[Closed] Best Yes records

Close to the edge

agreed
Close to the edge

The Yes Album of course. 🙂 Still listening to it!

90125 is my fave.

I can't say I've listened to a whole album but Roundabout is a bloody corker.

Has to be Going for the One, just for Wonderous Stories.

Anything pre-drama would be my recommendation,the three classics do stand out tho,The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close To The Edge.

Tales has a couple of good tracks,side one and four. Relayer isn't too bad either.

cinnamon_girl has it. The Yes Album.
I first heard it as a student (shortly after it came out - yes, I'm THAT old) and still listen to it regularly. As soon as it begins I develop a HUGE smile. Can't help it. Brilliant though Rick Wakeman may be, I love the keyboards on The Yes Album, courtesy of Tony Kaye.

A close (very close) second is Fragile which features Bill Bruford at his best.

90125 and Big Generator

Close to the edge and fragile.

Thanks! i listen to loads of stuff and had previously ripped my mates in the past for there Yes leanings but, I had a spare afternoon the other week and put Yessongs on and didn't take it off for about 3 days.

I'll dig into the above later this week, ta!

Nirvana ripped off the guitar bit on Starship troopers for Heart Shaped Box no?

The Ladder isn't that bad either

Going for the one, you don't buy this one for the number of tracks though

So who's seen them live?

Me. Too many times. Along with Floyd, ELP, soft machine, Crimson etc.
My times...

The Yes album and Close to the Edge. I saw them perform Tales From the Topographic Oceans years ago at QPR's ground: amazing show from what I remember!!!

"So who's seen them live?"

Me, here @ Wembley Arena and in the States a few years ago.
Also saw Anderson Bruford, Wakeman and Howe at Birmingham.
Very memorable, great live performers who know how to entertain.

What a great thread! Seen them a few times live, also saw Rick Wakeman perform Journey to the Centre of the Earth, narrated by David Hemmings, at the Royal Festival Hall in, gulp, 1974. Full of anticipation and it was an incredible experience. 8)

Fragile gets my vote.

I've seen them many times. Also saw Rick Wakeman loads and Steve Howe a few times doing his solo stuff. All excellent. Didn't bother with the guy they replaced Jon Anderson with though my dad assured me they were excellent and would have bet money on him saying otherwise.

I've also seen them many times, all at the Manchester Apollo

so many good memories and most of them are of Steve Howe playing the Clap

Saw them first off on the drama tour,then the union tour not too bad excluding ego's between Steve Howe and Trevor Rabin,yes symphony tour which was amazing. Last time out was the 35th anniversary tour,with Rick.

Unfortunately,they'll never be the same again.

An oxymoron?

I saw Yes at the start of their career and even bought the Yes Album and played it for about 3 months solid until I realised what unutterably pretentious drivel they were peddling....and continued, along with the boorish Wakeman, to peddle. Please, younger STW members, realise how desperate was the need for punk by 1976!

cinnamon girl - I'm sorry to so utterly disagree with you. I've always admired your posts and your attitude, not to mention the shimmering Neil Young and Crazy Horse song from which you take your name.

But a Prog Rock revival on STW or anywhere else really is a step too far!

An oxymoron?

I saw Yes at the start of their career and even bought the Yes Album and played it for about 3 months solid until I realised what unutterably pretentious drivel they were peddling....and continued, along with the boorish Wakeman, to peddle. Please, younger STW members, realise how desperate was the need for punk by 1976!

cinnamon girl - I'm sorry to so utterly disagree with you. I've always admired your posts and your attitude, not to mention the shimmering Neil Young and Crazy Horse song from which you take your name.

But a Prog Rock revival on STW or anywhere else really is a step too far!

Ooo, get you! 🙄
Up yourself, much?
Punk was a very short-lived phenomena, and yes, it certainly helped clear some stuff out, but never forget that the biggest selling album during the height of punk was Fleetwood Mac's Rumours.
Some prog certainly got over ambitious, but so what? To so comprehensively deride so much music just because it's played by first-rate, clever musicians who are doing their damnedest to stretch the limits of what is possible just shows you to be narrow-minded and ignorant.
FWIW, the first three Yes albums are their best, after Relayer and TFTO they sort of ran out of ideas, but I never get tired of listening to those first three. King Crimson, Gentle Giant, PFM, Greenslade are all bands who produce outstanding music, played by musicians who cared about their craft, and played to the very best of their ability, Gentle Giant, in particular were superb, very jazz-influenced, formed from Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, based around the three Shulman brothers, all were multi-instrumentalists except the drummer.
I saw Yes on the Close to the Edge, Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer tours, and at Reading, around the same time I saw Pink Floyd on the Wish You Were Here winter tour, in '74, along with PFM, Greenslade and Gentle Giant.
And I also saw The Clash, The Jam, Girlschool, The Stranglers, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, and a whole bunch of other punk/new wave bands as well as folk and rock, because I just like music, simple as that.
There are certainly [i]bands[/i] I don't like much, and there's an awful lot of truly boring production-line stuff on pop radio that shows a remarkable lack of creativity that the world would be better off without, but to put down c_g because she likes prog shows a remarkable lack of tolerance.
Anyway, it's late, which possibly isn't doing anything to stop me being Mr Tetchy, so that's my ass out of here.
Later, music lovers. 8)

Thanks CZ, I'll check out those other bands you mentioned.

I was born in 1980 so missed most of the punk/prog thing, I got Britpop, thanks, thanks for Britpop...I always sided with the punk ethos but there's so much stuff to go and have a look at it seems a shame to just right off prog in one swoop, I listen to bits and bobs of mathy/post rock stuff which all seems quite influenced by the prog sounds.

Which one is the triple album? Whatever it is, it's that one. The only one I have but I recall I quite liked it when I had a turntable.

An oxymoron?

I saw Yes at the start of their career and even bought the Yes Album and played it for about 3 months solid until I realised what unutterably pretentious drivel they were peddling....and continued, along with the boorish Wakeman, to peddle. Please, younger STW members, realise how desperate was the need for punk by 1976!

cinnamon girl - I'm sorry to so utterly disagree with you. I've always admired your posts and your attitude, not to mention the shimmering Neil Young and Crazy Horse song from which you take your name.

But a Prog Rock revival on STW or anywhere else really is a step too far!

dekadanse - only just caught up! I think you could, should you choose to do so, apply the word 'pretentious' to pretty much all music. The exception probably being Robert Johnson cos it was so pure.

The 70's offered such an array of sounds from the innovative to the basic. Boundaries were being pushed, for example a few times I'd seen Emerson, Lake and Palmer live. Their album 'Pictures at an Exhibition' was particularly innovative and original. Who'd have thought that 'youngsters' (chuckle) would have their ears opened to Classical music and its composers?

Would you describe King Crimson as pretentious? They were ground-breaking too by introducing a different sound. Deep Purple played with the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra - pushing the boundaries again.

Don't knock the 70's, it was a fantastic era to experience varied music. I still listen to Neil Young, Hendrix et al.

Good post by CZ up there. 🙂

The best doesn't imply one of them was good, just that one was better than the others.
I bought the Yes album, is it called that? The one that came out at the same time as the McDonald and Giles album[you wouldn't believe they had anything to do with in the court]. I am sure my mates brother[he ran the record shop] was taking the ****ing piss recomending it;-)

Stand-outs for me are Fragile and Close to the Edge, recorded by my favourite line-up of Anderson, Bruford, Howe, Squire and Wakeman. For fans of the earlier stuff, try 'Yes - the Lost Broadcasts' on You Tube.

If someone would like a copy of Close to the Edge on long playing vinyl for the cost of the postage, I've a spare. Not brilliant, but playable, drop me an email.

"Good post by CZ up there" Agreed CG. I am especially impressed to see Greenslade mentioned by the Count .
As someone whose music taste was formed in the 60's and 70's and a bit of the 80's, I'd say the prog rock scene was brilliant for musicians and listeners alike. Punk though was brilliant in it's rebellious fresh and difficult attitude, I loved being a punk and playing crap bass in crap bands. Never stopped listening to those that could play though (say you liked the Genesis, Can or Tangerine Dream could be dangerous in 76). The list of brilliant bands and musicians from the 60/70's is outstanding and with a few exceptions I find it difficult to find that sort of quality now. Maybe that's just cause I'm past it or perhaps when I listen it all seems have been done before.

edit, spelling mostly