Yes and 'How Do You Listen To Prog?'

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(so if you were to play Journey to a critic who's decided to 'redeem prog' he might say a) "well it doesn't sound all that complicated to me" or b) "It's cornier than any pop I've ever heard", ie (a) = 'i don't actually understand music technique'(b) = "I'm against corny Pavlovian pop", both of which postions are tenable but how is it possible to believe both of them at the same time!) (unless you do a lateral move into sociology ie "Santana and the Airplane devolved into THIS!?" But that should make everybody happy cuz Journey = lysergic totalitarianism REALISED!) (Fuck do I miss the Bay Area, the 'city they built on rock and roll'!)

― dave q, Monday, 3 November 2003 11:02 (twenty years ago) link

Here's a wmv of some guys who probably didn't care if they were playing good or bad prog. Note to all drummers: get a mohawk and a handlebar mustache.

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 3 November 2003 13:09 (twenty years ago) link

a couple of grebt posts there q but:

''(a) = 'i don't actually understand music technique'(b) = "I'm against corny Pavlovian pop", both of which postions are tenable but how is it possible to believe both of them at the same time!''

I think its fair enough to hold both positions.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 3 November 2003 13:11 (twenty years ago) link

dleone - That's my favorite track of theirs!!! Classic find!

Julio - um yeah I suppose my point doesn't work anywhere except in the context of discussing Journey...I suppose I mean, how can people criticise awesomely technically-skilled musos who remorselessly go for the LCD, without having to resort to some form of moralism? (ie "they have the ability to play stuff that nobody will like and they are not, they are hacks!" >>> "the only people who should play stuff that becomes massively popular are those at the same level of skill as there audience" [>>> "punk/amateurism/one-finger pop should be more popular" = "prog should be difficult AND convoluted"?]) Like, I'm going by my appraisal of Journey being technically vastly superior to Yes, but they're barred from any existing prog canon because they were 'mercenaries' or 'hacks' or 'pandering', so what is 'prog' really? I have no answers here, just thinking that the coda to 'Stone in Love' is formally fuckin' amazing in ways that "Gates of Delirium" isn't, but perhaps that's me predictably valuing stuff that's so utterly out-of-context that it seems to belong to another one altogether (in this case US AOR stadium coke-rock! Don't want to defend the whole genre though, I mean I'll leave the defenses of Triumph and Saga to somebody else thanx!)

― dave q, Monday, 3 November 2003 13:24 (twenty years ago) link

ok thanks. I think I get what you're trying to say.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 3 November 2003 13:28 (twenty years ago) link

Yeah, you're right about the SIL outro. What do you think of "Escape"? It's like two separate songs, both with totally classic verse and chorus melodies, bridged by this mental colossal Rush synth break, all within an upbeat 3 or 4-minute track. You only realize when you get to the second half that all of song #1 was like a build-up to song #2 (with the final "I'll break away" as the final chorus/release). Journey was good at that. "Don't Stop Believin'" is a little like that too. You only actually get to the "don't stop believin'" chorus at the end of the song. There's like a million hooks building up to it - the whole song is almost like a crescendo - and it still feels like a standard verse/chorus pop song. I was listening to Escape a week or two ago and it felt like some sort of epic summation of the human condition.

You don't like Triumph?

BTW I've come to think CTTE is pretty great though those parts of the title track still bug me. I think I've always secretly loved "And You and I".

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 3 November 2003 22:32 (twenty years ago) link

I still think the moment at the beginning of CTTE where the band is coming out of that discordant, jammy intro and then everybody stops when Steve Howe plays the main theme is one of the best all-time prog moments.

― dleone (dleone), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 02:18 (twenty years ago) link

dleone - totally agree. Howe's playing on the jammy intro is insane, too.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 02:22 (twenty years ago) link

oh and dave's posts rule, too. I've always loved "Stone in Love", but never really thought about that outro. Totally OTM though.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 02:24 (twenty years ago) link

Re "Don't Stop Believin'" - I think the 'crescendo' effect comes from all the ingenious interlocking parts. The bass figure is originally played with the left hand on the piano intro, then the bass gtr plays it in the first bit of the song, while the guitar is playing the same chords as the piano intro the solo, and then the vocal chorus at the end restates the theme from the guitar solo while the gtr and bass are now doubling that original intro! It all comes together! And when Journey do it you don't even notice the command of 'classical' structure, compare it to a similar-contemporaneous distillation/compression move like Rush "New World Man" which sounds like enthusiastic amateurism in comparison!

Re "Escape" - only 'problem' I have is that the G/D/A part just utterly fuckin' destroys me. More air-drum seizures! Then that subsequent ONE LINE from Perry is just "this is the voice of God speaking", a magisterial "we have achieved orbital velocity now, goodbye Earth!", the rest of the song seems like an anticlimax to me. Still an incredible attempt. Sonic analog to the picture on the cover!

Re Triumph - dunno, never could get with the singing. Maybe if Rik Emmett was Steve Perry...but then nobody is, are they?

― dave q, Tuesday, 4 November 2003 10:20 (twenty years ago) link

During a phoner, I once asked Jon Anderson what "Mountains Come Out of the Sky/And They Stand There" meant. At first he attempted to explain and then he hung up on me.

― mopepope (musicmope), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 16:47 (twenty years ago) link

Good for Jon. I'd hang up on any hack who used "phoner" myself.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 4 November 2003 17:51 (twenty years ago) link

dominique,

TERRIFIC video! Haven't yet seen any video of the Blasquiz-era (though have seen Bobino, which more than makes up for it).

Guy Clement = Tony Levin's French twin?

― Joe (Joe), Wednesday, 5 November 2003 11:58 (twenty years ago) link

BTW, another entry in the "revolution will not be televised, but the apocalypse will be administered via Internet" series:

http://www.csi.edu/ip/ce/yesology/
http://www.billboard.com/bb/tangledweb/index.jsp

I always suspected the people of Southern Idaho are closet Shakira fans!! :)

― Joe (Joe), Sunday, 9 November 2003 03:22 (twenty years ago) link

It's weird - I've been stumbling across articles in university publications, one of which is an analysis of The Revealing Science Of God by a lesbian Marxist feminist named Jennifer Rycenga, which praises Yes for their 'non-hetero-normative' lyrics. Then there are all those Bill Martin books... it seems like there are legitimate philosophical grounds on which listening to Yes can be defended now. :)

By the way, what's Fish Out Of Water like?

― Damian (Damian), Sunday, 9 November 2003 09:09 (twenty years ago) link

its ok! its what yes should have been ie: bill bruford and patrick moraz.

― Pablo Cruise (chaki), Sunday, 9 November 2003 09:19 (twenty years ago) link

Shit, they're both on it? Now I have to investigate.

― Damian (Damian), Sunday, 9 November 2003 09:34 (twenty years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Simon Reynolds publishes the feedback of his progressive music taxonomy:

http://blissout.blogspot.com/
PROGMETHEUS UNBOUND: THE RETURN

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 24 November 2003 13:56 (twenty years ago) link

That's pretty cool that he did that, plus he listed Ground & Sky, GEPR and Gnosis!

― dleone (dleone), Monday, 24 November 2003 14:11 (twenty years ago) link

three years pass...

So how do YOU listen to prog now?

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 19 May 2007 05:54 (sixteen years ago) link

with glittery cape on
http://wgsu.geneseo.edu/blog/images/rickwakeman.jpg

― gershy, Saturday, 19 May 2007 06:06 (sixteen years ago) link

So, Dr.C never got around to hearing 'Relayer'. Pity.

― Just got offed, Saturday, 19 May 2007 09:24 (sixteen years ago) link

four years pass...

I'm terrified of seventies Yes but I need to listen to it a bit for a research project. Where should I start? My best friend liked Yes so I heard it quite a bit. Not my steez back then. Such were the times...

Like Jethro Tull is cited as "progressive". I thought they were a "punk" band.

I'm scared of Yes. I'm afraid it might conjure memories of scarily free hippie people.

― โตเกียวเหมียวเหมียว aka Don Nots (Mount Cleaners) (Mount Cleaners), Monday, 30 January 2012 19:21 (twelve years ago) link

I'd rec either the Yes Album or Fragile. The Yes Album is probably the best for newcomers but Fragile has the full "classic" lineup and shows off pretty much everything great about 70's Yes. Nothing to be scared of - stay away from Tales, otherwise most of their peak period is chock full of great instrumental parts. Obviously they were a lot whiter than Parliament but they kind of have the same vibe - with a different singer and less time changes, you kind of feel like they'd be known more as a funk band.

― frogs you are the dumbest asshole (frogbs), Monday, 30 January 2012 19:56 (twelve years ago) link

I was going to say the same two albums. there isn't anything scary on those. stay away from tales of topographic oceans and relayer, they are full of scary (and boring) things.

― akm, Monday, 30 January 2012 20:59 (twelve years ago) link

Man, Relayer is awesome. If you are scared of awesomeness, stay away from Relayer, otherwise enjoy.

Also, Close to the Edge rules too.

― You're a notch, I'm a legend (Bill Magill), Monday, 30 January 2012 21:09 (twelve years ago) link

second The Yes Album as a good jumpoff

― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 30 January 2012 21:10 (twelve years ago) link

yeah Relayer and CttE are great albums (CttE is slowly becoming one of my favorite prog albums ever) but you kind of have to be into the band in some respect first.

― frogs you are the dumbest asshole (frogbs), Monday, 30 January 2012 21:12 (twelve years ago) link

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