Listen to YES: Keystudio (Part 1) 

Best band, ever. Period.

The Gottlieb Brothers are mega Yes fans for sure. They have been responsible for the content of many of the Yes tour programs over the last several years and have supplied tons of photos of the band members thru the years. I met them once back in 1998 at a Yes convention. Super nice guys.

Key Studio needs a vinyl release!!!!! I love it!!!!❤

Always a good time, listening to Yes. I've never been keen on the typical production style of the late 80s/90s myself, but the band's quality certainly helps rectify that.

Hey Jim! You have no idea how perfect your timing is. I had a crap day yesterday and today my sister is gone 3 years. So, this is for Judy! I love you and I miss you dearly. 🙏😇❤️🌅😎

You're in for a real treat with Mind Drive - strap in!

Hey Jim! Finally some YES!!! LOL!!! Thank you my friend. Love and Light.❤️🌅👍😎

And there was much rejoicing! 😊

If only the band had released _Keystudio_ as a standalone studio album (preferably with a better title), it would have been hailed as a return to form and probably would have been the most popular release among the band's '90-2000s era. Instead, they made the bizarre decision to release two live albums with a few of the new studio tracks tagged on to each without fanfare or any promotion to speak of. By the time we got a proper studio compilation years later, both the band and the fanbase had long since forgotten it and moved on.

"That That Is" reflects Yes's music journey from a "Classically" based structure of Prog to a "Rock" based Prog with emphasis on ROCK! Anyone agree? With Peace and Love to All (Michael)

Footprints is a Top 10 Yes song for me.

I know what you mean about the '80s drum sound. It reminded me of someone hitting cardboard boxes and packing crates when I first heard it on the 90125 and Big Generator albums. I bought the original Keys To Ascension double albums. Apart from the live stuff being great, I thought this and The Ladder were the last time they made really good studio material. Let's never speak of Open Your Eyes... Damn, I spoke of it!

Fantastic video Jim, love your Yes and Genesis journey... The Gottliebs have produced the booklets, liner notes, and photos for quite a few of Yes's later albums and compilations, and ran a Yes magazine back the day. Good guys!

Always good to get back to Yes. I haven't listened to these songs in a while. Footsteps was one of my favorites. This time it seemed slow. Maybe it the laptop computer speakers; however, the groove of Be the One came through and really enjoyed hearing that one again. It is a shame the record executives, managers, etc thought this was the best way to release, release Yes music at the time. These studio songs should have gotten a proper album release. I'm not even sure when Keystudio compliation was released. I heard about long after it was released. I have both the Keys to Ascension CDs and all their major releases up until Heaven and Earth. These are some great song from an overlooked period of Yes.

Been a Yes fan since the 70s and agree with you on the sound. Brighter but missing the warm sound of the analog recording. But still love the songs.

its a cracking album Jim,, mind rive is a cracking track Mr Waksman shines on this one. that that is has probable the best acoustic guitar intro you are ever likely to hear then the rest of the track is all about the lyrics and there meaning but both tracks are very very good

Finally Jim,! Mind Drive is an epic! YES!!!🤩

The live stuff on Keys to Ascension is pretty good too.

2nd track is 🔥

For me, this is the last time that Yes were consistently excellent - there are good tracks produced thereafter but no more than about 25 minutes per album. The distillation of the studio tracks from Keys to Ascension produces at least 60 minutes of quality Yes music, even with the obvious 90s digital sound that you identify. (The live tracks on the original albums are pretty good versions also) Had this been released around 1997 as a new album with relevant promotion, it's interesting to speculate what it would have done for the band's subsequent direction and finances. Rick Wakeman might have stuck around for longer for instance. Ah, well, let's enjoy what we have.

The best post 80’s Yes material.

So Jim you are getting 3 albums in 1 set......which is outstanding! I definitely want to buy this set. Seen and listened to good songs on those albums.

Glad you like this stuff, Jim. I'm less thrilled with it, but it did help Yes get through the 90's and even brought in some new fans. "Be The One" and "That That Is" were the first new studio songs from the reformed 'classic' lineup that attempted to revisit the sort of long-form classic progressive rock Yes made famous in the 70's. You can understand why there was a lot of excitement for this new music (the Gottliebs were part of the following that helped to spread the word), although to be honest it left more than a few -- me included -- a tad disappointed. The problem was these guys had travelled different paths as musicians and people for the previous 15 years and too much had happened in that time -- in the music business as well. There was so much turmoil and confusion during this period. I think the band changed managers like 3 times in as many years, plus Rick was constantly coming and going, or on the verge of doing so. It was great having the 'classic' lineup back together again making new music -- epics even. The problem was Yes was never going to be content to merely ride the prog revival that was happening at the time, but wanted to reclaim the kind of success they'd enjoyed in the 70's, which was just not going to happen in the mid-90's. Especially with these songs and production. It wouldn't be until 'The Ladder' that the real Yes of old reared its head again, but even that failed to break Yes into the charts. The only saving grace was they were still constantly touring, and it was at the concerts that the real Yes of old would appear when they pulled out tracks like "The Revealing Science of God" or "Awaken". It sort of made all the other drama happening at the time worth it.

Hi Jim. I think Footprints is okay. Never got behind Be The One. From Mindrive onwards this is a fine album for me.

Cheers Jim!

Thanks for this, Jim. As I’ve said before, my familiarity with Yes only goes through Big Generator, so I’ve been enjoying experiencing new-to-me Yes music along with you. While the infrequency of returning to Yes is less than desirable, I’m treating it as having to wait through the gap of new studio releases in real time.

The Gotlieb brothers used to run Yes Magazine back in the 80s and early 90s basically a fanzine. They also used to aid the band with photography and concert support. I believed they ran the YES fan club for a while as well. The Keys albums were recorded in early 90s after Union, the band did Talk with Rabin to finish a contract with Atco, and then reformed with the classic band, they did some concert in San Luis Obispo in California ( The live tracks on Keys 1 and 2) and recorded the studio songs a fews months later. Sadly the band was bi continental then with Jon and Chris , Alan living in the states and Steve and Rick in England. That created some logistics issues with Rick particularly. And Rick Exit the band right after the Keys albums were completed. The band added Sherwood for Open your Eyes, album that was supposed to be a Conspiracy Album (Sherwood /Squire). Rick would not return to yes until the 2000s.

Chris Squire is back in the mix! No Trevor Rabin to turn him down!

Love this music Jim !! thank you once again for another superb reaction 👋

Personally don’t love this set of songs but there is a lot of good playing and a freshness to it ,nice to revisit though and yes it’s quite different in style compared to the Rabin years .thanks Jim

Ah, what a treat! As you can tell, the Keys to Ascension studio tracks were kind of hobbled from the start for various reasons. The decision to bury these songs as bonus tracks to accompany a couple of live releases is boneheaded in the extreme. The songs are further hampered, as you note, by horrid cheap 90s production and Rick's unfortunate tendency to reach for some pretty tacky off-the-peg synth sounds that I can't imagine sounded good even at the time. However, compositionally-speaking, this is a complete return to form, and boasts many of my favourite post-70s Yes material. For all its flaws, Keystudio this is an essential release. I believe the rights for the Keys albums are a complete mess (hence not even being available on Spotify), which is a great shame as it's one good remix/remaster away from true "lost classic" status.

Im a big yes fan but I've never heard keys to ascension, its the only thing by yes I've never heard, not even one song. Mostly because its hard to find/expensive/confusing to own on physical media and i don't really listen to stuff digitally unless its something new. I wonder whether i should listen along with you... Cant decide.

This cd came about initially because Rick Wakeman complained so much about Cleopatra Records marketing strategy for KTA 1,2. I was happy to get new Yes music myself and didn’t even know there’d be part 2. Rick kept saying how they should’ve released the new studio material on one album and in 2001, it happened. It was released only on cd through Beyond Records aka Billy Sherwood. In 1996, Billy Sherwood was the only person who gave a crap about getting Yes music out to the fans. These songs were recorded in an abandoned bank in San Luis Obispo, California where Jon had just recently made his new home. Everything was fine until some promoter spilled the beans about a tour in the Summer of ‘96 and Rick had gigs already booked as a solo artist and then Yes gave him an ultimatum to cancel those dates and go out with Yes. He said no and was unceremoniously fired. Yes had to scramble to carry on without Rick and invited Billy to join. This is how Open Your Eyes came about. Fun Fact: Steve Howe played Fretless bass on Be The One.

How odd!!! I just listened to this album this morning after not having listened to it in a while. I have the Keystudio CD and man I'm glad I do. Not an easy album to find which is really weird considering what a strong album this is. It is easily their best album of the 90s. Yes should really treat this album as part of their regular discography. Not sure what's going on with the Keys live albums either. They're not the easiest albums to come by. Strange.

They should have released _Keys 1_ and _2_ in a totally different format. First the new studio tracks as an entirely different entity from the live material. Follow up with a subsequent tour of the new material and then perhaps a year later release the live album. That would have made more sense. The studio tracks are good enough on their own to be considered a proper Yes album. But other than that, you are in for a real treat with the two epics: "Mind Drive" and "That, That Is".

This album needs a real production

The stated goal of the Keys era was for Yes to return to the time when they released The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, and Going for the One. Can the clock be turned back so easily? Yes had for well over a decade turned to pop music (with a Yes flair) while Trevor Rabin became its primary composer and guiding light. The pop approach had gained the band a whole new generation of fans, which it seems they lost by releasing Talk, and then the Keys material. They had already lost a large percentage of their older fans when they turned into an MTV pop band. Overall, the public's taste did not include prog on its menu, and the release of prog material in the mid-'90's was generally greeted by the sound of crickets chirping. Not even all of those remaining aging Yes fans who favored the prog era even knew about the reunion of the classic lineup and all the new songs on the Keys albums. I don't think the new songs received any radio play, AM or FM. You had to be a holdover on the various Yes bulletin board web sites to have heard about the reunion and the new releases. So, there was never any resurrection of the once world-famous prog band. They did manage to turn back the clock to 1971 or so, but few noticed or cared. Speculating as to why that was so is interesting, and maybe shows just how perfectly the stars had to have aligned back in the late 60's to make Yes so famous back then and for the ensuing decade. They turned back the clock three decades, but those stars were, sadly, totally misaligned by the end of the 20th Century.

Rick: "I think KEYS TO ASCENSION could have been, now looking back, that much more had strong management been in place then, and we recorded in a studio befitting of what Yes should be recording in, because Yes has always pushed its recordings to the limit or always has tried to in the past, and with no disrespect to where we recorded KEYS TO ASCENSION, we were not in a studio where we could push limitations of, "Ah, let's do this and this and that and that." But having said that, it was still a good stepping stone for the band at that time, I think."

Hi Jim! I was interested in your take on this. Back to the 70s style writing formula with 90s sound production and a bit of an update on the band's sound. I have a theory why the band did two albums KTA 1 and KTA 2 with half life and half studio recordings. My feelings are these, the band had some live stuff and some new songs which they were experimenting with, sound, structure etc. They didn't want make an album of just experimental songs (interestingly they did finally when they put all the new songs onto 1 CD). This will become clearer when you hear the rest of the songs.

This is a first for me hearing this album, Jim. I agree, musically brilliant. But the percussion did sound like electronic drums, maybe? Just didn't sound like they were pushing air to me.

Too bad this was released as a compilation album. I think it would've sold very well had it been released as a studio album. 'That, That Is' is my favorite, and Mind Drive is great too, but I think 'That, That Is' is their most unique long piece of music.

YEEESSSS one if my top albums. That that is and Be the one were great but the rest were supposed to be a standalone album! Rick wakemen left the band because he thought it was amazing but the label wanted it on a live/studio album. I agree with Rick. It deserves to be an album!

What is this band Yes? Are they new?😅 I actually don't own or know this album. 🗽

Compared to the level of "Talk", it's a shame. I mean the sound. But the songs are interesting

Hi Jim, I thought I knew most of Yes albums but I never saw these before. Now I see the Date, I know why. I stopped listening to studio albums after Union. I do know several Live albums from this century like the magnificent Live at Montreux on blu-ray. I agree Jim, this sounds very clinically clean and there is not that much base tones. I’m not that impressed yet. Apart from some interesting guitar parts, this is quite boring. Second song. I really don’t like the boring start of the song. And the following part is even more boring. Compare this to the first albums like Fragile or Close to the edge and you know why I find it boring so far. Only in the last part I’m beginning to like it more or less because this is fanciful music now.

I love Yes, the classic line up… BUT, I can’t get into this. I’ve struggled with anything after Going for the One although I tried very hard with Tormato and Drama. The sound - particularly the drums - isn’t great and the songs don’t sound like an ‘organic’ band piece… just a collection of solos fused together. Such a shame.

It as engineered by Billy Sherwood...not a gift

It's a "dry" mix, it sounds quite like a demo, the production is not amazing, especially Wakeman