Cut From the Stars vs. Owner of a Lonely Heart

[Mr. Holland]

Since so many fans seem to claim to be tired of Yes' biggest commercial hit and are happy the current iteration hasn't played it for years, I was wondering: the new single vs. their biggest hit, which song do you prefer?

[pjt]

Owner is a memento of the eighties, and a very important milestone in Yes history. As a song it's simple and catchy, and while not a bad song in its own category, it's not in any way a special Yes song.
Great album opener, and... Yes, a great album opener.

[Mr. Holland]

Interesting score so far, 5-3.....

[madbear]

Owner is a Tevor Horn track. Some great playing on it, but mostly the product of production and edit. And also from the perisod of Yes I find pretty much unlistenable.

[Frumious B]

“Cut From The Stars” ain’t bad, but it would be a miracle if they pulled off something remotely as good as “ Owner…”.

[Enlighten]

I’m going with recency bias. I voted for CftS.

[Yorkshire Square]

Much as I like CftS, Owner (the album track, not the various live renditions) just edges it. I don't need to hear it live again but that applies to Roundabout and ST too.

Anyway if the rest of the new album lives up to the single I'll be very happy.

[RobR]

Owner feels so dated to me now. Normally skip it. Cfts gets my vote.

[downbyariver]

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" is genuinely one of my favorite songs in the world. I'm looking at an automated list of the most played songs on my smartphone's main music player since I bought the phone (I want to say early 2022, but I don't remember), and it's number six. Not the 6th most played Yes song, the 6th most played any song.

Now, that playcount does sort of get an artificial bump because there are a lot of playlists to play or to shuffle that I've created over the years that have that song in it, and I sometimes just go into Yes as the artist and hit shuffle and listen to them drawing randomly from all the official Yes songs in my collection until I am ready to switch to something else. So, I often listen to the song, like many of my favorite songs, without specifically intending to, but, clearly, I don't often hit skip.

And the count that puts it at number six only includes the canonical first track of 90125 version- the various live or cover versions I have from Yes and related bands (or even bonus versions from the same album) are considered separate songs with separate playcounts by the software. If I am listening to it on In the Present with a Yes lineup that includes Benoit David singing and Steve Howe on lead guitar, or Live in Japan, Billy Sherwood and Tony Kaye's release under their own names playing a concert together outside of Yes (But with some Yes songs), that doesn't count. Add stuff like that in, and it'd be even higher.

So, I voted for Owner. Of course I did. I mean, how couldn't I?

However, "Cut from the Stars" is excellent and keeps my excitement level for the forthcoming album that features it peaked. I even did an Internet search to see where the nearest dark sky park is to me, even though I probably like the outdoors less than the average person does (Being in them, not songs about them, obviously- some of my favorite Yes songs at least nominally use the outdoors as an allegory- see my screenname.). So, I must really like the song. Something about it speaks to me.

We've had 40 years for Owner to become ingrained in our souls. I think the process may require more than five minutes for the new single to sink in quite that deep with me. I'm estatistic that there is a new single, though, and enthusiastic about the song's composition and the band's performance of it.

One other thing that also makes this a tough comparison is that "Cut From the Stars" is much closer to Yes' 70s style and the style they had in 1983. That doesn't quite make it apples to oranges, but its maybe red apples to green apples or something. You know what the feel of just this song, the only one I've heard off the new album, so far is for me? Tales from the Topographic Oceans, if it had been an album of 4-10 minute songs, or, to a lesser extent, Close to the Edge. I think both the lead guitar and the bass guitar are evocative of those eras of Yes. A song about stars and water and some mystical stuff is in the right wheelhouse thematically as well.

It also reminds me a bit of how Steve and Billy handled "Does it Really Happen?", originally a Drama (1980) song, when they've played it live at various times over the course of the last decade, including in 2016 and 2017, and chronicled on the 2017 live album Topographic Drama (Which remains my favorite live album of the Davison era, which I believe has featured five live albums total thus far.). On that album, I think the current lineup played the Drama, including that one, with the possible exception of "Machine Messiah", which may have featured the late great Alan White (Apparently he played that particular song on some tour stops and not others, and the live album is drawn from a collection of tour stops in early 2017, with songs and parts of songs not all coming from the same night.).

It probably wouldn't be fair to expect anything to compete with well loved songs so early in the process of the unveiling of the next batch of what will become well loved songs for many of us after we've had some significant time with them, though.

It's an interesting topic anyhow, of course.

I find I literally am still enjoying the "The Ice Bridge" from the last album more and more and it's climbing up where I'd rank it relative to other Yes songs. So, this could do the same. I already like it a lot.

One thing that this reminds me of is that a gentleman who posted a brief review of the entire Mirror to the Sky before realizing that his advanced review copy came with an embargo and that he has received it with the understanding that he wouldn't post any reviews until a specific later date towards the end of April (If the band or the label had sent me an advance review copy, then of course I would honor any embargo that I agreed to as part of that process. Since they did not send me a review copy, though, I'm free to talk all I want. ), was that he felt that the songs, and parts within the songs, reminded him of all different areas of Yes.

One thing I wanted to ask him before he had to rescind everything was if he meant that as including 90125 and Big Generator and, if so, which songs reminded him of which 80s albums. I would love for something to remind me of either album that's more substantial than "Love Will Find a Way" and "Cut from the Stars" both opening with a few seconds of violin. If Steve wants to play guitar on a track like that in his 80s Asia style because he doesn't like playing in the 80s Yes style pioneered by Trevor Rabin, that would still work fine for me.

I think it is a longshot that there will be that type of song on there, but, if there is, comparing that song to Owner might be a pretty interesting poll and discussion.

There's of course an overtone to this type of discussion of "Do you like 80s music of the type Yes and Asia did from 1983 through at least the end of the decade?". There are of course people who don't care for that style of music and thus wouldn't vote for Owner over anything they thought was half decent in a style they enjoy more. If Yes winds has included a song on the album that actually sounds like it could have been on one of those Rabin-era Yes or Asia albums, though, I think suddenly we could really get into deep intricacies comparing the merits of the songs relative to each other. Of course, there would still be people who don't like particular lineups skewing the discussion away from the merits of the music a little, but I think we here on Yesfans are a little fairer about than some places I've seen online. Most people here are willing to at least give things a listen and try to set aside issues like whether or not they personally consider something Yes or not and just judge music on music.

[TerryTT]

This is an unfair matchup. Love it or hate it Owner is one of the songs that helped define the 80s.

[JMKUSA]

Which is the better pop song? Owner.

Which is the better Yessong? Cut From the Stars.

While much of 90125 sounds enough like Yes to me, Owner is really nothing more than a guitar riff with splashy synths to make it seem more sophisticated than it really is.

[Davy]

I'm tired of it, but Owner is way better. The bridge and outro to CFtS is pretty good, though.

[Somis Sound]

An iconic 80's classic versus a song I cant even remember how it goes, other than the lyrics were about the stars or something.

[pjt]

An iconic 80's classic versus a song I cant even remember how it goes, other than the lyrics were about the stars or something.

"Iconic 80's classic" Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
For decades Owner was a punching bag for the Troopers, the base of derision for YesWest fans (in which case West was a negative suffix as is)

Anyhoo, the question wasn't which song is 80'er or classicer or even iconicer. Sure, Owner is the iconicest , classicest and 80'est, but I still say that CFtS is a better Yes song.
As for the remembering part, I'm using this whatchamacallit, thingy stuff that helps me remember... Stuff...

[pjt]

Ginkgo Biloba!