Would a New Yes Boxset(s) Covering the 1989-2021 Period be Viable?

[soundchaser09]

I was wondering since many Yes albums from the latter years don't have a lot of stock left in places or promotion to sell them, would it be beneficial to release these albums in a Boxset or two the way they did with the Atlantic albums:




Although I'm not entirely sure whether Yes have all the ownership rights to the albums, or whether they are in the hands of the record companies. Personally, I think it would be a good way to promote and sell some of the later and often forgotten records, if they were bundled together.

[kilianltia]

They sort of did a similar thing already with the box set Essentially Yes which included Talk, OYE, The Ladder, Magnification and a single CD version of Live at Montreux.

I don't really know if there would be that much point in trying to collect all the albums from 1989 to now because of the inconsistency from album to album and I'm not just talking about the quality of the material. Would it make any sense to include the Jon Anderson albums with the non-Anderson ones?

Would you include ABWH? It has sort of been accepted into the canon, by having tracks included on In A Word in 2003 besides it would be even weirder to include Union and NOT ABWH as ABWH arguably has more performances by members of Yes than Union does.

Would the Keys tracks be included as Keystudio or would they be burdened once again by the SLO tracks? Steve Howe seems to prefer addressing this material as one release.

Which version of FFH would be included, the original or Return Trip?

I suppose a release could be put together featuring

- Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe
- Union
- Talk
- Keystudio
- Open Your Eyes
- The Ladder
- Magnification
- Fly From Here: Return Trip
- Heaven & Earth
- The Quest
- Bonus CD including the Ultimate Yes acoustic tracks, From A Page and bonus material from The Quest

But I can't really see a label wanting to go through the hassle of licensing and the cost of manufacturing for what would probably be quite a limited buying audience...

Personally I would MUCH rather they got on with releasing archive material from the 60s, 70s and 80s...

[luna65]

I think the licensing aspect might be too difficult to surmount.

[Gtkgasman]

I would rather see the Early Years box. Think I posted before.

One box that captures ALL the radio, ALL the tv snippets floating on FY, ALL the releases from official TV releases, all those great bonus tunes played back in the day like live “it’s love, Etc’. Anything and everything from 68-71 “in one package”!!! CD and DVD. We all must have a ton of various things around to capture them all. All packaged together would be sweet. IMHO.

AND, or, include ALL the 8mm cliPs from the 70s floating in same package - the big bonus dvd disc!!!

A lot of work I know!!!! And who buys it - just this group? Just me?

[soundchaser09]

its a shame about the licensing issues but I do think that a two boxset option would be a fun idea:

YES: 1989-1999

ABWH
Union
Talk
Keys to Ascension 1
Keys to Ascension 2 (release the Keys material as it originally came out to include some Live material as a bonus).
Open Your Eyes
The Ladder

YES: 2001-2021

Magnification
Fly From Here (include both versions for completion sake)
Heaven and Earth
From a Page
The Quest
YES 50 Live (as a Bonus Live Album)

(include Bonus interviews with members and others involved also for both boxsets).

RRP £50 each?

[Ash Armstrong]

I would rather see the Early Years box. Think I posted before.

One box that captures ALL the radio, ALL the tv snippets floating on FY, ALL the releases from official TV releases, all those great bonus tunes played back in the day like live “it’s love, Etc’. Anything and everything from 68-71 “in one package”!!! CD and DVD. We all must have a ton of various things around to capture them all. All packaged together would be sweet. IMHO.

AND, or, include ALL the 8mm cliPs from the 70s floating in same package - the big bonus dvd disc!!!

A lot of work I know!!!! And who buys it - just this group? Just me?

Sounds good to me. I'm hopeful we'll still get an early years boxset with as much live performance audio and video as can be found, and I think such a set would be welcomed by fans.

[John Vehadija]

I would love that to happen!

[kilianltia]

I am pretty sure that the Early Years box set will not include any visual material which is a shame since the band have an unseen TV special from 1971 which includes a live version of Perpetual Change by the Yes Album line up.

[Ash Armstrong]

Additionally, I think anyone who only discovered the band in the last 30 years will already have all the albums post-1989 up to the present.
Live recordings and video are all available, either on Forgotten Yesterdays or YouTube and in very good resolution given the improvements in recording technology with the advent of SkyNet, sorry the Internet, so I can't really see a market for a boxset covering the last 30 years that would make it viable.

[Old Frothingslosh]

I don't really see the point of it. Most fans of these years already have these releases. I would rather they focus on archrival releases.

[Homemade Parachute]

I’m trying to remember what the attraction of the big box set was — the mini-lp style packaging? Remastered audio? Neither of which really applies to the post-Atlantic era, even if they could get all the licenses, which they probably can’t. And demand would likely be pretty low, unless they went vinyl, I suppose.

Archival live releases, if anything, would be the way to go, but I don’t even see a lot of that happening: Progeny was a one-off, although I’d certainly love me some Tormato, Relayer, 90125 & Big Generator tour bundles…

[Nut]

Personal opinion here. I don't think it would sell. I live in Arizona and I never even saw the last studio album in the stores. I now have a paid Spotify account and it is sufficient, I can make a playlist of the albums I want to. I am saving some money. I spend less on Spotify than I used to spend on CDs, and I have found some great Rick Wakeman stuff that I didn't know existed. I even wrote a email to Rick through RWRC thanking him for making his stuff available. Granted, there are some glaring omissions, Jon Andersons "Three Ships", Yes's Talk, but I have those CD's and can add them to my Spotify. I don't see a comprehensive Box set being a thing anymore.

[Old Frothingslosh]

I had to go back and look my Yes collection as I try to be a completest when it come to them and just remembered they already had a box set (Essentially Yes 1993-2003) that has Talk, Open Your Eyes, The Ladder, and Magnification and then a 5th disc of Live stuff from Montreux in 2003 that was not officially released at the time. For the other releases maybe a "Original Album series" to include those? Not really sure it would sell except to knuckleheads like me

Essentially Yes 2006:

Talk (bonus extended track of The Calling 8:08)
Open Your Eyes
The Ladder
Magnification
Live At Montreux 2003
Siberian Khatru
Magnification
Don't Kill The Whale
In The Presence Of
Deeper
Death Of Ego
True Beginner
Turn Around And Remember
And You And I
Cord Of Life
Eclipse
The Preacher The Teacher
Apocalypse
Awaken
I've Seen All Good People
Your Move
All Good People

[profusion]

Too many record companies, too many managers, too many different band members, and not enough potential customers. So, no.

For me, the focus should be on scouring the vaults for unreleased live material that isn't sourced from radio broadcasts everyone already has on bootlegs. There has to be enough for at least one or two more quality archival releases.

There seemed to be some momentum in this direction following the strong sales of Progeny, but we haven't heard anything in a long time. Maybe whoever at Atlantic was assigned to this task couldn't find anything else in the vault, or else the management priorities changed.

[altaeria]

Just put the funds towards a special-edition complete remix (and not by Sherwood!)
release of "Subway Walls" and/or "Fragile Touch" (the ARW song).