Favorite late-era Yes album?

[PariahDog]

I've been listening to a lot of Yes to see how Fly From Here stacks up, and was curious to see what everyone thinks of their late period. I picked Big Generator as their last "classic" album, because I think it's only after BG that Yes really seems to be all over the place. I included ABWH since many seem to regard it as essentially a Yes album.

 

Anyway, after listening to it all again, I'm afraid that Yes' later period is pretty mediocre. There's not a lot here that I find myself wanting to go back and listen to. I do like the Rabin tracks on Union and also much of Talk. I think Rabin serves as a good counterbalance to Jon in the studio, which he seems to need. Magnification is also pretty good, but Keys and Ladder don't seem to click with me. Open Your Eyes is just .

 

But overall, I picked Fly From Here. There may be some honeymoon effect, but FFH seems very strong to me compared to the rest of Yes' late era. I think the songwriting is very good, and I love Downes' keyboards in this album. Benoit does okay, but it's really a shame that Jon wasn't included in the project. Talk is a fairly close second, mostly for Endless Dream.

 

So, what say you?

 

[treeduck]

Keys.

[Hatchetaxe&saw]

IMagnification. Good songs, great arrangements and In The Presence Of is a latter day classic. Yesymphonic tour kicked ass too. Edited August 26, 2011 by Hatchetaxe&saw

[PariahDog]

QUOTE (Hatchetaxe&saw @ Aug 26 2011, 05:28 PM)

IMagnification. Good songs, great arrangements and In The Presence Of is a latter day classic. Yesymphonic tour kicked ass too.

I love the Symphonic Live DVD. That version of Gates of Delerium is unreal.

 

Magnification doesn't work as well for me, though it probably still ranks third. It seems like they could have done much more with the orchestral parts.

 

 

[ColdFireYYZ]

I went with FFH, but Magnification, Talk, and The Ladder are all good too.

[fledgehog]

can't really remember much of anything about any of them, tbh.

[circumstantial tree]

I have to admit that "Union" is my favorite of this list even though Yes members deride it as one of their worst. But as usual, good memories that attach themselves to an album tend to make me like said album.

 

Personally, I think "Union" should have been their last album.

[Tommy Sawyer]

FFH is the only one I've got so....

[The Owl]

I love the Keys to Ascension material.... voted that... FFH is a close 2nd

[Drummerrobin]

The much underrated Talk is my favourite followed closely by Magnification and ABWH.

[Jaminbenb]

ABWH hands DOWN! When that album came out, I thought it was a breath of fresh air after the 90125 and Big Generator crap! Don't get me wrong, I DO like that the Trevor Rabin "era" brought them out of "retirement" but I think I would have respected them more as "Cinema"! To me THIS is the next album after Going for the One and Tormato!

 

I feel that the rest is an attempt, but not quite hitting the mark!

 

Union : Too much of a corporate cluster____ to even attempt to be a good album! It's a shame that most of the good stuff was programmed, or "ghost" played! The tour was cool to see, since it put the classic line up on stage again, as well as the "PRE" Classic lineup (With Bruford) but the album suffered!

 

Talk : More Trevor Rabin era...sorry!

 

Keys to Ascension 1 & 2 Studio Tracks: I think it was a close attempt at it, but just misses the mark...they tried TOO hard to get back to the old style, but it didn't work!

 

Open Your Eyes : Billy Sherwood? Really?

 

The Ladder : Igor Khoroshev, too? Really?

 

Magnification : No Keyboard player? Really? It's YES ferkrissake!!

 

Fly From Here : Remove the "tribute band vocalist" and add Trevor Horn, and it would be a nice follow up to Drama!!

 

 

Sorry, just my opinions on this....don't take it personally if I offended your favorite album/era!

 

 

[greg2112]

ABWH. Also the best "yes" tour I've ever seen.

[Jaminbenb]

I agree! Great show!! I was SMACK in front of Steve when they played in Harrisburg !

 

It was also cool because they did sound check as they left people in, and we got to watch that. Jon taught everyone the chorus to Order of the Universe so we could sing it with him! He had the band go over it a few times so we got it right!

 

Rick and his tech had the manuals out on one of his keyboards and was trying to figure something out, Steve just strummed away...Bill fiddled at stuff with headphones on.

[PariahDog]

QUOTE (Jaminbenb @ Sep 1 2011, 10:33 AM)

Rick and his tech had the manuals out on one of his keyboards and was trying to figure something out,

They were probably trying to figure out how to get rid of those cheesey presets that Rick used on ABWH. Seriously, ABWH has not aged well for me, mostly due to those thin-sounding digital keys. (Actually, Rick's keyboard choices seemed to become questionable even way back on Tormato.)

 

ABWH just doesn't click with me for some reason. On paper it should be great, with that lineup and production by Chris Kimsey (Marillion). But I just listened to it last week, and can't recall anything too memorable. I'll give it another shot this weekend. I do remember Teakbois.