Yes (1969 debut album)
Not to be confused with the superior The Yes Album, this self-titled debut by the progressive rock behemoths is a patchy affair, reasonable in places, boring in others. On a more positive note, it doesn’t reach the boredom threshold set by 1974′s Relayer, an album that really does test the patience.
Yes have always been a frustrating enigma for me. 1972′s Close to the Edge is prog perfection as far as I’m concerned but other releases just fail to match up to it, with only ’71′s Fragile coming close. These inconsistencies are evident on ’71′s The Yes Album and the less said about 1973′s self-indulgently flawed yawn-fest Tales From the Topographical Oceans (an album that prompted Rick Wakeman to pack up his Minimoog and jump ship), the better.
So with my stall firmly laid out with regards to the Yes situation, let’s get back to this album, simply titled Yes.
Released in 1969, it’s a different beast to their more familiar output, certainly as conventional as Yes could possibly get – well until that great ruiner of bands, the eighties, arrived and the rot truly set in. This is discounting 1970′s Time and a Word, which I haven’t heard and may be conventional to the point of narcosis, though I somehow doubt it.
Things kick off with ‘Beyond & Before’, which hints at the future sound of Yes and is a decent enough beginning, but the strong start gives way to apathy for the rest of the album as the patchiness sets in and you find yourself losing interest.
Staying within the progressive camp – of which Yes were undoubtedly one of the brand leaders – throughout, a cover of The Byrds’ ‘I See You’ fails to pull its weight, descending into a tedious jazz frenzy, in contrast to the other cover version on Yes, that of The Beatles’ ‘Every Little Thing’, which is quite remarkable as far as Beatles’ covers go. Bursting with ideas that place it as far from the original as possible, it even goes so far as to defiantly throw in the riff from ‘Daytripper’ for good measure.
Elsewhere, ‘Looking Around’ and ‘Survival’ deliver the goods without courting exceptional, and ‘Harold Land’ is undoubtedly the lyrical masterpiece on here, with a tale of young man sent off to war and returning a shadow of his former self.
Overall though, I’m afraid this one doesn’t really gel for me, despite it being seeded with the flourishes that would come to glorious fruition on Close to the Edge. This is possibly down to it sorely missing the multi-layered keyboard noodling of Rick Wakeman, whose arrival was two years away, and the fact that, for me, Jon Anderson’s voice is a lot better suited to the driving space rock typified on the aforementioned magnum opus and tracks such as ‘Roundabout’, ‘South Side of the Sky’ and ‘Yours is no Disgrace’.
Fragile and Close to the Edge have to be the first port of call for anybody wishing to sample Yes at their sonically intricate best. Yes merely sits down the list, frustratingly unrepresentative of the band and the goodness they would achieve.
Yes is available in an expanded and remastered edition from Amazon.co.uk
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You really should give Relayer another go. Gates of Delirium is their finest hour – a masterpiece. The rest I grant you is a bit of drivel but GoD is Yes at their finest. Even Patrick Moraz couldn’t get in the way.
Also TFTO – pompous – yes. Overblown- yes. absolutely brilliant – absolutely. You say its self indulgent. Of course its bloody is, its Yes for goodness sake not The bleedin’ Ramones
Haha. Point taken. However, the thought of giving Relayer another go fills me with dread. Nonetheless, I’m always up for a challenge, so will give it another pop this week, paying particular attention to Gates of Delirium.
Hopefully, this time around, it won’t blend into the sonic equivalent of a continuous grey blur.