Fragile is Superestimated?

What do you think about this?

For me, Fragile is not this album like the people talk so much... Your best moments is Roundabout, South Side of The Sky and Heart of a Sunrise. The double Distance/Fish is better on Yessongs

Yes (no pun intended)

The interesting track for me is South Side Of The Sky which sounds like proto prog metal. Yes developed a harder edge on this album and that stood them in good stead to take over the mantle of the leading prog band ahead of ELP. Rick Wakeman is a massive figure in prog and can never be underestimated although they found the perfect replacement in Patrick Moraz when he left to purse a solo career before returning to the band for the classic GFTO album. TYA to GFTO is arguably the greatest and most important run of prog albums when the genre was riding high.

^ they were leaving covers of other artists behind, needed to stand on their own 2 feet. Historical perspective over revisionism ie this or that album could have been better if the band had done this or not done this. Fragile was a success and nowadays we can make our own versions of these albums if there are tracks we don't like. BTW Selling England By The Pound is often considered Genesis finest work despite having a Phil solo track. I think with Fragile some of the solo pieces can act as a small breather or even a bridge/intro into the following track. Cans and Brahms is the only really annoying track for me, would happily have done without that and serves little purpose (but as we know Wakeman was cooking up a brilliant instrumental album of his own at the time and didn't want any of the good stuff to be used here, hence such a weak offering)

richardh wrote: ^ they were leaving covers of other artists behind, needed to stand on their own 2 feet.

Bah. Firstly, Fragile is Yes' fourth studio album; no one would have begrudged the band due to the inclusion of a cover that they regularly played at the concerts. Second, it's not an ordinary cover song, because Simon & Garfunkel's original version is 3:34 in length, while Yes's cover (the studio version that found its place on the Fragile 2003 CD reissue) is over 10 minutes long—a prog rock epic that sounds absolutely different than the original version.

Fragile is rated just fine imo. None of the solo pieces have bothered me when I've listened to the album in full.