So I had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with this round. I had thought about just making it the 13th and 14th albums and stopping there, but I didn't felt it was fair to exclude Genesis' Calling All Stations, especially when I included their debut in the first poll. But if I was going to include all three of Genesis last albums, how would I handle the 15th Yes album?
*Technically speaking, Open Your Eyes was their next full studio album after Talk, but they released two Studio/Live albums titled Keys To Ascension, with some really good material from their "Classic Line-up". I thought by including those songs and acknowledging them (especially since they were later released as Keystudio), it might balance out the Yes side a bit more if some opinions on Union and/or Talk are less favorable, especially compared to Invisible Touch and We Can't Dance.
So here we are, from the late 80s into the mid 90s with both bands, but after Calling All Stations, Genesis called it quits, but Yes has continued on since then with 5 more albums (none of which will be represented here in this poll series, sorry!). As for Genesis, I've always enjoyed Invisible Touch, as I knew the singles growing up listening to them on classic rock radio, but when rediscovering them during my prog rock discovery, I found new appreciation for those songs and the whole album! We Can't Dance is a bit of a mixed bag for me - the highs are really high, but the lows are slow and plodding, and being a fairly long album, I don't really spin this one in its entirety very often. Calling All Stations has some great material on it hidden between some mediocre songs, but I don't dislike Ray Wilson at all. I think if the band had taken a second pass at some of the songs and used some of the B-Sides instead of the songs that made it into the album, they may have had a killer album and a chance at doing a second album with Ray. Ah well...
As for Yes, Union is also a bit of a mixed bag, but the idea of having most of all the Yesmen in one album is very appealing, though I've seen many Yesfans say that the Union Tour was much greater given the members involved, but there are still some great songs on Union (even though many fans will call it by their nickname for it, "Onion"). Talk is just a fun and good album through and through, and I enjoy it a lot, especially the fairly proggy three-part "Endless Dream". And of course, probably the proggiest, heaviest stuff they did in the 90s, the Keys studio material is probably some of my favorite post-Drama Yes music. I spun it earlier today, in fact, and still find it a joy to listen to.
Going between these two sets of three albums, I am kind of torn. If you want, your vote can ignore the 15th albums for both bands, if you want to just consider IT/WCD vs Union/Talk, that's fine as well. I just wanted to put the option out there to include Calling All Stations and the Keys material as they both followed We Can't Dance and Talk.
-Marc.