THE YES ALBUM

Another one of the fabulous 5 prog albums that I encountered as a young impressionable youth through the good musical tastes of my parents hahhaah. To be honest I'd like to stick to review albums that aren't reviewed as much to try to add something to to the whole reviews section. However this album has been such a musical landmark for me that I can't pass up a chance to say a few words about it.

I have often said and believe with all my musical heart that this is the album for a person just gettting into Yes to get. No Rick Wakeman on this album but that really is not important, if Yes has proven anything in it's 35+ years of musical existence. The keyboardist is just another piece, and a replaceable one at that, to the puzzle. See Relayer and Drama for proof of that. The Yes sound is composed of two parts.. without either it really isn't Yes. Both are on display here. One is rather apparent and mentioned quite often. The distinction Rickenbacker bass of Chris Squire. His style may have come from the god-fathers of the English rock bass school McCartney, Bruce, and Entwistle but that tone was distinctive then and still is instantly recognizeable today. The other defining aspect of the Yessound is their vocal harmonies. Not mentioned as much, but one look at an album like Drama and you can see how it is so much of the yessound. This of course was the first album with Steve Howe on it and was a quantum leap into the prog arena over their previous two releases.

The songs off of this album have been analyzied forwards and backwards so I really don't have much to add other than my tertiary reason for reviewing this album. This album is much more accesible is less dense than many of their upcomming albums would be so I would recommend to anyone wanting to check out Yes (I assume there are people out there that is hahhahah that haven't) to start with this album. As I have said, and have been rarely proven wrong. You may like this album and not like Yes's future works... but if you don't like this album... you won't like Yes. A positive either way hahahha. My rating on it. Personally 4.5 (a half a point deductionfor A Venture). For the forum at large the college equivalent to YES 101. An essential album from an essential prog group. 5 stars. An album that should be in every prog fans album collection... and that should be worth 5 stars in anyone's book.