defend the indefensible: TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS, by YES

Ha ha, that reminds me of a friend of mine who was listening to a vinyl copy of this and it got going into this repetitive sort of riff in a funny time signature and he was like, "Wow, that's quite cool". And it kept going on and on and on. Then he fell asleep and when he woke up it was still going and he was like, "I knew this was record was long but Jesus!" Then he realised the record had been stuck for 45 minutes.

far out.

I used to crank it
while I lifted weights, which meant
it all cancelled out

Ironically enough, considering Pashima's

It's so...uplifting! It just goes up and up and up and up. So rich & warm-sounding.

it segued into "Going for the One" and I thought, "Now THIS is uplifting." Something about the high synth sounds in the background, literally pulling you up throughout the song.

I should actually get some of this again, since I only ever listened to my dad's albums.

Side 1 and 4 are the most consistent.

OK, Good night.

i am listening to this motherfucking album all the way through for the first time EVER right now

side 2 is where it's at. feel safe now!

ok

this is gonna take a few listens to sink in

like, i enjoyed it pretty much throughout, but uh

it's 7 hours long?

yep

jesus

defend the indefensible: TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHICAL OCEANS, by YEP

i mean...i normally enjoy a record more and more when i'm familiarised to its narrative...this is gonna take a bit more work than usual, but it's work i'm prepared to put in

Louis has never heard any Black Sabbath albums yet he will listen to tales from topographic oceans?

good luck louis. it's been years and years and years and i've never been able to feel all of tales . . . but side 2, side 2! that matches up with any of the other epics from around then. too bad they couldn't have edited the other sixty minutes down into something as enjoyable. still, give them points for ballsiness . . . i mean, an 80 minute long suite? that's ridiculous. and somebody was gonna do it so may as well have been them. and then bouncing back with an album as essential as relayer after going a little too far over the top with tales remains a pretty impressive move

This album is not at all bad.

It's a cliche, I know it, but this is like the ultimate example of an album that would have been a great single album. Actually, had this been a single album consisting only of side 1 and side 4, I would have ranked it as my favourite Yes album, ahead of "Close To The Edge". The parts in-between have their moments too, and this is a great album as is even, but they are a bit patchier than the first and last side and are dragging things down a bit.

I suppose Jon Anderson disagrees with me regarding the single album thing, but then, he is the only person in the entire world who understands the "concept" this album is supposed to be built upon.

I'd rather put on this album than Close to the Edge most of the time. This is the best Yes album to space out to. The atmosphere on this album is completely original and the music is talented.

9:10 into The Remembering (High the Memory) (part 2) is absolutely beautiful. Hell, there's a lot of stunning parts in that song like "out in the city running free" verses. And everytime a joyful/pop-like verse comes along on Topographic Oceans, it is always sung beautifully tot the accompaniment of amazing balearic-prog instrumentation.

The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun) (part 3) gets tons of points for its funkiness and percussion. The acoustic bit at the end (when Jon is singing) wins tons of points for evocation of hippie bliss.

I don't have to put up a case for any of this album, but part 1 is my favorite. Had part 2 and 3 never been created I would be sorely missing out on a great deal of Topographic Oceans (and part 2 might be better than part 4).

The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun) (part 3) gets tons of points for its funkiness and percussion.

I guess that is part of why I don't like it so much. Too much funk, too much emphasis on percussion. :)

figured I had to tackle this one sooner or later. I agree with 90% of this thread - it doesn't deserve its critical reputation. I was prepared to be put off by the sheer complexity or whatnot but in reality a lot of it is soft and melodic, occassionally rocking out (sadly not as much as i'd like), with some real poppy moments too. I don't think that it can be cut to one LP but I agree with the 60 minute suggestion - there's definitely some padding here (especially on "The Ancient", which is the side I'm not really sold on)

side two holds up with "close to the edge" and "gates of delirium". that's the only bit i ever go back to. that said, yes in general don't deserve their critical reputation

I was prepared to be put off by the sheer complexity or whatnot but in reality a lot of it is soft and melodic

This is the main issue I have with the album, in all honesty. I think of all of Yes' works up until Relayer, this album is the only one I could consider to be quite boring. There's some good ideas in there, but there's way too many parts that seem to meander and it just fails to hold my interest for very long. There's certainly nothing as catchy as 'Roundabout' on here, but nor is there any kind of full-on assault like 'Sound Chaser'.

I have a 7" single I believe to be the longest example of one (ROundabout/And you and i)

It's enough for me to know Yes and I are not going to be pals.

That's interesting: I didn't know those two songs were ever released on the same single. They're from different albums. I thought "Long Distance Runaround" was the B-side of "Roundabout"?

Yeah, both sides play at 33, and "And you and i" is the a-side..

.. it's a UK pressing.

There's certainly nothing as catchy as 'Roundabout' on here, but nor is there any kind of full-on assault like 'Sound Chaser'.

I think the catchy/more ferocious bits are there but they're used a lot more sparingly - TfTO is really more about atmospherics in that regard. In fact I think my one major gripe about this album is that Squire's bass isn't turned far up enough, as he gets a lot of great bits that are just straight up hard to hear.

http://www.discogs.com/Yes-And-You-And-I-Roundabout/release/2307699

The full unedited versions of both too, it seems!

that must sound like garbage!

YES RULES

noodle vague OTM

I can't imagine any Yes fan not grooving the hell out of the bit 13 minutes into "The Remembering"...the "relayeeeerrrr" bit

Feels like it takes an eternity before that bit crops up.

an eternity in a roger dean coverscape

I think some of the parts in the first track are among the best things they ever did.

This bit...

"Skyline teacher
Warland seeker
Send out poison
Cast iron leader"

...is astonshing and I wish the song had developed that part more, they could have made an incredible entire album based around variations of that part.

I agree with Rick Wakeman that the album has great parts but is mostly filled with padding, he says they were overeager to fill space of 4 vinyl sides. The band and many fans have said that they reworked the songs for live performances in the 80s or 90s(?) and onward and that those versions are much better.

I'm curious/excited/worried about Jon Anderson's newest thing. He wanted to do a sprawling sequel to Olias that is possibly going to be 3 hours long. But he has been releasing it in parts as digital singles; the reception to the first parts has been mixed but promising.

I've always wanted to hear prog albums that were several hours long because the uninformed cliche was that prog bands do incredibly long albums (but they really arent any longer than a regular rock bands and double albums arent really that common) and that idea excited me because I love enormous epic music. Easier said than done, TftTO is a classic example of not having enough good parts to fill all that time.

this thread got me checkin out the yes cds in fopp today but they wanted just a bit too much for my stingy pocket (ie £5 for fragile when i only wanted to pay £3) - so i contented myself w/ reading prindle's yes page instead, didn't realise what a gigantic fan he was of em - got me regretting i didn't pick up some of those cds now oh well

only yes fan i know thought it was all over after time and a word (their second alb?) - i sampled a side of it once and didn't get on w/ it but we shall see...

I agree with Rick Wakeman that the album has great parts but is mostly filled with padding, he says they were overeager to fill space of 4 vinyl sides. The band and many fans have said that they reworked the songs for live performances in the 80s or 90s(?) and onward and that those versions are much better.

i wouldn't say "mostly" - again I'd be much in favor of a 60 minute version of this (which may rank up with the best of Yes's work, really), and yes the live versions certainly do rule (the insane take on "Ritual" on Yessongs is probably their wildest moment outside of Relayer.

only yes fan i know thought it was all over after time and a word (their second alb?) - i sampled a side of it once and didn't get on w/ it but we shall see...

now this is a truly weird opinion - Time and a Word is an interesting artifact and I think "No Experience Necessary..." is sort of a precursor to Squire's awesome running bass sound - but I dunno if I'd count someone who thinks The Yes Album as being their downfall a real Yes fan, so to speak

I did find it amusing that Prindle loved these guys, while Starostin was a bit indifferent

the title track may be their best early track besides "survival" but yeah the yes album is the one to start with. shine your wings, forward to the sun

Relayer still remains my go-to disc whenever I want a Yes fix.

have come fully around to the Noodle Vague worldview re: Awaken being their finest hour

Was this album ever really critically panned? The only real slagging I can think of off the top of my head was a one-star review from... cdnow? sonicnet? one of those allmusic guide precursors whose archives are completely lost to the ages. Other than that I don’t really remember it being received any worse critically than, say, Drama or Tormato.

The Rolling Stone Album Guide of '92 gave it one star, IIRC, and it appears in the Guterman/O'Donnell Worst Rock 'n' Roll Records of All Time book (those guys particularly have it out for prog, saying of Genesis that they were better than most prog bands "i.e., they were boring only 90% of the time").

yeah it was definitely the punching bag du jour of people who don't even like prog in the first place. I think it's fairly well liked these days though it's still seen as being totally ridiculous and the moment where Yes stopped being the Best Band in the World. the criticism for Tormato feels a bit different - nobody was really expecting a great record out of a prog band in 1978. in fact its Going For the One that was the outlier in that regard.

this album rules and everyone who hates it sucks

― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, August 7, 2019 8:32 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

she's still right

This is easily a top 50 of all time for me and by far my favorite Yes album

I like the 2003 mix of this (with the two minutes or so of tweedling at the beginning, before the vocals come in).

That two minutes is CRUCIAL!

Originally omitted from the LP at Ahmet Ertegun's request, as if a little bit of atmospheric guitar and wind sounds would be the final straw for the Yes audience.
With that intro intact, there is a mirror image of the last seconds of the album; though there's something to be said for the drama of the LP version, starting right with the vocal.

I heard the dramatic start-from-zero version first, but I still like the 2003 version better.

New SDE is a mindblower if you're a fan of this beautiful beast.
The live recordings - direct from Steve Howe's archive - are something else.

Can't quite justify the asking price for the box, given that a lot of this is on the 3CD/blu-ray release from a decade ago, but I did just stream the live recordings to see what I'm missing. There is some seriously ethereal Mellotron on the Manchester recordings.

I’ve been trying to remember my login for two days so that I could say thanks for the heads up on this, I haven’t done a comparison against the previous remaster to see how much improvement there is but the Steven Wilson mix sounds phenomenal to me.

I think the new Wilson mix is leaps and bounds ahead of the previous mix he did (10 years ago?). Lots of great details brought to the surface.

Yeah, the price point on this is just way too high. Kind of frustrating that the super deluxe is the only option, usually you'd be able to at least buy the new mix as a standalone thing. I guess it's not worth the trouble, but it'd be nice if there was maybe even a standard deluxe version scaled back a little. I'd love it if they released the live material separately down the road though.

there is a 3lp live extract planned for record store day.

oh thanks, I don't usually fuck with RSD but I might look out for that one

speaking of which it's pretty bizarre that you can't get Steven Wilson's CTTE or Relayer mixes on vinyl. outside of a boxset you have to pay $400+ for.

yeah, tbh that's why I quit paying attention to this reissue campaign. i guess they make enough from the rich Yes fans that they don't feel the need to do any standalone reissue. i finally ended up buying the Japanese 2xCD issue of Wilson's last Tales mix to get that.

Its too bad because I really like his mixes. I like that he's not afraid to get in there and change shit if he thinks it would sound better.

I am interested in getting one of these live sets...I love Yessongs but by now there's probably a better sounding recording from that era available on wax? Maybe this?

https://www.discogs.com/release/7116500-Yes-Progeny-Highlights-From-Seventy-Two

I can't speak to the vinyl versions, but I have that whole 72 box set on CD. It's great and sounds good to these ears.

Progeny is much less polished than Yessongs; you're basically getting the raw audio from the shows with very little mixing and no cleanup. There's one show where Anderson has repeated microphone problems so the vocals just drop out several times in the middle of a song. But if you want to hear Yes as an ass-kicking live rock band, it's the set to check out.

I just bought the 2009 Japanese SHM-CD remaster of Yesshows (with two bonus tracks) on eBay last night.

yeah progeny is great, the closest yes has to a dick's picks. they are such phenomenal musicians it's almost hard to believe sometimes

The version of "Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)" on Yesshows is insane.

or "free jazz" as wakeman would angrily describe it lol

(= too lazy drunk curryful & fatfingered to be able to play it)