TOPOGRAPHY: THE YES ANTHOLOGY

I'm not really sure what to make of this compilation. It is nicely packaged (apart from the misspelling of "Delirium") double CD set with a Roger Dean-style floating islands cover and good liner notes with details of all the tracks and a short summary of the tortuous history of Yes, however it is a strange compilation and I'm puzzled as to who it is aimed.

Half the tracks are from the "House of Blues" live CD, then we have the title track from the "Open Your Eyes" album (which I have never heard but, judging by this track, it appears deserving of the low opinion that most Yes fans have of it). We also have "The Ladder" title track, "In the Prescence of" and the live orchestral "Gates of Delirium" from some versions of "Magnification" (but not mine), "Close To The Edge" from "Keys to Ascension 2" and, for reasons unknown, the solo Steve Howe "Excerpts from Tales From Topographic Oceans" (from "Not Necessarily Acoustic" and Yes' "Friends And Relatives Volume I") and "To Be Over" from "Natural Timbre".

So, all in all a rather strange mixture. If you have "Live From The House Of Blues" then there's probably not much point in getting this. If you want a compilation of Yes classics, then there are several better than this. The only selling point for me is the brilliant symphonic version of Gates which, as I said, is not on my version of "Magnification".

I'll give this 2 stars overall for the excellent packaging and of course the music is good, although hardly their best work.

Bargain basement for beginners

This is rather a strange compilation, and certainly not the "Anthology" it purports to be. The album smacks of a record label concocting a mixture of the Yes tracks to which they own the rights, and attempting to present them as some sort of career spanning summary.

The only reason they can get some way towards this is because some of the source albums are live recordings, which include classic material. The reality is though that these versions come from more recent live collections such as "Live from the House of Blues", "Yes- symphonic" and "Keys to ascension 2". On the plus side, this means that we are treated to classics such as "Close to the edge", "The gates of Delirium" and "And you and I". The down side is, we have them already!

The studio tracks come from the later albums "The ladder", "Magnification", and "Open your eyes".

If you are looking for a reason to buy this album, which is admittedly usually to be found at a rock bottom price, it is for the relatively rare Steve Howe pieces "Excerpts from Tales from Topographic Oceans" and "To be over", although these can be found on his solo albums and on other compilations. Since "Yes-symphonic" is only available in DVD format, the inclusion on CD of the aforementioned "Gates of Delirium" is arguably worthwhile too.

As long as you are prepared to take the "Anthology" tag with a huge pinch of salt, this is not a bad way of discovering Yes if you are new to their music. Don't read too much into the newer studio tracks though.

Not really sure what the point is of this, or indeed why I bought it.

It claims to be an ultimate, superior, amazing, must-have, career-spanning anthology of Yes's career. IN REALITY, 50% of it comes from one previously released live album, 20% from another previously released live album, and the studio tracks from some of the band's most dreadful previously released studio albums.

Hmmm...

The songs are good for sure, but I would advise you to buy them on their respective albums and get the lot, rather than this very random compliation with spelling mistakes and a vague running time which simply reads "over 2 hours"...