Yes 71-77 =  Pure Greatness

And that includes TFTO.

Nuff said.

There is a reason why the Tales artwork hangs on my wall. It remains one of my most beloved albums. When I am in a Tales mood, I love sitting down with it, having one of those funny smelling cigarettes and just becoming wrapped up in it. Moments of such incredible beauty from a band who were in the middle of a creative spurt that lasted for several years. And really, how incredible is the "Leaves Of Green" section of "The Ancient"? In short, an album that divides the fans right down the middle and I am happy to be on my side.

"And I do think very well... that the evenings take you silently..."

Agreed!!!   

Let's state that as an objective fact!!!

Agreed.

No,they appear in the final installment of Star Wars. The are the bastard offspring from an illicit union between Amidala and Jar Jar Binks!

And i have never hade any problems geting in too any of yesalbums it will take some lisen to understand all its greatness, butlike me you shuld love it right away.

I'm into most of the Yes albums, at least up to GFTO.  And I'vegiven it plenty of listens.  I come away with the same impression:that it was an admirably ambitious project that they couldn't pull off.

Look at it this way: CTTE supposedly took a hugely long period ofrehearsals to get together.  TFTO, a MUCH more ambitious album,took far less rehearsing?  Something is wrong here...

It has its moments. Revealing Science of God is pretty good.

I like prog rock, so it follows that I likw or at least have no problem with long tracks, but this album is twice as long as it needs to be IMO. There is lot of filling and f*cking about. It could have been condensed, infact it should have been scrapped and re-recorded in a more listernable form.

Close to the Edge is better. It's a masterpiece IMO, and the best album they ever done by a long way.

Tales From Topographic Oceans is the best prog album ever! if you dont like it you dont like prog, it has everything that a great prog album shuld have. Prog yust dont get any beter then TFTO!  

And i have never hade any problems geting in too any of yes albums it will take some lisen to understand all its greatness, but like me you shuld love it right away. 

In Reply - I didn't like all of TFTO on my first listening - Circa 1980/81 - But over the years I have come to love the whole.

It is Better than CTTE (although CTTE & and You and I are fantastic) - The length and complexity and the whole concept works for me ! - There is so much to be gained by listening in a darkened room with no distractions - This music is not easily accessible - It's possibly one of the hardest prog masterworks to get into.......

This is about opinions - I find Wakemans' "Toby's graphic go-kart" jibes to be absurdly hypocritical since he calls it OTT self indulgence and this on the back of the brilliant but certainly over-indulgent solo albums he producesd at roughly the same time ! His gripe is probably that most of it was written by Howe/Anderson............

Toys out of pram Mr Wakeman !!!!

I can understand people not liking this materpiece but I am supriised if these people are 70's Yes freaks.......

I bought this album on vinyl in Bristol in november(on my 20th seeing my ex.HA!)

I havent listened to it yet. I also got an first pressing of AHM.

Yes are probably the hardest prog group to get into. I thought it was Genesis. But the only album I can listen to all the way through is close to the edge.

After reading this thread i'm going to listen to it when I get home, For the first time EVER!!

I'm excited now.

Originally posted by Rob The Good I have to say, Tales is on my 'to-do' list. It's taken me a while to pluck up the courage to go and buy it as a result of all the negative reviews. I think it may just be the thing that I'll end up loving to bits. Oh by the way, there are a few Yes mp3s to download, but interestingly neither Relayer (my favourite Yes album) and Tales are not represented in this manner. They're both quite controversial, so perhaps it may be an idea to upload some tracks to give budding Yes fans a listen!

Never mind the bad reviews, what people can't handle they hate

Originally posted by Sound Chaser Originally posted by Dreamer I was planning to buy that album, I'm not sure if i really want to anymore Listen to it with as open of a mind as possible first and if you like it buy it, don't form oppinions on it based on what others think. It's definatly an either love it or hate it kind of album. I happen to like it, it's nowhere near the masterpeace CTTE is but it's still a good album.

I totally agree except I would change masterpeace to masterpiece

Actually, I didn't like TFTO that much when I first heard it but the more I listened to prog rock, the more I liked it. I still don't think it's a masterpiece (or peace) but it's worth owning.

I agree 100% with flowerchild. I know a lot of listeners don't like it, but I never understood that. CTTE is great, but I prefer the complexity of writing and playing Topographic Oceans. CTTE and Relayer were the 1st 2 Yes albums I heard. Then I got T-Oceans. Loved it from the beginning. The only thing that maybe should have been written better (or left off) is the 1st half of "The Ancient". 25 years later, the thrill of listening to T-Oceans has remained strong for me, while the thrill of listening to CTTE has faded.

A lot of people feel the way you do - Topo is a very controversial album.

Yes is by far my favorite band, but to me Topo is downright mediocre. It's got about 30 minutes of good or great music watered down over 80 minutes. It was also badly produced, so I prefer the live versions such as Ritual on Yesshows which is infinitely better than the studio version.

I feel other questionable albums such Drama, 90125, The Ladder, are all better.

The album also caused Yes to lose two of its most popular members: Bruford (before) and Wakeman (after). Squire didn't like it much either.

Finally, a word of advice to anyone collecting Yes music: if you're looking for more great 70s Yes - pick up "Keystudio," which was recorded in '96-'97 but has the classic line-up and sound, and included two AWESOME 20-minute epics that don't suck: That That Is and Mind Drive.

Originally posted by The-Bullet I'm not arguing it's merits (I love it btw), I just pointed out your mistake. It was both JA and SH's "baby", so if you take the tours where both were present I don't feel it's been neglected.

...and Wakeman liked it all the way, untill he read the critics and become scared...they all loved it

I hate Rush

Originally posted by The-Bullet Rememeber also that for around 16 of the last "25" years Steve Howe wasn't around.

and.....................???

It really is a Jon Anderson vehicle...

All I am trying to say is that if it was such a towering achievement they would have found some way to feature it more completely in the show. In fact now as I remember the album was released in 1974 so it is 31 years old!!!!!! Relatively speaking,theyve hardly played it.

Did you buy it day of release? Because I did. I felt really cheated.Never really liked Relayer either.

Fortunately they managed one last great album with GFTO!

Originally posted by Nipsey88 In fact, anyone here clever with Sound Forge or something similar should try a one CD edit of this record, would be  an interesting experiment and undoubtedly better than the original!

hmm....reminds me of the scene in Amedeus where his royal dimness suggests that Mozart cut some notes because there are too many.  Mozart had the perfect reply..."Which notes did you have in mind?"  Or Pete Townshend being told by the record company that he had to redo Tommy because proper songs were 3 minutes 5 with a repeatable chorus.

I personally think the motif of the album requires the length and loose structure.  I think any short version of any of it would be terrible.  This sounds like a generation X problem to me.

Originally posted by The-Bullet The Revealing was played during the Open Your Eyes tour . Ritual was played during both the Magnification and 35th anni' tours (Wakeman playing on the latter).

Oh so that's got the whole of the last 28 years covered then!

Originally posted by flowerchild OH, MY...oh my.....!!!

well lets see...I've watched Yes hmmmmm maybe 30 times in the last 30 odd years.....how about you Sweet Pea?

Originally posted by The-Bullet In you call playing the whole of both Ritual and The Revealing as "excerpts" that is ...

when......

..."Over the edge"...that's my style.....like it  

Maybe they should have called it "Over The Edge" but I still like it.

(4 stars in my rating, one for each part)

Originally posted by The-Bullet In you call playing the whole of both Ritual and The Revealing as "excerpts" that is ...