Would Drama, fly from here, heaven & earth etc been better with Jon Anderson singing?

[rabin105]

With now 6 soon to be 7 albums without Jon Anderson I have to ask

would any of those albums be better if Jon Anderson sang them?

As a side note I think if Downes had ever worked with Anderson he would of been seen as a better keynoardist then he currently is as in my opinion he is as good as Kaye Moraz and Wakeman … different yea of course but Kaye Wakeman and Moraz are vastly different from each other but no one would say any of those three are bad keyboardists…


but yeah the question remains Would the non Anderson albums be better with Jon?

[madbear]

Drama is a fantastc album as is. I like Jon Davison's singing, but fly from here, heaven and earth etc are mostly not very good songwriting. whoever sings them i suspect.

[Soundwaveseeker]

Better? In terms of singing, probably not. Vocals are fine on all of the 'Non Anderson' albums as they seem to be referred to these days. But maybe the songwriting would have been at least different on the Jon Davison ones and From A Page. Those sound the most Anderson-like. Heaven & Earth would probably be a little like The Ladder. Maybe those would have been better or seen as better or at least different. As for the Buggles ones (Drama & FFH), I would say no. For those, they were great as is and even needed Trevor Horn's production and songwriting and - important - lyrics. I can't imagine songs like Machine Messiah, Into The Lens or Life On A Film Set with lyrics like 'be the power of the sun' or 'touch the light of the Earth through the eyes of a child'.

A similar question: would 90125 or Big Generator have sounded better with Horn still in Yes and singing on them? Maybe they would have sounded even more futuristic than they already are.

[pianozach]

Familiarity. I enjoy JAs vocal timbre.

A few decades ago I was of the opinion that they should have taken the DRAMA backing tracks, and replaced Horn's vocals with JA vocals.

Strangely enough, decades later, Horn actually DID that when he replaced Benoit David's vocals with his own for the FLY FROM HERE HORN POWERTRIP thing. Wow. Um, I don't think it was an improvement. Then again, vocally, Horn is no Anderson.

Frankly, David mostly sounded fine on FFH, and Davison sounds great. The OWakeman/David FROM A PAGE tracks are excellent the way they are.

But I'm still scratching my head over the inclusion of a Steve Howe lead vocal track on FFHRT. I'm just glad that Howe hasn't decided to overdub his own lead vocals on some prior Yes album.

[rabin105]

Better? In terms of singing, probably not. Vocals are fine on all of the 'Non Anderson' albums as they seem to be referred to these days. But maybe the songwriting would have been at least different on the Jon Davison ones and From A Page. Those sound the most Anderson-like. Heaven & Earth would probably be a little like The Ladder. Maybe those would have been better or seen as better or at least different. As for the Buggles ones (Drama & FFH), I would say no. For those, they were great as is and even needed Trevor Horn's production and songwriting and - important - lyrics. I can't imagine songs like Machine Messiah, Into The Lens or Life On A Film Set with lyrics like 'be the power of the sun' or 'touch the light of the Earth through the eyes of a child'.

A similar question: would 90125 or Big Generator have sounded better with Horn still in Yes and singing on them? Maybe they would have sounded even more futuristic than they already are.

That sounds like a great thread Soundwaver I will let you create the would 90125 sounded better with Horn on lead vocals thread

[Olorin]

Drama, for all the shock it was to long-time fans at the time, cannot be improved upon by swapping out the vocalist. It was the sound of a revitalized Yes with things to say and places to go. Horn's slightly raspy voice and very mannered and sometimes almost staccato singly style was a big part of the Drama sound. If you swapped him out for Anderson, it would sound totally different. Same story for FFH. Actually (and I may lose credibility here) I think David's and Horn's voices are pretty similar (at least relative to Anderson's), which is why Return Trip was somewhat of a questionable endeavor.

As for Heaven and Earth, where it truly needed help was in the songwriting. Given some of the formless, tuneless stuff Anderson has produced in recent years, I'm not sure he could've helped out with that.

[Ash Armstrong]

I very much doubt Jonners would deign to sprinkle his fairy dust over such flaccid material as Heaven and Earth or The Quest. Even were he to lower himself to doing so, the writing is so poor to begin with, it wouldn't help much, though at least the vocals would be good.

[Kevin W]

Well, yes they would, but agree with other posters here - there would be no way he would just come in and sing without wanting to fiddle with the songs, making them no longer the albums they are.

[Soundwaveseeker]

Drama, for all the shock it was to long-time fans at the time, cannot be improved upon by swapping out the vocalist. It was the sound of a revitalized Yes with things to say and places to go. Horn's slightly raspy voice and very mannered and sometimes almost staccato singly style was a big part of the Drama sound. If you swapped him out for Anderson, it would sound totally different. Same story for FFH. Actually (and I may lose credibility here) I think David's and Horn's voices are pretty similar (at least relative to Anderson's), which is why Return Trip was somewhat of a questionable endeavor.

As for Heaven and Earth, where it truly needed help was in the songwriting. Given some of the formless, tuneless stuff Anderson has produced in recent years, I'm not sure he could've helped out with that.

I thought David sounded like Trevor Horn too when I first heard FFH. I assumed Horn redid the vocals to a) make a second album with the Drama lineup and b) possibly pay tribute to Chris and homage to the Drama lineup and the time and work they shared together while Horn was lead singer. To give the album more legitimacy. Return Trip didn't really improve on the original. As much as I love the Drama lineup, the original FFH is my preference. Some of the musical changes on Return Trip weren't really necessary, though we did get another track with Don't Take No For An Answer. That may have been included at Howe's insistence, otherwise Horn should have done the vocals on that too.

Wanna hear something really scary? Imagine Steve Howe redoing all the vocals himself on all the Yes albums he was involved in and calling it The Yes Catalogue: Return Trip.

[True]

Drama is by far my favorite of the Yes albums which do not have Jon Anderson.
Strangely, it's also the only one that I think I might like to hear with Anderson singing on it. But I do like Dama as it is - I always wished they could have gotten Anderson to sing one or two songs from Drama during Anderson's time in the band after that.

I remember Steve Walsh frequently sang some Kansas material which had been recorded without him, and he did a great job on that.

[downbyariver]

With now 6 soon to be 7 albums without Jon Anderson I have to ask

would any of those albums be better if Jon Anderson sang them?

Nope.

[Kenny]

Anderson would have improved Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit which IMO suit his voice better than Horn's

I liked Into The Lens and FFH very much but, to be honest, they belong on a Buggles album.

[JMKUSA]

Anderson would have improved Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit which IMO suit his voice better than Horn's

I liked Into The Lens and FFH very much but, to be honest, they belong on a Buggles album.

It’s a shame he never sang those songs live. That would have been cool!

[rabin105]

Anderson would have improved Machine Messiah and Tempus Fugit which IMO suit his voice better than Horn's

I liked Into The Lens and FFH very much but, to be honest, they belong on a Buggles album.

I never got this fly from here was written expressly to be on a yes album Brian lane literally said “write a song for Yes” and they wrote fly from here

there is no other artist that could of put out that song

[Kenny]

I never got this fly from here was written expressly to be on a yes album Brian lane literally said “write a song for Yes” and they wrote fly from here

there is no other artist that could of put out that song

😂

That will be news to Horn and Downes.

"This song was released on the 2010 re-release of the 1981 Buggles Album Adventures In Modern Recording".

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent...dern_Recording