why late at night in the u.s. does ilm get all yessed out

was that a typo for "deserets"

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness and tales from topographic oceans.

I was going to ask in the Rough Guide requests thread, but it hasn't been opened in 14 years.

Could any kind soul please provide a map to the good stuff from their output from 90125 to present day?

I have heard some things from that period but I don't feel up to a qualitative audit and am sure there must be some worthy tunes hiding in there.

i like pretty much everything on 90125. "city of love" is my least favorite, though the chorus is HUGE, and i think its moodiness sets up the finale, "hearts", really well

never been able to get into big generator

songs i listen to on union -- "masquerade", "lift me up", "without hope you cannot start the day", "silent talking", "holding on", and "take the water to the mountain"

the only song on talk i'd say is a keeper is "real love", though if you can find a version of "endless dream" that's one track, that's worth a listen

i go back and forth with keystudio -- give the first song, "footprints", a listen, and if that does it for you, keep going. otherwise, skip it

open your eyes -- skip it

the ladder rules. "homeworld", "it will be a good day", "lightning strikes"/"can i?"/"face to face", "to be alive", "new language", and "nine voices" all feature classic yes spirit in part or all the way through

never been able to get into magnification

fly from here rules, both versions (david's vocals and trevor's vocals, a few years later). "sad night at the airfield", "madman at the screens", "life on a film set", "hour of need", and "into the storm" are all worth your time

if open your eyes isn't the worst yes album, then heaven & earth is

some solo stuff you might want to check out

trevor rabin -- jacaranda. this is the best stuff i've heard from him since 90125

jon anderson -- his most recent album, 1000 hands, has some decent jams on it, as does the album he recorded with jean-luc ponty. i keep giving the one he recorded with roine stolt a chance, but nothing ever sticks

skyscraper souls (geoff downes and chris braide) is the most underrated recentish solo project i've heard. andy partridge is on half the songs, kate pierson sings backing vocals on the 18-minute epic, and marc almond sings on one of the other songs

Big Generator - pretty decent if you like 90125, kinda sounds to me like what The Police would've become had they not split in '86. The title track single is pretty bad but I like most of the rest.

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe - all I can remember from this one is fucking "Teikbois" but it's kinda okay, its got a whole lotta Jon on it though

Union - as bad as everyone says it is. only the solo Howe instrumental is worth saving.

Talk - fairly decent, has their first bona fide epic in forever and a lot of it is pretty if kinda New Ageish. despite being sort of a trilogy with 90125 and BG I don't think it really sounds like those albums.

Keys to Ascension - half studio and half live, I guess this is okay if you wanna hear the classic Yes lineup operating at 80% capacity. some of the new tunes are pretty good but mostly they're just long. It does have that "classic Yes" feel to it in spots.

Open Your Eyes - roundly derided by most of their fans, I actually feel it's a pretty decent pop album, just don't expect classic Yes

The Ladder - the title track here is absolutely a return to their classic glory, IMO the best thing they've done since Drama. unfortunately the rest of the album is kinda lightweight and gimmicky, but they do some interesting things like embrace a bit of electronica and sample their old records. could've been the start of a legit comeback but it was not to be.

Magnification - recorded with an orchestra as they'd sacked their keyboard player for getting too handsy with a security guard. Actually quite good, just not as hooky as they usually are.

Fly From Here - the sequel to Drama that nobody really asked for, with Downes and Horn back on board. some of the material dates back to 1980 but I think that element is sort of overstated, most of the music is new. As you might expect it's not quite as good as Drama but it's actually pretty close, clearly one of their best efforts since 90125. The final track "Into the Storm" is particularly good. For some reason they re-made this album in 2018, replacing one-time singer Benoit David with Horn - the new version is probably the better one but I feel bad for the dude.

Heaven & Earth - their most recent and famously a total dud. some of the songs are actually kinda catchy but it's ridiculously lethargic, especially coming after FFH which was sort of a shot in the arm. almost falls into "so bad it's good" territory, it's one of those albums you enjoy a bit despite yourself

agree with these assessments. 90125, the Ladder, and FFH (either version) are the only really strong albums in this batch, and Talk, Open Your Eyes, and Heaven and Earth are absolutely terrible.

They recently released a few more old tracks with Benoit David on the 'From a Page' box, and those songs are pretty good but not super memorable. certainly better than anything on H&E though.

I never liked Big Generator, it loses all the interesting subtlety that was on 90125 and becomes a bombastic mess; Talk is even worse in this regard.

yea at best a lot of these albums are guilty pleasures, I have a lot of goodwill towards Yes so I probably overrate a lot of it as "really not that bad". if it wasn't Yes I'd probably only listen to Fly From Here and "The Ladder"

"That, That Is" from KTA has a pretty gnarly riff on it though, sucks that it's buried in a 20 minute epic. Tales-esque really

Thanks folks!

So it seems like a general paucity of good music considering the amount of records they'e made since '83, kinda amazing really.

the degree to which these guys fucking hated each other after 1977 is not to be understated

I'm quite a fan of Magnification and there's at least 2 or 3 songs I really liked on Big Generator.

i really want to like magnification -- yes with an orchestra for the first time since time and a word! but i don't know, maybe they slowed the tempos a bit too much to accommodate that orchestra? maybe they were missing igor, who'd brought so much energy to the ladder? i've never found a way in; if you have any song suggestions, i'd appreciate it!

I wrote a big ranking of their albums for Stereogum almost exactly 5 years ago. I liked Talk and Magnification better than some others above.

it’s a safe bet that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame will burn to the ground before they’ll be inducted.

Hope you didn't put too much money on this!

I was really into Union when it came out, and even went to see them on that tour, which was an incredibly dull concert despite being the first time the classic lineup had been together since CttE.

I always though this thread was a euphemism for something more interesting.

I was wrong.

But what could be more interesting than getting all yessed out on a Thursday night?

I forgot about Magnification. The songs on it are really good but something about the presence of the orchestra makes it very bleh. There's nothing objectionable about it, it's just missing some spark.

http://wmmr.com/2020/06/12/this-day-in-philly-rock-history-yes-played-to-130l-at-jfk-stadium/

no doubt they were all celebrating dock ellis

happy ye(l)s(d) day!

12:30am and I'm Yessing out to these clips just posted by Beat Club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx_GIji9EGw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gaZRACHMSk

Bruford's drum faces always pretty funny.

for some reason probably because i hate yes it was only yesterday that i heard "parallels" for the first time and it was one of those surprising "wait hold on i actually like this song" experiences

i'm sure as hell not going to listen to every yes song just on the off chance that i might like one of them but it's nice when it happens

I've never considered clicking on the thread of a band I don't like but I can't think of a single band I hate.

INSTEAD OF WATCHING THE VP DEBATE I AM LISTENING TO RELAYER GOD this record is fucking insane

its like....Evil Yes

listen

should we fight forever

knowing as we do know

fear destroys?

exactly!! when does Good Jon ever write lyrics like that?

<3

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=3362163313902980

gentle masks dont touch

I mean you expect us to log in to a Facebook post📘😊? Just not going to happen

Just post a link to south side lmfao

Go Jon!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKqEMQACepSftCYRGR-Au1HF3LBusS-ioH_nO2Vf8ffGXuzccIb4Ap7wee3WmmoSbbDWaoNXorZMtXmUNXtyF57OHr7dlg&feature=emb_title&time_continue=258&v=04xaMR9pzDk

wtf WOW

never thought I'd see the day Jon Anderson used the phrase "soulless motherfucker" in a song

Holy shit, amazing!

TS: "Go Screw Yourself" vs "With All Due Respect"

"If I may"

wow... one for the This Must Be A Tim & Eric Sketch thread?

I'm unclear on the message here. I thought the unflattering images of Trump in the first chorus meant this was anti-Trump but he's not really a sweet-talker and there are images of Democrats as well, and we see both "gun rights" and "gun control", for instance. So then I thought it might be just general 'both-sides' fatigue like the deYoung song but there are also lots of reminders to vote.

lol yeah "all politicians are crooks but you should get out and vote for them anyway" is kind of a weird message

This video is unlisted apparently? This suggests an additional layer of, uh, ambivalence.

Eating an edible in preparation for getting all Yessed out tonight with the 3xLP of Yessongs

i hope the edible starts kicking in once howe starts vamping right before the opening riff of "yours is no disgrace"

#jelly

i should say, i hope the second edible kicks in at that point

I just hope the thing plays alright, it was three dollars and it looks like its survived multiple hurricanes