Review:

on 2011-03-07 CharlesMartel Said:

Would you believe that I won this in some stupid competition one night many years ago when the album was first released? Well, you have to understand how, after the disaster that was "Tales from Topographic Oceans", what would possess me to own another Yes album. And you can imagine how disappointed I was when I realised that my prize, for whatever I had done, was this. It may come as no surprise that at the time one of my Yes-loving friends offered to buy it off me. To this day I don't know why I didn't take him up on his offer. I think it was because the girl I was dating at the time had told me she loved "Wondrous Stories". Ah well, it could have been worse. Kiss's "Double Platinum" was also a prize.

The album gets the rating for "Awaken" and "Turn of the Century", though I can only listen to the latter sporadically. "Awaken" is one of those typically Yes overblown muddles which meander through various styles, tempos and keys in imitation of classical music, presumably in the hope that the members of Yes will be credited with the same genius as the greats of symphonic classical music. Some hope. Yet, for all the negatives, "Awaken" is actually listenable. "Turn of the Century" is similar, but tends to stick more to a single theme rather than running around trying to be something it is not.

The rest of the album sees Yes trying to mix prog rock with commercial intent. The result is totally unsatisfactory. "Wondrous Stories", despite the limited commercial success it enjoyed in the UK as a single, which was quite a novelty for Yes, is utterly nauseating. "Going for the One" is even worse - it sounds as if someone decided that Yes ought to try a bit of rock and turned up the bass. A friend of mine, who shares my disdain for the band, drew comparisons with the voices of Jon Anderson and Alvin the Chipmunk, every time I hear that song now I have these ludicrous visions of Alvin the Chipmunk, rocking with his air guitar to the sounds of this track.

Well, you have to laugh don't you. Next it will be Celine Dion's new album, "Celine Sings Burzum". The idea of Yes turning mainstream is so ludicrous it would almost make a good punch line in an episode of a second rate ITV sitcom. Having said all that negative stuff and cracked the jokes, I can actually listen to this at certain times which is more than I can say for the other Yes release I own, or indeed any other Yes release for that matter. But listen I do only very infrequently. I was never into prog rock and Yes epitomised all that was wrong with it.

The thing which annoys me about this album is similar to that which gets me about everything Yes have ever done, and I hate going on about but I have to. It is Jon Anderson's vocals. The man has no range beyond a semi-falsetto nasal whine. A few minutes of this and it begins to grate. I know, I know, the lyrics are pretentious pseudo-spiritual rubbish, but in the hands of a competent singer, a band could get away with this, well some of the time. The trouble is that the members of Yes were so far up their own arses it became comic.

I never understood while the musical snobs I was at school with thought Yes were so good. 30 years and some more later, I still cannot see why. Perhaps I was brought up on the wrong side of the musical tracks.
Rating: 5/10