WORST Yes Album - Have you changed your mind?

[BillUK]

I noticed that the Poll on this has been running since October 2001 and was wondering if anyone has changed their mind or would you still vote the same way?

A few years ago my vote would have been for Drama. However I picked up a copy a month or so ago and was amazed how much the album has improved over the years since I last listened to it. I'm sure it wasn't down to being "digitally remastered".

My vote would probably now be for 90125!

Bill

[Gato]

No, I haven't changed my mind since I voted on that poll. I've the feeling I'll never change it regarding this topic. So that, what I posted there is 100% valid today.

[R'tanys]

I don't remember what I voted or even if I voted, but I think it's a toss-uo-p between Onion and OYE. I'd have to lean more towards Onion since I still regard OYE as largely unfinished material that could be really great if given the opportunity to be presented after polishing and re-producing. Onion has few redeeming qualities.

[ycantibu]

I don't recall which specific CD I voted for, but I haven't changed my mind since then, that I know.

[RobAdams]

OPEN YOUR EYES used to be the one I dreaded. Now I enjoy it. I think it came along at a time in my life when it just didn't do anything for me.

[BredYes]

It was Open Your Eyes and it still is. I tried to listen to it again a couple of weeks ago. The first three songs are OK, but during one of the last songs I put my finger on the reject button.

[electricfreedom]

I never voted what I thought what the worst Yes album was but I would have to say that 90125 is not their worst but it's one of a few albums that is not my high on my list. I bought the lp and I thought it was a great album. But because Owner or any other songs from that album from that one was played over and over on the classic rock station and starts sounding a bit dated, it started to irritate me. I could say the same of Roundabout and Al Good People, but those two are songs that won't grow to be outdated. So, I don't have 90125 high on my list.

[illusion]

Probably 90125 - it's all verse-chorus, apart from Cinema. Not what Yes are about at all.

OYE is similar for me - it's an album that I don't listen to often. Haven't touched it for a year, and don't intend to for another.

I also find the Keys live tracks very poor at the moment - they pale in comparison to Yessongs.

Union is actually on my playlist at the moment - for some reason I'm digging Lift Me Up and Miracle Of Life. The ABWH stuff on that album is so heartless though.

So probably OYE. I can't remember what I voted for in the first place to be honest!

[Mr. Holland]

I voted for OYE and I still do. I've been given almost all the albums about two listens in the last two weeks an to me OYE is still the weakest Yes album. I have to say that in contradiction to a lot of Yes fans I'm not that much in TFTO as well. The thing is with TFTO, I really love RSOG and Ritual, but the other two pieces don't do anything for me, so as a whole album TFTO is not that high on my list.......

[Original_Shifty]

I haven't changed my mind. OYE is the worst. With Big Generator and TAAW next after that. These three get the least amount of play time on my cd player.

[YesfanAndy]

Many people here will probably feel the way I do, when it comes to WORST Yes album.. When I was in my early YES listening years I would have said "Drama." But, I 've seen the light on that one!

It's tough to pick a worst YES album, if you are a fan of all their music.. Right now, I will say "Union." Because it was simply not a "Union." I do love several songs on it though. Don't know much else on it except "Shock To The System", "Lift Me Up" and "Miracle of Life." I've given it a try, but "Union" would have to be the worst YES album in my view..

[Jackaranda]

I put on OYE yesterday determined to listen to at least half of it. I lasted 2 songs. What were they thinking?

[BrianD]

Can't remember whether I said Yes or OYE. Having recently acquired the remastered Yes, I think OYE wins this dubious honour now.

[BillUK]

... if you keep listening to it - maybe as background music. I tend to listen to a lot of background music while working and I remember surprising myself reaching for the OYE CD ahead of The Ladder and KTA! It does grow on you.

However I must confess that I find "Man In The Moon" an unnecessary addition to the album!

Bill

[Martin Riley]

OYE was a disappointment but I find it cool as driving music, which probably says a lot about it, I rarely play it at home as an actual 'listening' experience.

But Union takes my vote, I play it quite a lot, but I find the whole ethos behind that album to be a little distasteful, there are a few decent songs on there but they're generally too smothered.

I Would Have Waited Forever & Miracle of Life really save the album

[Earl Grey]

OYE vey! :ele:

Still, the song 'Open Your Eyes', and the songs 'Universal Garden' and 'From A Balcony' save the album from being a total wash...
I love those three songs, the rest... Ah, it would have made a really nice Squire album... It was a real nice Squire album? Oh, ok...

;)

[bender]

I have to agree with you Martin!

I used to think OYE was their worst but its ok to listen to in the car or in the background. It has some good tracks and only a couple that I really dont like.

As for U(O)nion, I've listened to it a bit lately but I just cant get into it - there are a couple of good tracks but you would expect more than that out of 14 tracks with those musicians.

Actually I think Big Generator is almost as bad as Union. The sound production quality is terrible, it just sounds too modern and "bright" - can't really hear Chris at all!

[Leopardsocks]

There are two Yes albums I don't own; 90125 and OYE.

I do own Drama, and can't yet work out if its a Buggles album, or a Yes album. Good moments, but bad ones too. And I curse the day Yes met Rabin...aaaagghhh!!!! Stanley Kubrick directing a musical with the Back Street Boys could NOT be a worse mismatch.

When I first heard 90125, my immediate reaction was that Stock Aitken Waterman had somehow taken over the songwriting and production. It was like Black Sabbath doing a CTTE ripoff - Yes doing pop. I HATE OOALH, and the fact that they closed the Symphonic tour DVD with it ruined the whole gig.

But OYE is schmaltzy, meandering, heartless and soulless. Even Stock and co would have walked gingerly away from that little pile of doo doo...and they have some excrement to their credit.

There is not a single song on the whole mess that elevates Yes above a thousand other wannabe bands.

Whilst Talk was neither great, or a Yes album, it had its moments, and I thought we were entitled to believe the boys were on the up, and a return to form was imminent. To me OYE was like a cancer sufferer being told they had Alzheimers...it just kept getting worse.

In essence, if it ain't Anderson, Howe, Wakeman, Squire and White (or their PREDECESSORS) it ain't Yes.

And 90125, BG, Talk, OYE, Union, and to a lesser extent Magnification and The Ladder aren't really Yes albums. A couple go close, but no ceeegar.

But the mutt of the litter has GOT to be OYE. It should have had a subtitle "...And Close Your Ears". What a howler. DeNiro has his "Rocky and Bullwinkle", Hoffman his "Ishtar", Clinton has Monica and Yes has Open Your Eyes.

[Ron Drummond]

Naw, I still think Big Generator is their weakest album, but I do plan to go back to it at some point and give it a few more spins. I basically love Yes's entire catalog, I like the incredible stylistic variety, the willingness to try new things, the love of experimentation in all its forms.

Talk is a good album that is perhaps the most un-Yeslike, in the sense that it's arguably their least collaborative album, and Yes's essence is collaboration.

Tormato's big problem is that it sounds incredibly precious, much of which is due to Rick's keyboard sound -- of all their albums, Tormato sounds most like an artefact of its time, although there are still some transcendent moments on that album.

Drama for me was a wonderfully vital album, full of energy and good ideas. Only the first two tracks really worked all the way through; the other four songs were good, had some great ideas, but none of them quite gelled. Still, a wonderful disc; "Machine Messiah" is a masterpiece, one of Yes's all-time greatest songs.

Union is an orphan, the only Yes album that the band has largely disowned. I enjoy most of the songwriting on that album, and feel it's been unfairly maligned. Yes, Elias took undue liberties with the production, no question. But Elias is a good producer, as anyone who has listened to "Requiem for the Americas" can attest. My hope is that with Steve Howe at the controls, the Rhino reissue series will include Union, and that Steve will be able to strip away Elias's production work and restore that album to something much closer to what the band had originally intended. Still, there's something fascinating about the Yes-as-a-cast-of-thousands approach. "Dangerous" is a seriously underrated classic, IMHO, however poppy and hip-hoppy. It's clearly a cousin of Owner, and it astonishes me that no one has noticed that.

Open Your Eyes, poor old OYE, nobody loves it. Great album, amazing production job -- just try listening to it from that standpoint, the density of the arrangements and the instrumentation and yet the pure clarity of the sound. And if you get to the point where you can parse out Billy's guitar and Steve's guitar, the interweave is pretty dang astounding. Great playing. Love the singing too, lots of Beatlesque touches. NOT a run-of-the-mill pop record at all.

The Ladder and Magnification are two of my all-time favorite Yes albums.

I love Rick, and look forward to what the band comes up with in the studio (but gall dang it, they can't be serious about throwing away a couple of new tracks on a best-of, what's the matter with these people?) with Rick on board, but I'm skeptical too. Rick's got a big ego and sometimes his keyboard sound is just goofy; I loved what Igor did with the band, and consider it a major loss that they tossed him out for doing what Rick used to do on tour, which is have fun being a rock star.

Oh well. I don't expend too much energy loathing any Yes album. What's the point? Listen to the ones you like, and don't listen to the ones you don't like. But there has never been a Yes album that wasn't carefully made, even Union is filled with care, just too many cooks stirring the pot is all. But the care is there on any Yes album you pick up, and the best way to enjoy it is by following the care they put into it.

[Leopardsocks]

Whoa Ron.

An eloquent and inciteful response, undoubtedly. But your eulogy suffers a flaw that, if not fatal, requires a triple bypass.

Your analogy and assessment excludes the benchmark Close To The Edge, and its close relations The Yes Album, Fragile, Tales, Relayer and GFTO.

Any discourse as to the relative quality of Yes' albums cannot ignore these master works as the baseline for comparison. These albums combine to set a standard that many bands attempted to mirror, yet few managed. Unfortunately, insofar as their later works are concerned, that includes our favourite lads. Thats not a criticism - The Beatles only did one Sgt Pepper, but to exclude all and any of this collective from this discussion is like leaving out e=mc2 when discussing Einstein.

IMHO, the band raised the bar around 71-73, and while able to clear it a few times in the following 4-5 years, it has never elevated beyond that, in large part due to its rather morphean membership.

Comparisons can be odious, but when comparing works by the same artist, they can also be valid. And by comparing all albums to, say, CTTE (the benchmark I employ) a certain hierarchy can be constructed, albeit subjectively. So, by that measure, I believe OYE is still a mutt!!!

[Bluetailfly]

I am not really qualified on this question since I haven't really heard all of YES, Time And A Word, 90125, BG, Talk or OYE; I have only heard the selections that have been on the compilations Yesyears and In A Word.
I have to say that I really like the title track Open Yor Eyes. It is a very good pop song with good harmonies and melody and uptempo beat. Universal Garden has some spaciness to it that I like as well as some guitar playing that sounds good. So I won't vote against OYE.
I do own Union - I couldn't resist the Dean cover, and I have to say I felt ripped off on that one. Perhaps some of the Rabin penned tunes work, "Lift Me Up" for example, but the ABHW stuff is lame in my opinion. Incidentally I feel the same way about their studio album - another magnificent cover art by Roger, with very little to represent inside.
So for me I think Union is their worst.

[Mr. Holland]

IMHO, the band raised the bar around 71-73, and while able to clear it a few times in the following 4-5 years, it has never elevated beyond that, in large part due to its rather morphean membership.

Comparisons can be odious, but when comparing works by the same artist, they can also be valid. And by comparing all albums to, say, CTTE (the benchmark I employ) a certain hierarchy can be constructed, albeit subjectively. So, by that measure, I believe OYE is still a mutt!!!

I don't think that comparisons of works by the same artists are always valid and especially not with Yes. Yes has been around for 35 years and when the band was writing songs for Magnification, that was 28 years after they had been writing the songs for CTTE. 28 years of playing, 28 years of writing, 28 years more of life experience, 28 years of inovation in recording, engenering and producing equipment, changed visions on life, changed visions on how to create music, not to mention all the different line-ups and you take something along from every past experience to any future experience. So, basicly, when you've created something, after that you will never be able to create that thing exactly the same way again, because even a year later you allready have experiences that you didn't have at that moment of creating.
So, I like to listen to each Yes album on it's own, not comparing them with each other. Ofcourse you never escape that totally, because there are always albums that are favorite and albums that are not, but comparing CTTE to BG, with totally different line-ups, being in different era's, using different producers, basicaly Yes being in a totally different state of mind, it is a bit like comparing chocolate cake to pizza, the one can be more suiting to your taste then the other, but in all reality they are two different to really compare.......

[PhaseDance]

Nope.

[Jackaranda]

I put on OYE yesterday determined to listen to at least half of it. I lasted 2 songs. What were they thinking?


But....my least favorite is Tormato.

[True Believer]

But....my least favorite is Tormato.
Really, Jack? You don't like Onward? OTSWOF? Madrigal?

[Jackaranda]

Really, Jack? You don't like Onward? OTSWOF? Madrigal?

I like the live versions much better than the album itself. I can hardly listen to the album.

[MrZuLu]

http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/4.gif

[Faceintheplace]

I actually like all of Big Generator all the way through. I have a soft spot for that one cause it was the album Yes had out when I just became a fan. "Final Eyes" and "I'm Running" back to back makes the album for me. "Changes" from 90125 and "I'm Running" are the closet we have to the Drama album sound with Jon being there to do vocals.

Tormato I used to really not like, I still think some of Yes' weakest songs are on there but I now have some favorites on there and the live versions are even better. What gets to me having the Rhino remaster is that there are excellent songs from that album's sessions that should have got on instead of stuff like "Arriving UFO" and "Circus of Heaven."

Union is not that great but compare it to the mainstream pop muisc out at the time. The production ruined that album, and ABWH and Yeswest both contribute weak material. Some people just slag off the ABWH tracks when it comes to Union but how about "Saving my Heart." "Miracle of Life" gets praised by some, I love the intro but the song itself, although it has potential could have been much better. On the ABWH side of the coin "Angkor Watt" and "Dangerous" are especially embarrasing. However Union is also an album with hidden gems like "I Would Have Waited Forever" and "Holding On." I used to like "Without Hope...." till I heard bootleg versions and found out it was butchered on the album. I like the bootleg versions but I can't listen to the album version now, I spot the edits every time. Jonathan Elias (reading an interview with Elias, I've come to the conclusion alot of the songs on Union are fine, it's just the lack of cohesion and miserable production. Just like Tormato, good songs were left on the cutting room floor, witness the ABWH II demos while unworthy songs made it to the album) is a hack producer. "The More We Give...." produced by Eddie Offord is the most powerful sounding track on the album, he should have been in charge of the whole thing.

Talk is I'll admit a strongly performed and produced album, the main reason I went off that one is over exposure. My dad listened to this thing daily, sometimes several times a day and I got fed up with it. I enjoy "The Calling", "Real Love" and "Walls." "I am Waiting" is decent too. I prefer live versions of "Endless Dream." On the album I think it could stand trimming, I think the last half is too repedative, live there's some improvising that greatly improves the piece.

Open Your Eyes has some songs I like, especially "Universal Garden", "Fortune Seller" (except the ending '1-800' thing but the skip button and Audacity takes care of that) and "The Solution" but also all my least favorite Yes songs are from this album. It just goes too far into bad pop land for me ("No Way We Can Lose", "Man in the Moon" and especially "Love Shine.")

[RobAdams]

I think it's a toss up between OYE and TAAW. But I like even the worst Yes albums. They just get played less often!

[luckeydoug1]

Relayer has always been my least favorite Yes album and still continues to be. I do not enjoy listening to any of the songs on this album, either separate or as a whole.

[Jackaranda]

http://bestsmileys.com/frustrated/4.gif


It's Ok Zulu....you don't have to bang your head.

[Faceintheplace]

I didn't like Relayer the first few times I heard it, turns out I just wasn't ready for it.I put it away for about a year came back to it and suddenly I understood and loved it.

[Terry Shea]

Relayer has always been my least favorite Yes album and still continues to be. I do not enjoy listening to any of the songs on this album, either separate or as a whole.
Blasphemy!:poop::soapbox::quite::shoot::pat:

[IHeartYes]

I haven't listened to all of their albums yet, so I can't pick a least favorite. You guys have certainly given me some things to think about though. So far I've liked everything I've heard. There are songs I don't care for, but not albums.