The Yes Album is a very hard
one for me to start reviewing because there are so many things I can talk about
with it. This album has not only been something I’ve been listening to since I
first started playing guitar and bass; it’s not just an album that has started
conversations with people who would become some of my best friends; it’s not
just a weird album cover that you can stare at forever and still not understand
it. This album is all that and more than I ever thought it could be. I don’t
remember the first time I listened to this - it got lost in the brains of 14
year-old me - but I haven’t forgotten a note of it, and I still try to sing
along to it even though I know I will never get close to Jon Anderson’s voice.
Starting an album with “Yours Is No
Disgrace” seems so obvious - the opening hits trick you into thinking you know
what’s coming on this album. Rarely do you hear all the instruments so crazily
defined in the mix, with them all acting as one giant, speeding bus that they
call a chord progression; but once you’re in for the ride they don’t let go because
this song is just shy of ten minutes long and barely feels like it. It moves so
freely that you don’t even feel exhausted by the end of it. The next song feels
like it’s the complete opposite of what you’d hear on a classic prog rock album
- solo acoustic guitar, courtesy of Steve Howe, with “The Clap.” It’s a piece
that is just about three minutes of straight fire coming out of Steve’s
fingers, a blend of classical, jazz, and traditional blues guitar styles all
put in the stew of a kinda rock song - an odd choice for the second song on an album
but it’s a very nice comedown from the extravagance that is “Yours Is No
Disgrace.” “Starship Trooper” is really where this album takes off - that
little bass part that kicks in when this song hits means as much to me as any two
seconds of music ever has. Everything they were doing on the first track is
executed perfectly here - the various melodies of the vocals, guitar, and bass
all get stuck in your head as separate parts but you can’t have one without the
others. It helps that the lyrics are inspired by the 1959 book of the same
name, which was also the basis for the amazing movie of the same name (I’m
still mad they never used the song in the movie). For as tight a band as Yes
is, this song sometimes feels like it’s about to fall apart, but right when
that moment comes they tighten up and become a much more cohesive unit, one that
went on to take on the world.
Flipping the record over and dropping the
needle on “I’ve Seen All Good People” is always going to be a therapeutic
moment for me. It’s very clearly the first time I heard a musical Easter egg -
the background choir singing “All we are saying, is give peace a chance” - that
I haven’t been able to unhear since. My dad brought me up on The Beatles and
Lennon, so I already knew that phrase and melodic line, but even just the
simple line “Send an instant karma to me” was something I didn’t know you could
do in music; it was so revelatory, and subconsciously made me interested in
knowing what the bands I liked listened to. References like that make the music
so much more personal, especially when some of the extreme metal bands I listen
to now will have long extended solos and for a moment - blink and you’ll miss
it - you’ll hear these bands do Yes riffs, ripped straight from this album, in
their crazy distorted madness. It’s a moment that makes you feel connected to
the band on a personal level and oddly makes some of these people more
approachable, both in skill and personality.
Outside of the music, this album has been
a beacon in my life; it’s an album that my dad always said was one of his
favorites ever, by one of his favorite bands ever. He took me to see what
remained of Yes in 2012, far from the prime of this band, and most diehard fans
wouldn’t want to see this version, but it was still so magical. This is the
album that I had the cover of hanging next to my bed throughout middle school
and high school - not a poster, the actual sleeve of the album with record
still in it. It’s an album that I've been lucky enough to not only be able to
share with the people I love, but use as jumping off points for things that some
of my best friends and I first talked about, still talk about, and will always
talk about.
- Max Kaufman
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