Could Yes be much more overrated?

Yes are not overrated because so many people like them. It truly is about taste.

Personally it took me a long long time to start enjoying Yes' sound. They have some fantastic musicians in the band but there is something grating about it, I wouldn't exactly call Yes "smooth."

I actually was not planning on liking them (kind of an odd statement)...I bought CTTE to be sure and wound up admitting that I really really enjoy it and it is a masterpiece. However, I can definitely see where you are coming from, I, for one, think that Jon Anderson needs to vary up his vocal and lyric talents...the same things get old after a few albums.

I was listening to them in the car on my way to the last day of 10th grade and I was thinking "these guys are just plain solid...no way around that." VDGG, ELP and such give me more musical imagery and flat out enjoyment, but Yes is really quite a band and deserves credit.

What should I listen to instead?

I love the Yes album, Fragile, Close to the edge. WHile Tormato and Tales are quite cool. But I must say that Relayer and GFTO are very overrated

DethMaiden wrote: Jon Anderson's voice doesn't do it for me, their instrumentation doesn't do it for me, even their "great epics" Close to the Edge and The Gates of Delirium pale next to comparable songs by Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator, and Jethro Tull. They're a good band, in the same sense that a lot early prog bands were good, but they aren't revolutionary nor amazing.   Am I just missing something? Or is anyone with me in thinking that are Yes grossly overrated by this site and the prog community in general?

Hmm, is any band that lots of people like "overrated"?  I suppose that depends on how qualified you feel you are to judge other people.  Suggesting that Yes is overrated implies that you are more knowledgeable about music, have better taste, and understand music better than all those people.  Pretty damn arrogant if you ask me.

Seriously, it's all down to taste.  I happen to love Yes, but it did take a while for me to really absorb and fully appreciate what they did (as opposed to what they have done since the early 80's.......which I still don't have much appreciation for, with the exception of the Keys albums).  There are, however, bands I don't care for that loads of people love.  I have to respect bands and musicians that can engender that kind of appreciation, even if I don't appreciate it myself.

So, no, Yes are not the least bit overrated.  They are rated exactly as they should be, based on their broad appeal, musical skills and talent, and significance in the development of prog.  You may not have an appreciation for these things, but that does not negate the fact of their existence.

purplepiper wrote: yes' lofty heights and jon anderson's sometimes overpositive lyrics do sometimes slightly annoy me. I don't think yes is that overrated...they are pretty damn good musicians and were quite importaint in the 70's prog scene.

I disagree. NO band sucks, not even the Darkness.  Musical taste in subjective:  you either like Yes or you don't.  And I do. especially the late 60s-70s stuff.  Have a good listen to Awaken from the album Going for the One then tell me how overrated they are.  Better still, listen several times. 

soundspectrum wrote: the solution is that yes sucks.....and theres nothing you, i or any of us could do to salvage them

Although Yes was my favourite Prog band at one time, and Fragile was my favourite album, I don't enjoy Yes nearly as much as I used to.

Walker wrote: Sasquamo wrote: How does Yes necessarily deserve to be hugely popular?  If you really think about in, at any given time in rock music there are many many bands that have similar skill and equally unique ideas.  Which ones become popular and end up being called "innovators" seems to happen randomly.    I think that you are right, there are many bands, then and now, that were equal musicians and/or songwriters. In the end though, its not about who "deserves" to be popular, its who IS popular, whatever the reason for it. The music business, then and now, is not based upon skill, unfortunately. Many many (many) musicians never make it even though they "deserve" to. The reason that Yes is so popular is simple: They appealed to the record buying public more than the others. End of story.

According to my tastes, I find Yes to be over-praised (I do think there are better bands out there).  It became a popular Prog band, and popularity breeds popularity.  Yes got me into Prog long ago, but it's other bands that keep me interested in Prog.

Really, it's no so much that Yes is overrated as it is that other bands are underrated (in this case I'm using overrated to mean that many people rate Yes albums rather than other lesser-known, but deserving bands' albums.  It's bound to happen, of course, as Yes are better known).

I'd rather mnay other bands get more praise and recognition... This internet community has brought a lot of attention to the grand diversity of Prog, and little-known bands have become significantly better known.

I do feel that many other bands deserve far more attention than they get, and do not deserve to be overshadowed by Yes, but that's not to say that Yes is not a very good band deserving of recognition -- popular and influential.  Yes deserves recognition for its very significant place in Prog history.

If the tables were reversed, and an obscure but very good Prog group had managed to find that popularity, there's be many people claiming that it was overrated too.

There are a great many albums that I would rate higher than Close to the Edge, but that's a matter of taste.  Well, that and I do expect that many people who have come in to highly rate their favourite album (in this case CttE) are not familiar with a great many albums from many different groups that are in the archives (so i think the album overrated in the sense that to many people rate it, and from a personal point of view, I do think its held in too high esteem when compared to a great many other albums that are relatively little-known).  For me, yes is an essential band to get to know, but not an essential band to continue listening to.
But then how many bands will stand the test of time for me?  I know many who have loved Yes for decades still hold the band in the highest esteem (at least for their classic albums).

I just wish many other bands that I consider to have both more technical and artistic (from a personal aural standpoint) merit weren't so overlooked.  But that doesn't make Yes overrated so much as other deserving bands are merely overlooked.

this thread is becoming overrated....