Fun fact, Jim: Chris & Alan actually collaborated with Jimmy Page before taking on Trevor Rabin. The trio were called XYZ (ex YesZeppelin) then Page bowed out and they called themselves Cinema. Also, Trevor Rabin was singing lead here and there and splitting the lead vocal with Jon on "Changes".
Certainly not a "travesty" to love Rabin's guitar. The man is a brilliant musician. His style is just radically different from Steve Howe (or Peter Banks, for that matter).
The only song that emotionally connects with me is Hearts. Phenomenal. The rest is good songs, especially considering the time it was made. Thx Jim, nice journey 👍
Listen to it a few times. Once you get used to the 80s sound, it's incredibly catchy. There are some great songs there - like you, I've always preferred Side 2
I like your summation Jim. I think you reflect what most of us Yes fans felt at the time when the album came out. Although it was far more commercially driven & heavily produced with that distinctive slick 80's sound, to me they still maintained a high degree of originality, the songs although vastly different from their classic 70's era were still imaginative & interesting & the musicianship was second to none. And although he brought that more commercial element, Trevor Rabin re-energised the band, wrote some seriously good music & his playing was exceptional. Have a listen to his solo piece "Can't look away" from his album of the same name, absolutely phenomenal guitar work! Cheers
As a huge Yes fan, back then, everyone thought they were about done for. So when this came out it was such a shock. I knew the songs like Awaken were not coming again, but this album rocks and kept Yes alive with the younger generation.
@@astrosurf68 Sure is Christian, and how about that scintillating guitar solo towards the end of the next track "Something to hold onto" man this boy could play.....and still can!
@@bauertime Totally agree, I recall Rick Wakeman who was a big fan of Trevor at the time making the comment that he thought Trevor gave the band the Roundabout of the 80's with Owner of a lonely heart. Both are arguably the two most influential songs that introduce new fans to Yes. It was so wonderful to see Trev finally team up with Rick along with Jon for the ARW project and the Yes 50th Anniversary tour, they were brilliant!!!
I am what you would call a traditional YES fan from 1970, that being said this albums difference the progression from what came before for me makes it a brilliant album. I have Cinema as my ring tone, and I am happy to say it turns heads,if my memory surfs, Trevor Rabin won an award for it. I think it will grow on you Jim. Great show again Jim.
Cinema is a great gem! Could just as well have been a Genesis "prog instrumental" from the era though... 😊 (Have another listen and think about it if you haven't)
Since you seem to be going in order with the Yes albums (now), you should listen to "Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe" after "Big Generator". That way the following Yes album, "Union", will have context. I'm sure someone has probably mentioned this before. Love the show!
The failed "Americanness" of 90125 and the "Art of Noise" cheap frills and synth attacks do not really hold up, and the a capella bits are still cute but don't hold any real wonderment. Owner of a Lonely Heart and It Can Happen should have been singles, the rest pretty much are B-sides. Hearts has a special place for tender souls, I guess, and Changes actually is a well-written, produced, and executed lovelorn rock ballad -- but it was aimed at AOR audiences -- and it was a bit esoteric for those listeners, (and besides Bowie's Ch-ch-changes can't be topped anyhow). Trevor Rabin did better on subsequent albums -- much better, and so did the rest of the group. Even Rick came back eventually, after he sobered up and realized that easy-listening piano with a prog twist was a real niche market .... Have you tried Rick Wakeman's Journey to the Center of the Earth -- that is such a great album, the vinyl came with a whole poster and so on. If you could possible find RW The Seven Wonders of the World (so rare! at least in the US) you would not be disappointed either.
A few quick thoughts. This album has the most harmonies of any Yes record. Some of those songs have both Anderson and Rabin singing lead. Yes changing personnel really affect the sound. First Howe, then Wakeman, then White, then Moraz, then Horn and Downs, and now Rabin. each changes the direction of the band and keeps it fresh. I don't think in 1983 there was much of a market or a recording contract for another close to the edge. This days were largely gone by then. If you didn't get on MTV you sold no records. That was basically the whole marketing plan.
The instrumental that opens side 2 is an edited down version of a much longer jam that went under the working title Time. It won a Grammy for best rock instrumental. Leave It has such complex vocal harmonies cause it's four out of five of the then current lineup of Yes singing plus producer Trevor Horn, lead vocalist of the previous album Drama. Our Song to me sounds like a slightly more polished version of '77 - '78 Yes. They're singing about Toledo cause they played what they felt was a very hot but good gig there in the late 70's and were given the key to the city by the local city hall. City of Love was inspired by a time Trevor Rabin got lost in New York and wound up in Harlem. I'm a big fan of the side closer Hearts, to me it sounds like 50/50 blend of late 70's and early 80's Yes.
I'm a guitar player and this album was for guitar players, IMO. It was one of the first 2 CDs I ever bought the other being The Art of Noise. The playing and production of Rabin was a drastic change for Yes but is incredible in it's own. While I liked Howe's playing, he never took up much space so Squire filled it it. On "90125", Trevor goes nuts with his guitars and there's less room for Squire's bass. They make more room for Chris after this so the old Yes style gets blended back in to the slick production. "Talk" and "Union" will be more familiar ground to you. I love this album as the guitar is so good, both in playing and production. Trevor's solo album "Can't Look Away" is a masterpiece of catchy songs with a south African spice, moody songs, and lush production. He is a talented dude.
Tony Kaye was brought back for the new Yes. In the 70s he was in Badger and I got the LP it had one great track on it and a fantastic cover by Roger Dean.
You could make a case the 80's sounded the way they did in part because of the Trevors. Yes didn't sound like the 80's, the 80's sounded like Yes of the era.
It was supposed to be a band called Cinema, till Anderson joined and they switch to Yes, keep on listening , Yes is full of " Endless dreams" 😁🙏, love your channel, blessings.
I completely agree. So much fan-based brouhaha when 90125 came out, however it is indeed as you say, just another chapter in their greatness. If one listens to most all their music (including Jon's solo work), as I have the last 50 years, there is so much brilliance, and recurring themes. The composition that resonates most for me on this album is Changes, it embodies exactly what the group is going through, including Jon Anderson's 'thematic Change We Must' album, and what I'm going through now being single at age 69 where I have learned "I do know why I'm alive" (Yes lyric), we're all on a journey of change, one of the great yes Themes (including ABHW song "Themes"). In those 50 years, my most treasured Yes song is the gorgeous mature YES song "In The Presence Of" on the 2001 Magnification Album. Jim Newstead, you'll need to accelerate the review pace to reach Magnification.
As a first go as part of "yes", Rabin had a lot of his own compositions, not to bad, but he reached his pinnacle on "Talk", and a fantastic album it is too, you have to give credit to his live playing to, cool Jim. P.S this is the age of the Video, I have this album tour video, as fashion goes, do not dig out this era, they all look like they walked straight off the catwalk, stray cats walk maybe, still if you want a laugh of 80s extreme fashion, you have been warned :)
The last line has no echo on his voice. I imagine he's travelled across the universe but land back home on that last line. It's haunting and has stayed with me since I first heard it on release. This was my first yes album and as a result it will always be great to me.
My introduction to Yes was rock radio --mostly the classics from Fragile and The Yes Album. However, 90215 was my first full Yes album. If its job was to pull in a new generation of Yes fans, it was successful. But more than that. I am now intimate with the entire Yes catalogue and after lots of soul searching and second-guessing, I still have to admit this is a top 5 Yes album for me. I don't care about 80s production, or that Howe's missing or the songs are shorter. For me it's pure audio delight from beginning to end.
My least played album by the band. When I got to meet Trevor Rabin a few years ago, this was not the album I asked him to sign...that album was, Talk...by far my favorite of the Rabin era Yes albums.
I agree with "Talk". My favorite of the Rabin Era also. Yes fan for life! Started out with "The Yes Album" in 1971 when it was released, and then bought the first two albums. I have most of the studio catalog Including their latest 2021 release "The Quest".
Jim, FYI - you said you didn't even recognise Jon Anderson's singing on some of this album. Part of that may be because Trevor Rabin sings quite a few lead vocals, rarely for a full song, but often interchanging with Jon (he, Chris Squire and Alan White had written a lot of the songs before Jon Anderson came back on board). You'll hear lead vocal lines from him on "Changes" and "Hearts", and prominent backing vocals on "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Leave It" and "City of Love" in particular. One thing this version of Yes exceed the "classic Yes" in is harmonies - Steve Howe is a decent singer, but Trevor Rabin is a very good one, so you effectively have three part harmonies from three lead vocal-standard singers (Anderson, Rabin and Squire)
Hi Jim, it'll never be regarded as a classic Yes album but it kept the band rolling so all in all I quite enjoy it. After 51 years as a fan I just found out why Banks and Kaye got dropped. Found some vids of the 1969 European tour and the antics of the pair of them on stage was just wrong for the bands desired image of musical respect.
@@JimNewstead also imagine a cutting edge for the time laser light show being produced all across the stadium as they were playing It added to the uniqueness of the whole thing...
For 70s fans the importance of 90125 wasn't just that it sold over 4 million albums (more than Close to the Edge and Fragile combined), but that it created an entirely new generation of Yes fans. I know a lot of people who had never heard of Yes in 1983 (those were dark years for progressive rock), who bought this album and then discovered this huge back catalog. Many became fans of 70s Yes, helping them to sell even MORE copies of Close to the Edge and Tales from Topographic Oceans. The only difference between them and older fans is that they are perfectly happy with 90125. I personally like parts of it a lot, but others ("City of Love", especially) are songs I ever need to hear again. Unfortunately, 90125 did SO well that Yes chased after its success for years to come. Thanks for including this in your Yes listening series, Jim. I'll be VERY interested to hear your thoughts on what comes after this!
I’m certainly going to visit every album, good, bad or something else. I think there’s value in everything. I don’t dislike this record at all, but I’m listening to it with the ears of a man in 2022 who’s condensed 12 years of Yes records into 9 months. The change in direction is jarring!
@@JimNewstead Believe me, the change in direction was just as jarring for us in 1983! The good news is every album going forward has gems on it, even if none manages to recapture the magic of those 70s albums. There’s still some solid work to be found.
Previously said AWR should be ARW who I have seen twice. The first concert in Manchester was made into a DVD. The guy next to me kept singing along to every tune. He agreed to shut up in Awaken. Sadly ARW has been checked out.
As I mentioned in “Side 1,” this was my intro to Yes and I love it. I was 17 when it came out & it was to my ‘80s child ears, perfect. Had I started listening to Yes with Fragile or Topographic I may feel differently about 90125. I had a similar experience with Abacab by Genesis: it’s not their best work but it was the 1st album of theirs I heard & like a lot of first loves, it still has a place in my heart. Love the channel!
I love this album. Not as much as some of their earlier stuff but it is a tremendously good 80s album and it is unmistakably YES except for a couple songs! Just different
The thing with this Album was that I liked it the first time listening, and that is really not a good sign for an old Progger. Its been collecting dust after 3 times.
Jon and Trevor split lead vocals a lot on the Rabin albums. "Big Generator" is cool, "Union" has a few cool tunes, but is uneven to me. "Talk" is the pinnacle of the Rabin years.
I agree with just about everything you say about this album. I had to listen to it several times when I bought it back in '84 before I really loved it. I was a huge Yes fan since '71 so this album was different. That said, they set out on a world tour to promote this album in '84 & '85 and to see them play most of this album live was really a treat (I was one of the lucky ones). It just hit home how good this album really is.
To get some context on the musical ratio of Yes to Rabin on 90125, I suggest Yes-ologists check out Trevor Rabin's subsequently released album "90124" (although the clue is probably in the title!) I think the two Trevors had the biggest input to this album's overall sound.. For example, some of the samples used in Owner were left in the Fairlight sampler's hard drive from when Trevor Horn had produced Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock album in 1982 !!!
2nd side is great. Heart always was a favorite, BIG GENERATOR is interesting next! I hear you on the comparison to the old stuff. Was just getting tuned on to the old stuff about this time in addition to this as a VERY young man in 1983. So everything was nearly at the same time. As a musician, always appreciated all aspects and the incredible and unusual evolution of YES!
YES went through many changes. Bear in mind the band went on for another twenty years after this. They can't be rated solely on their ground breaking early years. But...those were still the best. But even their "weakest" albums are better than what anyone else was doing. Check out "Magnification", 2001. With full orchestra. Blessings.
I think people have misunderstood what I’m saying. It is NOT a bad album. For almost any other band this would have been top tier, but I know Yes are capable of much much more. I understand that they were pressured/ coerced into making a commercial record, and I know it made a shed load of money, and that they were now making music in the 80s. I understand all of this. I think I need more time to come to love it. I undoubtedly will love it, but I need some time to get there!
@@JimNewstead If you read more comments it will help explain the situation. This is a Trevor Rabin album basically. Jon just sang on it. Don't really think it was supposed to sound or be a YES album. The band was Cinema and Chris brought Trevor in from South Africa. As you know Chris asked Jon to listen to the completed album. Jon decided he wanted to sing on it. Only made sense to rename the band YES. Jim I know you like 90125 but you have to forget what came before. Those prior albums were done by a completely different YES band. Thanks for another great reaction. You rock my friend!😎
@@JimNewstead After going through the comments and your replies, sounds like you got the proper information you needed to more understand the situation of 90125. I'm glad.😎
Have you heard Jon with Tangerine Dream? He sings the song in Legend with Tom cruise… Loves by the Sun! You may recognize it😉 Parts of Hearts remind me of this song.
Have to agree with your comments. I don't listen to this like a Yes album and it helps a bit other than Jon's voice makes it difficult. Some good pop 80s stuff but nothing that really says Yes.
Knew you'd warm to it on this side! Rabin's playing his trusted '72 Fender Strat. You're right about Jon's voice on this album, Steve Howe said it's more sharp, more angular than before. Cinema is a masterpiece
Love your reaction! I hope you get to the album Talk. It is one of the band’s most underrated albums. Just wait until you get to Endless Dream, a true masterpiece!
Bear in mind that a good part of the ‘80s sound was pioneered by Trevor Horn and on this album. Other than Trevor Rabin, this was all Yes prior members (including Trevor Horn). The Yes DNA is most evident, to me anyway, in Our Song and Hearts. But you’re right, it’s well hidden at times. The interesting thing about Squire’s bass on this album (and then next) is that you *felt* it in concert in a way that doesn’t come across on the album. Since this was my first Yes Album, its sound is intertwined in my experience of the band. After then next four Yes albums (assuming you do ABWH) you’ll feel the influence on future albums. Chris Squire and Billy Sherwood’s Conspiracy (somewhat of a companion album to Open Your Eyes) highlights how much influence Chris had on the more pop-oriented Yes sound. Jon Anderson’s solo albums from the ‘80s do too. Trevor’s fingerprints are easy to find, of course. Big Generator is the same lineup, other than Trevor Horn leaving during the (very long and challenging) production of that album. I’m quite interested in your reaction to that one. After that was ABWH then Union with the lineups of both bands merged (but not on the same tracks), then Talk which is this lineup again, before Keys to Ascension which is ABWH+Squire (classic ‘70s) lineup again. It keeps getting more complicated after that…
90125 is frequently bombastic in a way that 'classic' Yes seldom was. It was my introduction to Yes, so this is special to me. I think you would really appreciate the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe album that came a few years later. It's almost a reaction to 90125.
Ladies and gentlemen Chris Squire and Yes the greatest show on earth. 90125 became the payday that proved all the changes correct. But they gave up their Mozart in doing so. Squire mentioned that he figured it out that he made $3000.00 a minute on that tour playing. The addition of Rabin's ballad guitar and a third voice is delicious. After 90125 the epic songs are less frequent but genius still flourish.
Every track on this album seems like if Trevor didnt write these songs, someone else was going to eventually, they have a powerful simplicity and an amazing producer/engineer who was a former Yes singer and wanting to expand his own horizons with a familiar group of people who also were moving forward.
This album and a number of the songs has a Relayer feel, in that its a harder pulsing sound. In the vernacular...in your face! Love this album. Side bar, I believe the title 90125 is from the disc press number.
I was 16 when this came out. I was a huge fan of the classic 70’s Yes, so this came as somewhat of a disappointment upon first listen. It’s a fine record, actually, but different, and it took some time for me to fully appreciate it for what it is, rather than bemoan what it isn’t. Give it another go, you will probably grow to like it. I’m surprised none of the other songs were familiar to you. In the States, “Leave It,” “Changes,” and “It Can Happen” all got significant airplay, in addition to “OOALH.”
Knowing what they are capable of I can't help feeling they're dumbing down a bit with this style. Big Generator is a marked improvement for me thanks to the fantastic "I'm Running". I also remember when it came out feeling irritated that the Roger Dean Yes logo wasn't used on the sleeve. It felt like they were making a statement that we had to let go of their classic period.
I'm gratified that you have warmed to this version of the band. For my money, the album gets more and more "Yessy" as it nears the end, and the final track "Hearts" wouldn't have been too out of place on earlier Yes albums. The very end, in particular, kinda harks back to a "Going for the One" vibe. "There is nothing about this record... that has any bearing on what the band was before..." (Jim Newstead, 2022). That was kinda the point, I think. Remember, this band had no intention of being Yes until Jon Anderson was brought in, at the very end, to add lead vocals (and rescued some very weak lyrical content). Also, don't forget that this was their most commercially successful record, by far. I also really like the instrumental track "Cinema" but I can't help thinking, every time I hear it, that it is a lost Genesis track from 1976. I concur with the commenter below: the album "Talk" is perhaps Trevor Rabin's most compelling statement within Yes. The album could almost be characterized as "Trevor Rabin with Yes: Talk" -- he took on a similar role that Ian Anderson played on the Crest of a Knave album -- producer, musical director and overall architect. The tripartite track "Endless Dream" is the high point of that album. However, don't write off the album "Big Generator" from 1987 -- many consider it as "90125 Redux" but that couldn't be further from the truth. It is, in many ways, a much more "progressive" album than 90125 -- the track "I'm Running" harks back to the very early Yes, in that it sounds like an entire Broadway show compressed into a single song. My biggest complaint with these "Yes West" albums is that the lyrics don't often make much sense -- they're not straight-up symbolist poetry like Close to the Edge or Tales, but they do feel a bit like nonsense to me.
Interesting commentary here. Big Generator is the last of the Yes albums I've listened to in full. I've seen the ABWH DVD concert An Evening of Yes Music Plus, and have heard ABWH track by track, but have not done an "album" listen. Once we're past Big Generator, all of the albums will pretty much be first listens along with Jim. I did attend Yes concerts during this time period, but other than the Union in-the-round tour, I can't tell with which albums each tour was promoting. I remember one where Kansas was an opening act, and Yes had a keyboardist I still don't remember the name, so it wasn't even Wakeman's son Oliver. I do recall that being one of my least favorite Yes shows, as I barely remember it. I then saw one show with Benoit David, and several after with Davidson. I have to say of those, none measured up to the ARW tour I saw later. Sad to say, I have decided to skip any future shows by Yes with the Howe/Davidson line up. Between plague precautions and the current line up being a tribute band of itself, I find such shows not worth the cost to attend. When I let myself think about it, I find it truly heart wrenching.
Well, I guess it’s heart wrenching for me to realise I’ll never see a classic Yes concert being so late in discovering them and the sad demise of Chris Squire. 🙁. I look forward to sharing the listening experience of the future albums with you!
@@JimNewstead Jim, the first Yes concert I ever saw, the final show of the in-the-round Tourmato tour is available on RU-vid as an audio bootleg. It's not the best mix, as it truly is a bootleg, but it's fun to listen to it. m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Dk0WzRgiKb8.html
Glad I watched this, and you weren’t too hard. Have you tried it since Big Generator? For me these are better albums than Talk. Honest pop rock and no noodling. Sparkly production and of course produced by Drama member Trevor Horn, the same year Horn invented Frankie 😮❤🎉 They won the Best Instrumental Grammy award that year for Cinema ❤
In a sense the major changes in the band, the sound, the production and so on are really just an extension of what they had always done, which was to reinvent themselves almost album by album. In the case of 90125 let's not forget that many of the songs were written by Rabin and brought to the project by him. Anderson only came on board towards the end after record company and management pressure, and of course if he was in the band it had to be called Yes. Perhaps they should have stuck to their guns and called themselves something else, but then it would probably never have sold quite so much as it did. Record companies and managers calling the shots again as usual. Nice balanced review Jim. Big Generator next? Prepare to be disappointed!
While I'm not saying they sound the same overall by any means, the way Trevor Rabin bends notes does remind me of Allan Holdsworth at times. Big Generator continues in this stylistic direction, but sounding a little more polished. There are some good points on it, like the track I'm Running, the string intro to Love Will Find A Way and a smart bit of speaker to speaker stereo on the thumping title track. Interesting to see what you make of the drum sound on it as, to me, it sounds like someone hitting a packing crate.
Leave it. Our song are good. City of love, I like even more. Yes on rock steroids but without the dreamy sounds of the seventies. I still prefer the old Yes but I also admire that they dare to search for a new sound after all these years. Maybe you should review side one again now the sound is clearer and give us the final results.
Hi Jim! I really appreciate your comments and very valid they are too. I think as well as an "80's sound" this wasn't really meant to be Yes and Jon Anderson was added at the last stage when the album had already been made, they just added his vocals in. Effectively this is a Trevor Rabin project with Yes as support band. Despite all that I do like it, maybe because it was so different, probably the reason why some Yes fans rejected it, I can understand that. I was attracted by the Trevor Rabin guitar sound, very different to Steve Howe. There are still the transitions there, but they are very tight, so you might miss them (LOL), as the songs are a lot shorter. At the time I embraced the change without knowing what was coming in the future. Big Generator was next and overall I didn't like it that much, there were some songs I liked but overall not. My concern was that Yes seemed to be dragging into the same route as Genesis, the commercial pop route. Fortunately, JOn saw the warning signs of the pressure of the music industry and he left Yes to form his own band of ex Yes members Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe (ABWH) which is more like a late 80's version of the 70's Yes. Interestingly Trevor Rabin was on 2 more Yes albums "Union" 1991 (Yes and ABWH unified into one band) and "Talk" 1994 (same line up as 90125 but a different sound) where we get to hear Rabin playing according to the 70s music formula on "Endless Dream".
Thanks Tony. This video wasn’t intended as an attack on Yes or even this record, just my honest first impression. I understand the background a bit better now and in context with the band being Cinema, this changes everything!
@@JimNewstead @Jim Newstead I didn't see your comments as an attack on Yes at all. In fact the comments you made are absolutely correct. You will get a fair reflection on Big Generator, because Jon Anderson was involved from the beginning of the album. I won't say anymore on BG I will let you make your own judgement,. One thing is true about the 80s though, bands weren't given the freedom to do what they want and "get on with it" relatively without interference like they were in the 70's. Pressure was definitely applied.
@@JimNewstead There was another time that something similar happened. This was in the 90s the band were going on tour but the record company wouldn't let the band go on tour without a new album to promote. The band didn't have anything. So Chris Squire and Billy Sherwood offered their material to the band. It was supposed to be for a new Conspiracy album (Billy Sherwood & Chris Squire). The album was called Open Your Eyes. Overall quite a poor album, but it was never originally intended as a Yes album.
I think many of us at the time were scratching our heads. But in the end , the material is well crafted, and better quality than most of what was out there at the time. Does it sound of it's time? Yes , and that's because it was one of the first, and often copied. In 1983 , not many artists sounded like this. It took me 2-3 years to really embrace this album , but by my senior year in highschool , it was an album I returned to often, as the songs really stuck with me over time. For me it's an album like Graceland , Synchronicity , or Signals . A band navigating a changing musical landscape. This stuff was all new in it's time. And with the exception of The Greatful Dead , and ACDC , songwriters evolve over time. I'll say this , it takes less effort to listen to this version of Yes. And it's not always effective ( Big Generator has some well PERFORMED missteps) . But with a long view into the rearview window , it's usually interesting.
Great listen, side two hooked me on this album as well, proved that they could be as relevant in the 80’s as they were years prior, if not more so, imho. The repercussions of Drama kinda steered towards this.
If you prefer the older original Yes then the only other album you can listen to is Keystudio when the original band got back together. They're longer songs more like the old Yes . It's a terrific Album
Save the best til last, Hearts is the most Yes sounding track on the album. Can't get away with the tinny keyboards on Our Song though. There was a full acapella version of Leave It and there was a weird video directed by Kev Godley and Lol Creme with the band inverted throughout. Altogether a decent album of it's time but not a true classic
Just to nit pick slightly. The "a capella" version of Leave It is not a capella. It's an isolation of the vocal tracks of the recording with instrumentation. One can very, very faintly hear some of the instrumentation in the background, if you are listening for it. Regardless, I love it anyway.
Not only are they inverted in the music video, they're upside down for a good chunk of it too. The final music video version was a montage of several variations shot by Godley and Creme. MTV had a contest where they aired all the work in progress versions that led up to the final cut and the winner had to spot the differences in each one.
Hi Jim, in my view side 2 is much better and far more the flavor of Yes. As for the album I agree with you. It is good but nowhere near the class of the 70's epics. Yes in the 70's was a band that was so uplifting the music made connections in so many ways into your emotions and soul. That music seemed to from a different place and from the far future. 90125 is a good album but it is no multidimensional masterpiece. For so many other bands this would be pinnacle but for a band with the history of Yes it is like a cup of good coffee.
AWR concerts start with Cinema and include some of these tracks. The bass player Lee Pomeroy is now playing with Caravan and was also in it bites a band that is on a par with yes at their best. Connections
Side 2 is my favorite side of this album. Not a perfect album. It has some great songs. Overall I think it’s pretty enjoyable. What was your favorite song of the album? Great video 👍
I don't know what surprised me more, the very different sound (though not as different as DRAMA) or that everyone suddenly had short hair ;-) To me, the stuff to listen to all happened in the 1970s. Maybe that's just me, maybe not. (Think I enjoyed this more after watching their "9021-LIVE" concert video.)
Sorry to be “that guy” Jim but the Roland D-50 didn’t come out until 1987. The album was recorded in 1982/83 and it’s probably even a little too early for the Yamaha DX7 (1983) which is the synth that Roland brought out the D-50 to compete with. The sound at the beginning of Hearts is likely to have been created on a Fairlight CMI, possibly layered with other synths of the time (Jupiter 8, Oberheim OB-XA etc). Trevor Horn used the Fairlight a lot in those days. That said I’m very much enjoying your reactions to the Yes back catalogue….this album doesn’t always get a positive reaction as it’s so far removed from what Yes originally were. And while some of the production sound very of the time (and perhaps some songs aren’t as strong as others) the musicianship is still as top notch as it always was with that band and the “whizz-bang” production techniques (as Trevor Horn calls them) don’t really get in the way. Plus this was my introduction to Yes, before I heard any of the classic prog works…so I’ll always have a soft spot for it 🙂.
Makes me laugh how people keep saying it's not a classic Yes Album. It's the biggest selling one they had and its brilliant. So different to their previous conceptions but it was just as original at the time as Fragile and The Yes Album were. People should be thankful that one band has given their fans so much diversity.
@@JimNewstead ha ha. I discovered yes with 90125 then worked backwards. Being an enthusiastic 13 year old guitarist at the time, Rabin was more my era ala Eddie Van Halen etc. Then I bought Fragile in a market store and discovered the Steve Howe line up and I was hooked!
Despite it's "techy" kind of sound I really like this album, and I was a Yes fan from way back. The only thing that really bugged me about 90125 was the extensive use of the Fairlight computer in particular for a lot of the keyboard parts (the Fairlight was all the rage in '83..Def Leppard used it among other bands). I like instruments to actually be played, not programmed. A lot of the idea behind prog is the amazing instrumentation played by people of extraordinary talent. That said, on 90125, I thought that Yes succeeded in doing what Asia was attempting to do. They reinvented themselves with a streamlined "80s" sound that still had a few prog elements in it. At that point the salad days of long prog opuses had long since gone, and they needed to stay current with the times. Genesis and Rush did the same thing. Just as a comparison, I like this a lot better than 80s Genesis.
Loved YES before this......but this album really reached out to me and most of the works after. Really don;t give a damn what other Yes fans think. This album is a masterpeice.....and if anyone thinks that's a travesty..thats on them....not me.
This is a GREAT album, though you should judge it as is rather than comparing it to earlier stuff cause it's very different. It may take several listens to warm up to it, and it would help to see this version live. To me though it's still very much Yes. Trevor Rabin kind of wrote the whole album, and their producer on this was the singer on Drama Trevor Horn, and he had a lot to do with the sound and success of this also. The next album Big Generator isn't so hot, but it's great live.
From this line up my favourite album would be Talk. I can see where you are coming from in your review and think you got it right I love Yes dearly but this period of albums for me was just to FM rock for me. Their previous works always seemed to be free following and took you along as you listened to it I think the music lost its soul with these albums.
You should also have a listen to The Ladder 1999. It has among the best sound that Yes has ever had. Not the Roland D-50 by the way on 90125, it came out 1987.
The problem was not with Yes, so much as it was with Big Music, which wanted to squeeze out popular little bricks of gold, from their coop, for their retirement nest egg.
