70's Yes vs. 70's Pink Floyd?

[Elite]

I voted Pink Floyd, by the way.

Who is a superior guitarist: Howe or Gilmour?

And to answer this stupid question; Gilmour. Probably. But Howe in different ways too.

[Max Kuehnau]

I voted Pink Floyd, by the way.

Who is a superior guitarist: Howe or Gilmour?

And to answer this stupid question; Gilmour. Probably. But Howe in different ways too.

yes, I think both of them were well-suited for their respective bands, so, win win.

[WildRanger]

I voted Pink Floyd, by the way.

Who is a superior guitarist: Howe or Gilmour?

And to answer this stupid question; Gilmour. Probably. But Howe in different ways too.

I think Howe is technically superior. I would say he is also technically superior than Lifeson and Hackett and maybe Fripp.

[Fritzinger]

I voted Pink Floyd, by the way.

Who is a superior guitarist: Howe or Gilmour?

And to answer this stupid question; Gilmour. Probably. But Howe in different ways too.

I think Howe is technically superior. I would say he is also technically superior than Lifeson and Hackett and maybe Fripp.

Agree with most of this, though technique alone doesn't define "quality" of a musician.

I disagree on Fripp though. Robert Fripp is an extremely technical player if he wants to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W3wX2aX7_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nO_W9JZYw
Whenever I watch/listen to this stuff, I go absolute bonkers over how technically trained a guitarist Fripp actually is and how rarely he seems to have the need to show it.

[Elite]

Robert Fripp's music is based on the technicalities of his playing. Absolutely no way Howe is more 'technical' than him. Fripp is a monster who invented a whole new guitar tuning to be able to play some of the stuff he wrote.

[Orbert]

Fripp's strengths and Howe's strengths are in completely different areas.  Coming up with alternate tunings is cool, but not exactly novel.  Howe has the innate ability to play anything with strings and frets.  The list of different instruments he plays on Yes albums and his solo albums is insane.  On a technical level, I'd rate them about equal.

As always, it comes down to personal taste.  Who gives a fuck who's more technical?  What matters is what they contribute to the music.  Each is perfectly suited to what they do and the ensembles with whom they play.

[Stadler]

I voted Pink Floyd, by the way.

Who is a superior guitarist: Howe or Gilmour?

And to answer this stupid question; Gilmour. Probably. But Howe in different ways too.

I think Howe is technically superior. I would say he is also technically superior than Lifeson and Hackett and maybe Fripp.

Yes, Yes, and No.   I'm pretty sure I've watched Fripp play and gone, "my man, that is some TECHNIQUE!" more times than with all other guitarists COMBINED, even my man Blackmore.   He is so precise, and tight (find the Old Grey Whistle Test footage from '81).   I've seen Howe probably seven or eight times and while he's amazing, I've seen some ragged shows by him (the last Asia set for one). 

EDIT:  Wow did I get ninja'd on that or what???  Great call, Fritz, on your two examples, especially Suite No. 1.

[Kwyjibo]

I never thought of Steve Howe as a technical player. He's not really tight when soloing. His strength lies in his versatility imo.

[bosk1]

To further elaborate on my post above:  I like Floyd a LOT, but I cannot claim to be a hardcore fan at all.  It wasn't until the early '90s that I finally broke through and became a fan, so I was VERY late to the game.  To this day, I only have about half their albums, and do not recognize a good many song titles from the albums I don't have.  So that said, I realize that any "favorites" list of mine is going to immediately stand out as a list from a casual fan. 

But that being the case, when I look at my favorite tracks from them from the '70s, I would be hard pressed to name ANY other band from that time period that gave me so many songs that I like this much.  It is an incredibly strong list, and includes (chronologically; not ranked):
-One of These Days
-Echoes
-Pretty much ALL of the Dark Side of the Moon album (On the Run is usually a hard skip)
-ALL of the Wish You Were Here album
-MOST of the Animals album (I don't have it, and sometimes get the songs confused)
-In the Flesh?
-Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2
-Hey You
-Comfortably Numb
-Run Like Hell

I definitely have some other bands where I can generate such lists spanning certain decades.  But there aren't a whole lot of them.  Floyd really put out a lot of great stuff in the '70s, even if there is still a lot that I don't know well or don't connect with.  For Yes, I can't even remember any of their songs.  But what I do remember is that when I heard their stuff, I would generally just tune out and not be interested.  So:  about 4 full albums worth of material that I really like vs. zero songs that I like.  Floyd easily wins this poll for me.

[Stadler]

Fripp's strengths and Howe's strengths are in completely different areas.  Coming up with alternate tunings is cool, but not exactly novel.  Howe has the innate ability to play anything with strings and frets.  The list of different instruments he plays on Yes albums and his solo albums is insane.  On a technical level, I'd rate them about equal.

As always, it comes down to personal taste.  Who gives a fuck who's more technical?  What matters is what they contribute to the music.  Each is perfectly suited to what they do and the ensembles with whom they play.

Well, I'm with you on that last part, except that was specifically the question.  We all know that Wild Ranger puts up questions that sometimes lack context, and yet we seem to answer them.    

[CrimsonSunrise]

Pink Floyd, hands down!  While I appreciate Yes, for the most part they bore the hell out of me.  My BIL is a HUGE Yes fan.  We went to see Yes and DT together.  For the first time in my life I was actually nodding off at a concert, when Yes was playing.

[Elite]

Who gives a fuck who's more technical?

I don't, necessarily. That's why I mainly refuse to answer any of WildRanger's silly questions that always boil down to 'but this guitarist is technically superior!'.

I just thought naming Fripp in a list of guitarists less technical than Howe was silly, but that said, I don't know enough about Yes to fully appreciate Howe, though I know he's a great player.

[Stadler]

I think I spent more time trying to figure out what "BIL" is (I settled on Danish for "car") than the question, but I'm sort of surprised at some of the responses.  Not that there is a preference - I think we underestimate how big a band Pink Floyd was and still is - but that there are so many "I don't know the first thing about _____" responses given where we are.  Both Yes and Floyd were pretty big influencers on Dream Theater, and both bands have a prominent place in their "cover" history. 

Yes is one of those bands that I lose touch with every once in a while, but when I revisit, I'm almost always retouched by the music.   There was a period in the late 80's, mid-90's when I lived and breathed Yes.  I used to cut lawns/shovel snow to "Fragile".  Chris Squire is also in my top three or five "musical losses" list.  I think only John Wetton "ended" things as finitely as Squire's passing did for me (meaning, there is no Yes now, just like there's no Asia). 

[Orbert]

Who gives a fuck who's more technical?

I don't, necessarily. That's why I mainly refuse to answer any of WildRanger's silly questions that always boil down to 'but this guitarist is technically superior!'.

I just thought naming Fripp in a list of guitarists less technical than Howe was silly, but that said, I don't know enough about Yes to fully appreciate Howe, though I know he's a great player.

Yeah, I kinda forgot that that was the question on the table at the time.  But as we've seen, it still comes down to opinion and interpretation.  To some, "technical" is related to the word "technique" or the way you play the instrument.  To others, it seems to have more to do with playing quickly and with great precision.  These are not the same thing.

Thinking about that reminded me that neither are nearly as important as serving the music, so I went off that way.  I wouldn't want to hear Frippertronics in a Yes song any more than I'd want to hear Howe's countermelodic noodling in a King Crimson song.  Steve Howe's technique is unequaled IMO, but Fripp is probably more precise.

So the question managed to spark some discussion.  Apparently mine didn't, though that's probably because it came across as rhetorical.  But I honestly wonder sometimes why people are so concerned about "technical playing".  I'm impressed by someone who can play lots of notes very fast, but I'm also quickly bored by it.  I'd still rather hear someone with good technique.

[Stadler]

Can you explain that a little more?   Isn't "precision" part of good technique? 

My favorite "technique" players are Steve Morse and Ritchie Blackmore, and both play fast, both have a good melodic sense, both seem to be able to "serve" the music (Deep Purple is far more a jam band than you'd think), and both are exceedingly precise.  Ritchie Blackmore has AMAZING technique, in my opinion, and a big part of that is that he's able to play multiple instruments and at multiple volumes and yet it almost always conveys the intended emotion. 

It's fair to say that Jimmy Page - well known for his sloppy playing - is a highly technical player (for what it's worth, I think he is, do, though his real strength is composition and improvisation). 

[Orbert]

Precision is part of good technique, yes, but it's not the only thing.  Technique is about understanding the instrument and being able to using it to express yourself properly.  It's not just playing shitloads of notes as fast as you can.  I'm just trying to contrast what seem to be the two most common definitions of "technical" playing.  Or maybe I'm just way off base.  Maybe I'm the only one who thinks the words "technique" and "technical" are related.  But when I think of someone being a better technical player, to me it's not just about playing fast.  It's about knowing how to play the instrument properly.

Jimmy Page is a good example.  He's known for being sloppy, but somehow he's considered a technical player.  I've always thought of him as someone who plays more for "feel" than just notes per second.  Most blues guys are like that, and Jimmy of course is a blues-based player.

[Stadler]

Precision is part of good technique, yes, but it's not the only thing.  Technique is about understanding the instrument and being able to using it to express yourself properly.  It's not just playing shitloads of notes as fast as you can.  I'm just trying to contrast what seem to be the two most common definitions of "technical" playing.  Or maybe I'm just way off base.  Maybe I'm the only one who thinks the words "technique" and "technical" are related.  But when I think of someone being a better technical player, to me it's not just about playing fast.  It's about knowing how to play the instrument properly.

Jimmy Page is a good example.  He's known for being sloppy, but somehow he's considered a technical player.  I've always thought of him as someone who plays more for "feel" than just notes per second.  Most blues guys are like that, and Jimmy of course is a blues-based player.

But I like where you're going with this, because while Page is a blues-based player, he's not ONLY a blues-based player, and doesn't play everything the same.  If he's on a Les Paul, he's doing different things - I mean using different tunings, voicings, picking styles - to get what he's getting across, than if he is on his Martin acoustic, or using a mandolin.  How many metal bands do the slow intro, but it's the same patterns or chord progressions just on acoustic or with no distortion?  He's a solid folk player, and I have little doubt he could play in Nashville if he so chose.   (For the record, Page and Blackmore shared a teacher, Big Jim Sullivan, kind of the 60's studio legend of the UK).   So they both come from that background of having to play what is called for in the moment, not what they "want" to play.  I put Morse in the same bucket; his music isn't limited by what he can do on the guitar, he can do on the guitar what he needs to do to make the music he wants.   

[Dublagent66]

Based on just DSoTM and The Wall alone, easily Pink Floyd.  Two of the best works of art ever created. 

[romdrums]

I love Floyd, but 70’s Yes is on another level for me.  I still get chills listening to songs like Awaken, And You And I, Close to the Edge, Turn of the Century, and so on. 

Also, to me, even though The Wall came out in 1979, it has a very 80’s feel to it.  On the other hand, Drama came out in 1980 but still feels very 70’s to me.

[Mladen]

On the one hand: The Great Gig In The Sky.

On the other hand: Craving penetrations offer links with the self instructor's sharp and tender love as we took to the air, a picture of distance Dawn of our power we amuse redescending as fast as misused expression as only to teach love as to reveal passion chasing late into corners.



So yeah, Pink Floyd, no contest.

You've made it even harder, man. 

[Stadler]

I love Floyd, but 70’s Yes is on another level for me.  I still get chills listening to songs like Awaken, And You And I, Close to the Edge, Turn of the Century, and so on. 

Also, to me, even though The Wall came out in 1979, it has a very 80’s feel to it.  On the other hand, Drama came out in 1980 but still feels very 70’s to me.

No matter how silly the lyrics are, the "dream... on... on to the heart of the sunrise... Sharp! distance! How can the wind with its arms all around me"  part of that same song is transcendental in a way that I'm not sure Floyd has ever achieved for me. 

[425]

Easily Yes. Close to the Edge is my favorite 70s album, and Fragile would be up there. I'm still taking my time to get into their other albums from that era, but Going for the One is one that I like a lot as well, and 3/4 of Relayer.

I like Dark Side of the Moon a lot, and like The Wall, although I think some of it could have been cut. Beyond that it's really hit-or-miss. I like parts of Wish You Were Here and Meddle, but not the full albums. Still haven't gotten into Animals. And haven't bothered to listen to anything else.

I think the experimental stuff that Floyd did sometimes veered into stuff that I don't really recognize as musical, which is an automatic downside. And while the high points for Floyd are just about as high as the high points for Yes, the drop-off is a lot more dramatic.

[romdrums]

I love Floyd, but 70’s Yes is on another level for me.  I still get chills listening to songs like Awaken, And You And I, Close to the Edge, Turn of the Century, and so on. 

Also, to me, even though The Wall came out in 1979, it has a very 80’s feel to it.  On the other hand, Drama came out in 1980 but still feels very 70’s to me.

No matter how silly the lyrics are, the "dream... on... on to the heart of the sunrise... Sharp! distance! How can the wind with its arms all around me"  part of that same song is transcendental in a way that I'm not sure Floyd has ever achieved for me.

Gilmour's soloing on Comfortably Numb, along with all of Shine On You Crazy Diamond, is probably the closest they get to those kind of moments for me.  Yes has so many of those moments for me, though.  The one you mentioned in HOTS, the Soon portion of Gates of Delirium, the entirety of And You And I and Turn of the Centry, the outro of Awaken, I could go on!

[Kwyjibo]

I would have thought that Yes gets more votes than Pink Floyd because imo the Yes prog is much closer to the DT prog than the more atmospheric Pink Floyd prog.

[Orbert]

Me too.  In some ways, Dream Theater is modeled after Yes.

[LudwigVan]

Yep. Modeled in the tradition started by bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream in which ‘every instrument is playing lead’.  Dream Theater epitomizes that concept. 

Pink Floyd went the opposite direction. For all the atmospherics, their arrangements are more evocative of The Beatles, especially on The Wall.

I voted for Yes only because I tend to listen to their albums a bit more.  But PF was one of my first loves. I jumped all over Animals when it was first released and it remains one of my all time favorite albums.

[Orbert]

I hadn't thought of Yes music as "every instrument is playing lead" but I've heard their music described that way before, or at least something pretty close to that.  Same with Dream Theater.  While I don't quite agree, I get it.  Guitar, keys, bass, drums, vocals, and when they're all firing on all eight cylinders, it's amazing.  Early Pink Floyd was the same way, just in a different direction.

Also, fuck yeah Animals!  My favorite Pink Floyd album, right up there with my favorite Yes.  Not that it's a competition.

[Cool Chris]

To further elaborate on my post above:  I like Floyd a LOT, but I cannot claim to be a hardcore fan at all.  It wasn't until the early '90s that I finally broke through and became a fan, so I was VERY late to the game.  To this day, I only have about half their albums, and do not recognize a good many song titles from the albums I don't have.  So that said, I realize that any "favorites" list of mine is going to immediately stand out as a list from a casual fan. 

I think I have said elsewhere my PF fandom is very unique as well. PF was a significant gateway in my musical development. In my classic rock salad days, I listened to PF and probably Zeppelin more than any other band. Yet I never owned more than half of Floyd's studio albums, and much of their catalog I didn't care for. I was, and am, lukewarm at best on their pre-DSotM material, though Echoes has always been a top 5 PF song. I like the songs of AMLoR, TDB didn't make much of an impact on me, yet High Hopes might be my #1 song of theirs. But DSoT is my most watched video of any kind, and most listened to album ever. Looking at my physical media collection now, I only own 1 studio album of theirs (I've sold so many CDs over the years due to changing tastes and financial issues). Crazy to think that for a band I've always ranked among my top 5 ever, I only own 1 of their studio albums.

Sometimes I feel like I am a fan of Floyd as a concept and a band more than I am a fan of their material.

[HOF]

^^ The Division Bell is easily the best Pink Floyd song. It’s really great.

[IDontNotDoThings]

God, I can't decide. Both have some of my favourite albums of all time & both have a couple clunkers.

Let's go side-by-side.

1st. Close To The Edge > Dark Side Of The Moon (but god damn is it close)
2nd. Fragile > The Wall (also super close)
3rd. Relayer > Animals
4th. The Yes Album < Wish You Were Here
5th. Tales From Topographic Oceans < Meddle
6th. Time & A Word > Atom Heart Mother
7th. Going For The One > Obscured By Clouds
8th. Tormato

So Yes wins I guess.

[Cool Chris]

^^ The Division Bell is easily the best Pink Floyd song. It’s really great.

High Hopes 

[Elite]

Pretty sure he meant High Hopes

Not that I agree

[Fritzinger]

I hadn't thought of Yes music as "every instrument is playing lead" but I've heard their music described that way before, or at least something pretty close to that.  Same with Dream Theater.  While I don't quite agree, I get it.  Guitar, keys, bass, drums, vocals, and when they're all firing on all eight cylinders, it's amazing.  Early Pink Floyd was the same way, just in a different direction.

Also, fuck yeah Animals!  My favorite Pink Floyd album, right up there with my favorite Yes.  Not that it's a competition.

I think the approach Yes followed was very different from DT's. Sure, in DT there is a lot of soloing, but it's mostly during parts that are deliberately constructed to be "solo parts" (I hope you guys get what I'm saying). Still, sometimes Jordan Rudess plays completely freaky stuff during verses or short interludes (his reprise of JP's guitar solo in The Glass Prison at 3:56 or that awesome organ line between an verse and a chorus in Pale Blue Dot at 2:49). Mangini sometimes does a huge fill somewhere and Petrucci subtly shows what he's got outside a solo (About To Crash at 0:23). But most of the time, whenever there is singing, the musicians restrain themselves.

Concerning Yes, I think that "everybody plays lead" thing is especially true on Close To The Edge up to Tormato. That is the part of Yes' career in which they went far away from conventional rock music in terms of arrangement, construction of melodic lines and instrumentation.
Drama has conventional riffs in E minor, Fragile has blues- and Jon Lord-influenced organ solos. But Yes 72-78 has cembalo solos (Siberian Khatru, Madrigal), minute-long church organ parts (Close To The Edge, Awaken), chaotic sound collages (The Gates Of Delirium, Sound Chaser), tribal percussion instead of drums (The Ancient, Ritual), mocking country guitar solos (To Be Over, Going For The One), voices used as an instrument (Sound Chaser) ... I could go on. I think, in those songs there is so much going on that the "everybody is soloing"-thought is true. And I don't think I know another band that managed this approach as masterful as Yes did.

[HOF]

^^ The Division Bell is easily the best Pink Floyd song. It’s really great.

High Hopes 

Yes!

[LudwigVan]

I hadn't thought of Yes music as "every instrument is playing lead" but I've heard their music described that way before, or at least something pretty close to that.  Same with Dream Theater.  While I don't quite agree, I get it.  Guitar, keys, bass, drums, vocals, and when they're all firing on all eight cylinders, it's amazing.  Early Pink Floyd was the same way, just in a different direction.

Also, fuck yeah Animals!  My favorite Pink Floyd album, right up there with my favorite Yes.  Not that it's a competition.

I think the approach Yes followed was very different from DT's. Sure, in DT there is a lot of soloing, but it's mostly during parts that are deliberately constructed to be "solo parts" (I hope you guys get what I'm saying). Still, sometimes Jordan Rudess plays completely freaky stuff during verses or short interludes (his reprise of JP's guitar solo in The Glass Prison at 3:56 or that awesome organ line between an verse and a chorus in Pale Blue Dot at 2:49). Mangini sometimes does a huge fill somewhere and Petrucci subtly shows what he's got outside a solo (About To Crash at 0:23). But most of the time, whenever there is singing, the musicians restrain themselves.

Concerning Yes, I think that "everybody plays lead" thing is especially true on Close To The Edge up to Tormato. That is the part of Yes' career in which they went far away from conventional rock music in terms of arrangement, construction of melodic lines and instrumentation.
Drama has conventional riffs in E minor, Fragile has blues- and Jon Lord-influenced organ solos. But Yes 72-78 has cembalo solos (Siberian Khatru, Madrigal), minute-long church organ parts (Close To The Edge, Awaken), chaotic sound collages (The Gates Of Delirium, Sound Chaser), tribal percussion instead of drums (The Ancient, Ritual), mocking country guitar solos (To Be Over, Going For The One), voices used as an instrument (Sound Chaser) ... I could go on. I think, in those songs there is so much going on that the "everybody is soloing"-thought is true. And I don't think I know another band that managed this approach as masterful as Yes did.

Aside from being the quintessential classical/symphonic prog band, the thing I love about Yes is the way they harken back to Bach. The idea of ‘every instrument playing lead’ might seem a rather modern one, but it’s really not. It’s all about what Bach did when he composed his toccatas, fugues and 2 and 3-part inventions and whatnot. He was about creating multiple voices that wove themselves into the broader fabric of the music. A tertiary voice or theme would suddenly become the primary, and vice versa. And the way that Yes accomplished it within the rock band framework is nothing short of brilliant.

So maybe the more correct phrase would be ‘every instrument with its own voice’. That said, this style can come across as clinical and mathematical, leaving some people feeling cold and dispassionate. For myself, both Bach and Yes don’t give me the feelings of intimacy and warmth that Pink Floyd or Brahms does.