The Official Yes Thread

[Silver Tears]

I love those three tracks too, particularly Roundabout cos I remember that main riff from my childhood (must've heard it randomly when I was young, not sure how!) so it was really cool hearing it again in the song it came from    Also really like the solo bits, especially Mood for a Day.

Anyway, I'll keep what you've said in mind and report back when I've had the chance to listen Thanks again!

[The Letter M]

I love those three tracks too, particularly Roundabout cos I remember that main riff from my childhood (must've heard it randomly when I was young, not sure how!) so it was really cool hearing it again in the song it came from    Also really like the solo bits, especially Mood for a Day.

Anyway, I'll keep what you've said in mind and report back when I've had the chance to listen Thanks again!

Great! I hope you enjoy your journey into Yes, as I have been spending the last couple months revisiting Yes' entire catalog, studio AND live, ever since the recent release of their latest album, Fly From Here, and it's been a joy listening to every album at least a couple times in the last few weeks!

-Marc.

[Quadrochosis]

I've had TFTO for like two years and I still have really only gotten into the first song. It's an absurdly dense album.

totally vibing on this because i've had similar experiences. although over like 5 years i've grown to love it

[ZBomber]

Tales took me about a year and a half to fully appreciate, and more or less dissected the album piece by piece.

Ritual and Revealing Science came in early 2010.... and then had great experiences with "The Ancient" in the fall and "The Remembering" this May.

Definitely one of my favorite albums, just because there is so much going on... it's like immersing yourself in a whole different world for 80+ minutes.

[Perpetual Change]

I've been listening to tales for like 5 years but it still has never really clicked for me.

[MasterShakezula]

I find Tales to be a very good, at times, great, album, though I'll take Close To The Edge over any other Yes album about 3-4 times out of 5.

[Mladen]

Tales is beautiful, The Revealing science of God and The Ancient kinda clicked with me immediately, especially the former, being my favorite Yes song. Ritual has some nice sections, the first half is very enjoyable. The Remembering, on the other hand... It's listenable, but nothing's happening.

[Zydar]

Tales has never clicked with me, I find it really hard to get into. But I'll keep trying, it seems to be a great album.

[Pols Voice]

I never really had any problems getting into Tales. One thing I find interesting is that Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, another album with four very long, slow developing pieces, is considered one of the best albums of all time by many, and Tales is considered overly bloated and dull.

[MasterShakezula]

Um, Tales is by Yes, a band that many people, especially critics, detest (I love them, but that's beside the point), while GS!BE is nearly universally loved by critics and people who actually listen to music. 

[Silver Tears]

Listened to The Yes Album, fallen in love with it too 

I really should've got on to Yes sooner!

[Pols Voice]

Um, Tales is by Yes, a band that many people, especially critics, detest (I love them, but that's beside the point), while GS!BE is nearly universally loved by critics and people who actually listen to music. 

My point is that many people, including Yes fans, find it difficult to get into 4 very long songs in a row on the same album, but then seem to have no problem listening to that kind of thing with GYBE. The tracks on Lift Yr. Skinny... are more slow developing and repetitive than on Tales, but most people don't find them boring. whatevah. Tales is my favorite Yes album and in my Top 5 albums of all time, and I just get a little touchy seeing it being criticized so much over the years, even by Rick Wakeman. Funny that he would think the album is overly padded, when he puts every idea he ever had on his ten billion solo albums.

Silver Tears, that's cool that you're getting into Yes. The Yes Album is so awesome; it's my second favorite. Yours is No Disgrace and Starship Trooper rule so much.

[Orbert]

Listened to The Yes Album, fallen in love with it too 

I really should've got on to Yes sooner!

If you're listening to The Yes Album now, I suggest you just work your way chronologically from there, rather than skipping around to hit the albums which others say are better.  That way, you'll get a much better feel for how they evolved over time.  You'll come to the span where they got "epic crazy" then worked their way out of it, etc.

[Silver Tears]

I might do that actually, since I'm pretty set on listening to everything they've made now 

[ZBomber]

 

Fragile/Close to the Edge/Tales is one of my favorite three album runs EVAR

[MasterShakezula]

Shift that backwards by an album, and you have one of my favorite 3 album runs. 

[Orbert]

You mean CttE/TfTO/R, correct?  Not "backwards" as in starting from Time and a Word?

Although TaaW is an underrated album, and hey, if that's what you like.

[MasterShakezula]

Actually, I meant TYA-CTTE, though R is my second favorite by Yes behind CTTE.     

[Orbert]

Oops, I effed up.  For some reason I thought we were starting with TYA already.

[KevShmev]

I never really had any problems getting into Tales. One thing I find interesting is that Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, another album with four very long, slow developing pieces, is considered one of the best albums of all time by many, and Tales is considered overly bloated and dull.

That's because GY!BE's album is better.  The songs overall flow better, are more focused, and are simply better.  I like Tales a lot more than I used to, but it still meanders way too much at times. 

[Perpetual Change]

^

Yup, I do agree with that. Both albums are "long" but I always get the feeling that Tales is artificially long. It always seemed to me like they just wanted to have four big epics so they wrote them, rather then letting them develop organically.

[snowdog]

^

Yup, I do agree with that. Both albums are "long" but I always get the feeling that Tales is artificially long. It always seemed to me like they just wanted to have four big epics so they wrote them, rather then letting them develop organically.

I remember reading an interview with Jon Anderson in the late 90s I think.  He said that if they wrote Tales today it would fit on one CD.  I can't remember if he mentioned an actual length, but I'm thinking he might have said around 60 minutes, but I could be wrong.  I think it is very obvious that they were working with the media of the time.  That said I find the entirety of Tales to be really good.

[ZBomber]

Revealing Science, The Ancient, and Ritual are flawless as they are. The only one I can see needing to be shorter would be "The Remembering", but honestly, it's still really good.

[The Letter M]

I took over a year to actually get into Tales, but once I found it to be enjoyable, it became a great listen every time I play it. There are very few LONG albums I will enjoy (others being TFK's Unfold The Future or Genesis' TLLDOB) immensely, but being patient with TFTO was worth the wait. I do agree, though, that you really have to get into the previous 3 albums first before you try Tales because the TYA-F-CTTE really sets up TFTO in terms of what the band was doing at the time.

-Marc.

[ZBomber]

Tales from Topographic Oceans is one of the greatest albums ever recorded, and so few people understand that.

I've listened to "The Revealing Science of God" at least 92 times before. And now on my 93rd listen, I just noticed shit I never noticed before. It is an incredible, expansive album. And Steve's guitar just... paints.

[Orbert]

People often say how it "wanders" or has "filler" parts to it, but each piece is long enough that moving from highly structured to improvisational and back is fine with me.  I actually like the less structured parts, and the way everything flows is really cool.  I wouldn't change any of it.

Okay, maybe the ritual part of "Ritual" (starting at 14:20) could be shortened up just a bit, though I'm not sure how.  It's the only part that ever feels to me like it goes on just a bit too long, but I guess it's supposed to be like that, to build the tension.  It's not so bad now, I guess; about 20 or so listens ago I finally realized that the pattern played by the drums and that brash, almost atonal synth (at 15:57) is really one of the main musical themes.  It's so far out there that it's pretty hard to tell.  The ending is just glorious, though.  It wouldn't be so awesome if the preceding section weren't so chaotic, but sometimes it taxes even my patience.

[ZBomber]

Orbert, posts like that are why you're one of my favorite posters on this site.

  Tales is such an adventure. Every single listening experience I've had with this album has been a great one (aside from maybe the first one or two, when the album hadn't "clicked" at all with me.  )

[Orbert]

Thanks for the compliment. 

I've been listening to Yes for a very long time, longer than most people here have been alive.  It did take a few listens to grasp "Tales" but it was the 70's, when such things were easier to do.  By that, I mean that people seemed to take more time to listen to music, really listen.  I can't even imagine taking an afternoon nowadays to listen to a double album all the way through not once, but two or three times, just to dig it.  It's been said that people today have shorter attention spans, partially a result of so much technology available to us and partly the reason for it, but I digress.  There's a lot going on, and the breathing space between the intense sections is necessary and by design.  I guess if not all of it grabs you, it feels like filler.  But it you like all of it... whoa!

[ZBomber]

Stopping in to say that The Yes Album, and Starship Trooper in particular, is amazing. The Wurm section is the best way to end a song (or in the case of vinyl, a side!).

[Silver Tears]

Stopping in to say that The Yes Album, and Starship Trooper in particular, is amazing. The Wurm section is the best way to end a song (or in the case of vinyl, a side!).

I've now listened to it enough times to be able to completely agree! 

[MasterShakezula]

Yes Album>Fragile, but Heart of the Sunrise>Starship Trooper.  Just barely, though. 

[senecadawg2]

I sure do love that bass line on Roundabout

[pain of occupation]

i havent visited this thread in forever. i see there's a lot of tales talk.

you know, its funny (ok, probably 100 better adjectives out there), ive long called 1971-1974era Yes one of the greatest 4 year outputs in modern music history...yet i've never been able to get into Tales. granted i've only tried, like, three times, but all three times it was a struggle to even get through the whole thing.

anywayz, the three before it and the one after it have garnered thousands of spins. i s'pose i should give Tales a few more tries if i claim what i do (the 4 years of domination).

[Orbert]

If you've given it three spins listening "actively", take a different approach and put it on mostly for background.  Let it play while reading or doing homework or watching a game on TV with the sound off.  Let it work on you subconsciously.  There's too much there for most people to absorb in just a few listens, so give it some time to sink in.  Eventually it will become a part of your very soul, and you'll wonder how you lived so long without it.

[ZBomber]

Personally, I had to dissect the album song by song in order to appreciate it. The album as a whole was far too crazy for me at first. But once I was able to appreciate each song individually, it made the whole album.... an adventure.