Yes

Quote from OneForTheVine

It all comes down to whether or not you like Moraz' playing and how the band arranged the songs while he was part of the group. If you keep trying, and it's not pleasing you, then it just isn't to your taste. However, if you like CTTE, TFTO, and/or GFTO, though, you ought to find something to like on Relayer - they aren't so radically different in composition...

You like Soon, but not "To Be Over"? That's a lovely piece of music.

You are right, I forgot about To be over, that is quite nice. I don't have any problem with Moraz' playing, I really think it's the material. It has happened before with some random Yes' songs but not with almost an entire album which is highly revered by the band themselves. Oh well....

[Blocked Image: http://www.musictap.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/YES-Anderson-Rabin-Wakeman-Live-A-The-Apollo-1024x1024.jpg]

Thought I deleted my post yesterday... Realized after I posted the image, it was from 2017 and not 2018.... .....

YES, I'm a fan

Close to the Edge and Relayer are joint faves, I guess, but I also love Going for the One and that album seems to divide fans. Awaken is arguably their finest hour (well, 15 minutes)

I also think 90125 is one of their best albums.... Run's and takes cover...!

Quote from OneForTheVine

Lee Pomeroy is the bassist featured on this - he did a great job with Chris' parts both times I saw him with them.

I knew Lee many years ago, he was in a band called Picture This with my good friend Super Dave. Lee's a great singer too - at Dave's stag night we had karaoke and he annoyingly sang everything brilliantly well, which is just not on, in my view! I didn't realise at the time what a major prog fan he was, and now recognise that in playing with Yes and Hackett, he's living his dream. Good on him.

90125 is a GREAT album, not as good as Fragile or Going for the one imo but I had much less trouble with it than with Abacab for instance, the material is really strong, it was also the album that made me realize something I had been unaware of: I don't really like Howe's sound. An incredible guitarist but I am not a fan of his sound. The all time I was listening to Yes and thinking how great they were but something was bothering me and I couldn't put my finger on it. When Rabin got on board it became clear. Of course it didn't help that both Howe and Wakeman would play a lot, sometimes too much and often at each other trying to compete but it is really Howe's sound that slightly grates me.

Quote from Fabrizio

90125 is a GREAT album, not as good as Fragile or Going for the one imo but I had much less trouble with it than with Abacab for instance, the material is really strong, it was also the album that made me realize something I had been unaware of: I don't really like Howe's sound. An incredible guitarist but I am not a fan of his sound. The all time I was listening to Yes and thinking how great they were but something was bothering me and I couldn't put my finger on it. When Rabin got on board it became clear. Of course it didn't help that both Howe and Wakeman would play a lot, sometimes too much and often at each other trying to compete but it is really Howe's sound that slightly grates me.

90125, is better than anything Genesis recorded after Duke. It gives Duke a run for it's money too, IMO.

Quote from Blacksword

90125, is better than anything Genesis recorded after Duke. It gives Duke a run for it's money too, IMO.

I have to disagree on both accounts. IMO Duke is simply great and even the first side of Shapes, for my money is better but we can definitely talk about the rest, I agree on that.

Quote from Fabrizio

I have to disagree on both accounts. IMO Duke is simply great and even the first side of Shapes, for my money is better but we can definitely talk about the rest, I agree on that.

The first side of Shapes is excellent, I agree. Mama is my joint favourite Genesis single along with Turn it on Again. The second side sounds like they ran out of ideas, although I do have a soft spot for Silver Rainbow. Illegal Alien is simply embarassing. Duke is a strong album, and a turning point for Genesis, but had it not included Misunderstanding and Please don't ask then it would have trumped 90125 as a complete package. I like every track on 90125. I think Trevor Horn's production certainly helps bring the music alive. I would have liked Genesis to have made an album with him.

Quote from Blacksword

The first side of Shapes is excellent, I agree. Mama is my joint favourite Genesis single along with Turn it on Again. The second side sounds like they ran out of ideas, although I do have a soft spot for Silver Rainbow. Illegal Alien is simply embarassing. Duke is a strong album, and a turning point for Genesis, but had it not included Misunderstanding and Please don't ask then it would have trumped 90125 as a complete package. I like every track on 90125. I think Trevor Horn's production certainly helps bring the music alive. I would have liked Genesis to have made an album with him.

Personally I believe comparisons between Duke and 90125 don't really apply. They are not far apart in time but they belonged to different eras which began with Abacab and 90125 and while Genesis is my favorite band, I agree 90125, purely by the strength of the material but also because of Horn was stronger. Yes have always been lucky with producers, Offord first, Horn later. Genesis struggled in that department, Phil always complained they never sounded as good as they really were on record, up to Abacab. I agree that omitting PDA and Misunderstanding would have made Duke a stronger album. I love the former, it's beautiful, poignant and I happen to know what he sings about but it isn't a Genesis song. It's a very personal, divorce song and it sounds awkward on the album. I also happen to think Genesis weren't probably the right band for that song and I remember Phil saying he had a hard time explaining Tony what he wanted from the piano. Skills weren't obviously the problem. Misunderstanding, well, I am repeating myself but I loathe everything about it: the pedestrian piano riff which sounds like somebody was learning to play the piano which was probably the case, the inane lyrics, the asinine video....Everything.

Quote from Fabrizio

Personally I believe comparisons between Duke and 90125 don't really apply. They are not far apart in time but they belonged to different eras which began with Abacab and 90125 and while Genesis is my favorite band, I agree 90125, purely by the strength of the material but also because of Horn was stronger. Yes have always been lucky with producers, Offord first, Horn later. Genesis struggled in that department, Phil always complained they never sounded as good as they really were on record, up to Abacab. I agree that omitting PDA and Misunderstanding would have made Duke a stronger album. I love the former, it's beautiful, poignant and I happen to know what he sings about but it isn't a Genesis song. It's a very personal, divorce song and it sounds awkward on the album. I also happen to think Genesis weren't probably the right band for that song and I remember Phil saying he had a hard time explaining Tony what he wanted from the piano. Skills weren't obviously the problem. Misunderstanding, well, I am repeating myself but I loathe everything about it: the pedestrian piano riff which sounds like somebody was learning to play the piano which was probably the case, the inane lyrics, the asinine video....Everything.

It just seems strange to me that a band with such enormous musical skill and imaginative song writing capabilities would strip things down so much as they did on Misunderstanding. It's totally insipid.

Yes in the 80's could have fallen flat on its face, but they got reasonably lucky with Drama, despite losing Anderson and Wakemen. I think it's a fairly solid album, certainly better than Tormato, and Big Generator was a reasonable follow up to 90125. I may be in a minority also liking their 1994 album Talk. Throughout the Rabin era, I liked the vocal interplay between him and Anderson. It's good when a band has two singers that work well together, like The Who with Daltry and Townsend, Supertramp with Hodgeson & Davies, Depeche Mode with Gahan & Gore.

Quote from Blacksword

Yes in the 80's could have fallen flat on its face, but they got reasonably lucky with Drama, despite losing Anderson and Wakemen. I think it's a fairly solid album, certainly better than Tormato, and Big Generator was a reasonable follow up to 90125. I may be in a minority also liking their 1994 album Talk. Throughout the Rabin era, I liked the vocal interplay between him and Anderson. It's good when a band has two singers that work well together, like The Who with Daltry and Townsend, Supertramp with Hodgeson & Davies, Depeche Mode with Gahan & Gore.

Well, to be fair, although I like Talk, they haven't really released anything as strong as 90125 after that, except perhaps, ironically the A,B,H, W album. Drama is imo a very good album, marred by Horn's singing but the songs are very good. True, they lost Wakeman and Anderson, the latter was a particularly heavy casualty in the songwriting department but they somehow made up for that. As for Rabin, I like his paying very much, I can live without his singing, I find it anonymous.

There is lots of Yes I like and plenty that does nothing for me. At their best they succeeded in combining inventive music with a strong sense of melody and songcraft - this applies both to their "classic" period and their revamping in the 80s. The stuff I don't care for often involved lots of creativity and musicianship, but ultimately didn't gel and hang together with a musical coherency that I appreciated.

The early albums showed some promise, but I don't really to listen to much off them except for perhaps Astral Traveler. The Yes Album is fantastic and one of my favourites. Fragile is great. Close to the Edge is mainly great, but there are hints that they are losing the thread a bit. Then comes a stretch of albums that I can largely skip over. I do like Wondrous Stories and snippets of various other songs. Surprisingly I really like Tempus Fugit off Drama. Then I really liked both 90125 and Big Generator. And then my interest, at least for recorded output, wanes again.

Quote from Blacksword

It just seems strange to me that a band with such enormous musical skill and imaginative song writing capabilities would strip things down so much as they did on Misunderstanding. It's totally insipid.

Unlike Owner Of A Lonely Heart, of course

Quote from StillCan'tDance

Unlike Owner Of A Lonely Heart, of course

There's a lot more going on in OOALH musically. It's far from being the bands greatest achievement of course, but it is a song of contrasts. It has a memourable heavy rock riff, presented with bright pop production and, what was at the time, some classy use of sampling. Most people would know that song. It has catchy hooks and memourable melodies. Misunderstanding is utterly forgettable IMO, with it's dull production, dull piano riff and boring lyrics.

Quote from Blacksword

There's a lot more going on in OOALH musically. It's far from being the bands greatest achievement of course, but it is a song of contrasts. It has a memourable heavy rock riff, presented with bright pop production and, what was at the time, some classy use of sampling. Most people would know that song. It has catchy hooks and memourable melodies. Misunderstanding is utterly forgettable IMO, with it's dull production, dull piano riff and boring lyrics.

It's no more boring, lyric-wise, than Zeppelin's Fool In The Rain. If you want to defend the lyrics of OOALH over Misunderstanding, be my guest, but I really can't say that Rabin's lyrics where his strongest contribution to Yes.

I would say, though, that for a song that you consider "utterly forgettable" you seem to remember a lot about it!

Quote from StillCan'tDance

It's no more boring, lyric-wise, than Zeppelin's Fool In The Rain. If you want to defend the lyrics of OOALH over Misunderstanding, be my guest, but I really can't say that Rabin's lyrics where his strongest contribution to Yes.

I would say, though, that for a song that you consider "utterly forgettable" you seem to remember a lot about it!

In the context of the Genesis catalogue, it's memourable for how forgettable it is!