NY Post article Yes

[YesNY]

I came across a feature article on Yes that I had pulled from the New York Post eight months ago. The text is in the jpeg attached to this post. The photo of Yes, which accompanied this feature, is in the jpeg found in the first reply to this post.

[YesNY]

The top part of the page, featuring the photo.

[Joedude]

"Smart music doesn't really go out of fashion" - Someone from Rolling Stone actually giving a complement to Yes? Did I actually read that right?

[YesNY]

Originally posted by Joedude
"Smart music doesn't really go out of fashion" - Someone from Rolling Stone actually giving a complement to Yes? Did I actually read that right?

As hard it is to beleive, Yes actually got some moderately favorable reviews many, many moons ago. The typical Rolling Stone review for The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge contained praise, with a few complaints tossed in. As an example, Fragile got four out of five star rating in the magazine, which roughly translates to "excellent but not a classic".

It was with Tales from Topographic Oceans that Yes really lost the rock press. Truth be told, Yes even lost some dedicated fans with that album--but these fans were wise enough to never really leave the Yes fold and were rewarded with many great releases ever since. The rock press, meanwhile, have remained with this Tales stereotype of Yes in their minds and unfortunately have passed on this overly-simplistic sketch of Yes to their readers for many years now.

Originally posted by YesNY
The rock press, meanwhile, have remained with this Tales stereotype of Yes in their minds and unfortunately have passed on this overly-simplistic sketch of Yes to their readers for many years now.

Yes, you are right. They never understood it the first time around and never looked any further.

[Jackaranda]

I read it and it is amazing that a Rolling Stone editor actually said something good about Yes. I was wondering if it was just a random quote he made about just anyone or if he really said that about YES...

[jcostello]

Ok, maybe what I'm about to go into was beaten to death on this site (or one of the other Yes sites) before, but I have something to share regarding how Rolling Stone treated Yes in two record guides -- the red one, in '79, and the blue one, in '83.

The red guide was quite complimentary toward Yes. The self-titled first album, Time and a Word, Yesterdays, Yessongs and Tormato got three stars out of five. Fragile, Tales, Relayer and Going for the One got four stars, and the Yes Album and Close to the Edge got five stars as the masterpieces that both are.

Yes was not so fortunate in the blue guide. The self-titled first album still got three stars, but Time and a Word got marked down to two, Yesterdays also fell to two stars, and so did Yessongs, The Yes Album and Relayer. Fragile got dumped down to three stars, as did Close to the Edge. And the Stone guide was simply brutal to Tales, Going for the One, Tormato, Drama and Yesshows, all of which got just one star. Somebody named Wayne King wrote the accompanying text rather than Charley Walters, who did it in the red guide.

Wayne was a vicious bastard to our favorite group, saying that they left the Seventies as "perhaps the epitome of uninvolved, pretentious and decidely (sic) nonprogressive music, so flaccid and conservative that it became the symbol of uncaring platinum success, spawning more stylistic opponents than adherents."

Tales, GFtO and Drama took the hardest hits from "Wayne's World." Tales' music "veered from what was rapidly becoming the lush Yes version of Muzak to some of the most jarring and nauseating guitar noise heard since the psychedelic Sixties." Also, "The almost new-wave simplicity (for Yes) that 'One' conveyed was less an effective reduction of valid ideas than an admission of total artistic bankruptcy."

Drama took it in the shorts the worst, though. Referring to the addition of Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn: "If the release of all those solo records hadn't already put them on the same level of crass corporate rapacity as Kiss, then surely this move did. Yes had become a machine whose reputation was larger and more important than any of its human components; as with all such companies, the bottom line was money, not art or the welfare of its employees. Who cared if the final product was now a bland assembly-line concoction? Apparently no one."

One last thing: Rolling Stone came out with another record guide a few years after that. I don't own that one, but I seem to recall that they gave both Close to the Edge and Big Generator the same rating (I think it was three stars apiece). Give me a break! Close to the Edge is a five-star album, and Big Generator is probably a two-star album at best.

Peace, Love, and F*** Rolling Stone,

John C.

[illusion]

Originally posted by jcostello

Peace, Love, and F*** Rolling Stone,


Yes, I agree! F**k Rolling Stone!

But did you know that a Yesfan on this site used to write for RS?

[brismike]

ok Illusion .. cough up .. who is it?

[YesNY]

The thing we must not forget, when considering these published guides, is that these author's reviews and star ratings do not replace the orginal reviews and ratings. That is why if you go to the RS site, you will still see the star ratings originally assigned these albums when they were first released. Sounds to me like Rolling Stone merely slapped it's name on the books for a licensing fee or royalty from the book publisher. For all we know these guide writers may not even have ever written for the magazine. Not the we should really care, anyway.

What bugs me about rock critics is that they are lemmings and don't dare go against what is the fashionable taste. Punk became the critics cup of tea and all of sudden they were all bashing progressive. I'll bet the critics were much more independent minded in the early seventies. But it seems that virtue is now long lost. Nowadays Bruce Springsteen is considered a god, even though he hasn't put out anything substantial in almost two decades. Some influential critic says he likes something and they all then follow.

These guys always have their fingers to the wind. I suspect now that KISS is considered acceptable as a campy nostagia act, they will get favorable reviews in any RS guides published today.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Yes to be accepted by these tin-eared scribes. When it comes their ideal rock, the powers that be are looking to the likes of Springsteen, Sting, Tracy Chapman and even Peter Gabriel (this formerly great artist is now acceptable to them since his embrace of monotonous rhythm and melody). Dynamic sounds like Yes produced on MAGNIFICATION is too far out, yet strangely not far enough, for the critics.

I normally don't think of music in terms of conservative or cutting edge. But if the critics are going to use that as a barometer of what is good, then lets not forget some excellent pop songs from the Beatles had a quite conservative sound. If Yes ever was conservative or "corporate", then so what?

To my ears Yes music has always been cutting edge stuff, but does it really matter anyway? It all should come down to quality, and Yes music has an abundance of it.

If these critics are going to damn something with the labels of "conservative" or "safe" and such, then I suggest they look their own little pet artists, whom haven't done anything other than very bland, uninspiring music in many years.

The only other way to turn critic's heads is to shock with extreme rap, grunge or metal. The more crude the act, then the more lauded. Since Yes is never apt to get outrageous and go over the edge like the latest shockmaster of the month--and are certainly not in the bland middle--they end up in a critic's no-man's land.

I say forget the rock music critics all together. Being close to the edge is plenty good enough for me. Long live Yes!

[Koko]

Originally posted by brismike
ok Illusion .. cough up .. who is it?


DITTO to the power of 108


Let's See What they've got to say for themselves.

[nightliner]

The RS reviewer mentioned that is a member of this site is not mentioned in any of the above posts. I don't believe he worked for them back in Yes's heyday.

He is also the author of the Yes book entitled YesTales.