GOING FOR THE ONE

"Yes" and "Fragile" were the first albums that I have listened from Yes in the early seventies. Their first album was briefly in my house because it was lent by some friend to one of my brothers. "Fragile" was played almost endlessly by my brothers, so I was tired of it. But in 1976 I heard "Relayer" which was better than "Fragile", and in late 1977 I heard "Going for the One", which I bought in 1978. I took me some years to really like "Going for the One" but in the end it became my favourite Yes`album. So, I consider it Yes`best album, the peak of their work. The song "Going for the one" has very good keyboards by Rick Wakeman. Chris Squire and Alan White play the structure of the song, while Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman play melodies. "Turn of the Century" has a very complicated acoustic guitar part (which a bit of it can be seen in the video "Yesyears" while Steve Howe was playing it in the studio). Rick Wakeman`s keyboards in this song make atmospheres, with also a very good piano arrangement. Alan White plays tuned percussion, which also contributed to the atmospheres with the keyboards. "Parallels" has a very good bass part played along with the drums like a metronome. Howe plays two lead guitars in this song. Wakeman plays a Church organ, even doing a solo in this instrument."Wonderous Stories" has fantasy,created by the keyboards and the vachalia and the percussion instruments."Awaken" is Yes` best song, in my opinion. Again, great atmospheres, very good keyboards by Wakeman, powerful drums and percussion by White, powerful bass by Squire, inspired guitars by Howe, and very good lead vocals and harp by Anderson. I really like the recording and mixing of this album,which I better heard in the remastered version from 1994. The new remastering with bonus tracks should be better (I still don`t have it).

Update (August 27th, 2007): I finally bought the Rhino Remastered version of the album which includes the Bonus Tracks. I can say that this is the best version of this album released on CD, mostly for the quality of the sound of the tracks and also for the booklet design and new booklet notes written by Tim Jones. From the Bonus Tracks, the best are "Vevey (Revisited)" (which is not the same as the tracks released with the same name in the "Yesyears" Box Set, as the new booklet notes say), "Montreux Theme" (previously released in "Yesyears"), "Amazing Grace" (also previously released in "Yesyears") and "Eastern Number (Early Version of "Awaken"). The other bonus tracks are not so good, being rehearsals of the songs "Going for the One" (played only by Howe, White and Squire), "Parallels" (without the Church Organ parts and arranged in a different way and mostly sung by Squire) and "Turn of the Century" (also played with a different arrangement, with electric guitar, drums, bass and a bit of keyboards). In all the rehearsals tracks and in "Eastern Nurmbers" Anderson and Squire sound like still to be looking for the right lyrics for the songs. I think that The Beatles`"Anthology " CDs started this new trend to release rehearsals tracks and alternate versions of songs on albums, so other bands are doing the same since then.The rehearsals tracks are important only to hear how a song was developed and arranged in the studio, but they are nothing more than that, in my opinion.