The Big Three - Yes

I was born in the mid 80s, and I grew up listening to a lot of my father's music, which was primarily classic rock, movie soundtracks, and early electronic artists (like Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis).  However, for my father, there were three main groups that he listened to the most, and so they became my Big Three as well.  In this post, I'm going to talk about the first one, and my personal favorite: Yes.

My earliest memories of Yes are actually of my father singing along while wearing headphones and playing RPGs on his Commodore 64.  However, before long, I became familiar with their sounds, mostly through compilations like Classic Yes.

Then, in the late 90s, my father went to a Yes concert, and came back in a massive Yes mood, so got into one as well.  However, I also decided to really start paying attention to their music, listening to each of their albums (as well as the YesYears compilation, which at the time worked as a great overview of their history and catalog).  I suddenly became impressed with how they were able to consistently create amazing music, despite all the personnel changes.  They always seem to find talented people and shift their sound accordingly with very little trouble.  It wasn't long before I decided that Yes was my favorite group of all time.  

Given that I grew up in the 90s, I became very attuned to their 90s output, especially Talk and Open Your Eyes.  It felt (at the time) like Yes was modernizing their sound without necessarily undermining it.  Then, after I had decided I was a diehard Yes fan, The Ladder came out, and I LOVED The Ladder.  To me, it sounded like they were drawing up their years of experience to make incredible music that felt relevant, lively, and timeless.  (The fact that they had one of their songs in a cool video game may have helped as well.)

Since then, their output has been a little more spotty.  Magnification had some neat ideas, but then they went without new material for over a decade.  Fly From Here was proof they weren't out of it, but the material was just okay, and my thoughts on Heaven & Earth are . . . complicated.  (I may get into that album on its own at a later point.)

Still, their 70s material has remained as solid as ever.  The classic three (The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge) still stand as exemplars in the progressive rock genre.  While Tales of Topographic Oceans doesn't quite click with me, I've finally been able to wrap my head around Relayer in recent years.  I'm also a big defender of Tormato, for all of its quirks, and it seems that Drama is finally being recognized for the unique but amazing work that it is.  I even like the 80s stuff, including the spin-off ABWH album (which apparently has been weaved into official Yes canon now!).  While I won't say that every album is a winner, I love most of their work, even the stuff often marginalized by most other rock fans.

In any case, I just wanted to share a bit about myself by talking about my favorite rock band and how they entered into my life.  I know Yes is in a weird place currently (and I may do an article about that as well), but it doesn't change how wonderful their music is and how much it means to my life.  Don't be surprised if I end up writing more posts about them!

For those who wish to get into Yes, but don't know where to start, I'd highly recommend the "classic three" I mentioned above.  If the long track lengths seem intimidating, then maybe 90125 or The Ladder would be good places to start.