I agree as well. Close To The Edge is both a milestone and a masterpiece. I like Tales too, but I'm not always in the mood to listen to the whole thing straight through. Sometimes I'll play my favourite parts. I never got into Relayer as much, but I still like Going For The One especially because of Awaken. I've actually never heard Tormato but I did hear Drama and it was okay, just not as captivating as the early stuff. The early 70's seems to be Yes' strongest period. Close To The Edge was one of my first introductions to the mellotron too, so of course I have a soft spot for it, even regardless of having the surviving double tron. I'm thinking particularly of I Get Up, I Get Down, which for me, is one of my all time favourite mellotron moments, alongside the atmospheres in Awaken.
Another thing I like is the lyrics. It's nice not to hear teenage angst horndog lyrics for once. I know of some young kids in my old neighbourhood who have dissected those lyrics, and consequently looked words up in the dictionary, and picked up a few
good books because of the influence of the lyrics. Good for them I say. It's a much needed antidote to the mindless swill being shoved down kids throats by radio, T.V. and magazines.
If a top 10 mellotron band list were taken, Yes would certainly make it for me. Granted I don't like everything in the Yes catalogue, but then there isn't any band, I don't care who - Crimson, Moodies, Genesis, ELP, etc. who haven't made their share of bad music. Even the Beatles have several duds.
One thing I do credit Yes with doing is keeping the mellotron flame alive for more than a decade. All the other well known prog bands (except maybe the Moodies) gave up on it during the 80's. So I welcome the return of Wakeman to Yes. Any band that can make adventurous music, and has the passion for it, even if it doesn't always turn out for the best, has my respect and admiration for not being afraid to try in the first place.
Chris Dale
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 4:19 PM
Subject: [Mellotronists] YES & Rick
I'm gonna have to throw my two cents in - as a Rick look-alike and sound-alike for 30-odd years, there is no other human and group who have influenced me like those guys (except maybe for Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and the rest of the gang) and who can still give me chills like they do. I would KILL to experience again the sense of wonder, awe, and delight that listening to so much of their music for the first time brought to me. For my taste, from "From the hills we viewed the silence of the valley" to the end bird twitters, the last few minutes of "Close to the Edge" is the most beautiful bit of music ever written, and after all these years still brings tears to my eyes and goosebumps to my flesh. And then there's "And You And I." My god, how can anybody who even just sort of likes Mellotrons not be bowled over by that song? While "Tales" may be a bit meandering at times, it has several moments in it that are of almost equal strength to me - from Wakeman's screaming MiniMoog solo to the end of side one, the end of side two featuring the first Wakeman 8-voice choir appearance in Yes, like a choir of enormous Yes angels (not counting the little "Six Wives" excerpt and "Hallelujah Chorus" on Yessongs,) the incredible Dante-esque fury of side three, the quiet beauty of "Nous Sommes du Soleil" - I don't know how those can be dismissed just because they are so exploratory. For cryin' out loud, most of the crap that was contemporaneous to that stuff was so intellectually and artistically limp, I'm amazed those six guys were able to do what they did on those two albums. Yes, the two best Yes albums. And while Tormato and Going for the One weren't the best Yes (sort of Yes-Lite for me), they still blow away "Drama" and "Relayer" for those who want to hear the classic Yes arrangement style. Sure, the music wasn't as carefully thought out, but by then, they had been turned into a formula-based product instead of a forward-thinking experimental rock band. And today? I firmly believe there will be a Yes band fifty years from now. Yes has turned into an entity with a life of its own, and I sincerely think Yes music will continue to provide the leadership in the art-prog-classical influences that rock music so benefits by. Yes will change, Yes will live. And as goes Yes, goes the Mellotron...
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Mellotronists-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.