, segued, is credited to Steve Vai).