GOING FOR THE ONE

Yes, what can one say other than the golden era for the band was 1971-1977 in terms of albums, GFTO being the last classic. Rick returns and so do proper songs after the aimless Tales and the jazz fusion of Relayer.

Steve Howe was voted Guitar Player magazine top guitarist on the basis of his playing on this album, he and Rick play superbly never getting in eachothers way. Chris plays inspired bass and contributes Parallels, a cracking track that is majestic and could have been the opener rather than the slightly shrill title track.

The obligatory epic this time is Awaken which is beautifully played and sung one of my favourite all time songs, Turn of the Century shows how Anderson could edit his lyrics sensibly unlike latter albums and features great acoustic guitar from Howe.

Yes should have been as big as Pink Floyd but suffered from poor management and lack of a sensible strategy to keep the band going. The later albums are pretty poor but this was a great achievement and showed a unified band for the last time.