YES: What sort of people like that "prog rock" band?

My 2 favorite RUSH songs
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But YES is not my thing and never has been. I know someone who has extensive musical tastes including Rush, Neil Young, etc. He also loves YES and he also seems to like Rush Limbaugh and FOX. I'm just wondering, what the fuck is up with all of this?

To me, he's saying "bruschetta!"
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I still feel their best stuff came out in the 60s and 70s. On their current tour, I think they're playing three of their older albums: The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, and Going For the One. The bad news is that Jon Anderson may have to sit out this tour due to health problems, and I think Rick Wakeman won't be in the lineup, either.

But definitely check out Relayer. It's still one of my favorites.

.. from about 1971 (of their 70s music, the later stuff is hit and miss, mostly miss), Relayer is easily my favorite, although it is not their most popular at all.

They were at their most adventurous at this time (1974) and Rick Wakeman had left in a fit of pique over Tales from Topographic Oceans, a decent record that was assailed by critics (and probably would have made a good single rather than the double LP it was) and was replaced by Patrick Moraz.

As much as I (and almost everybody) liked Wakeman, Moraz was a better fit and his jazzy style worked well with Yes's sound.

Relayer was recorded using a "mobile studio" out in the countryside and hence the sound itself is not great, but then none of Yes's records of the early 70s were all that well recorded.

Anyway, there is not much about the early 70s Yes I don't know or any of their 70s music I am not well-familiar with!

Once in a college Gym right after they came out the Yes Album when Wakeman was still in the band, then at Cleveland Stadium and finally at the Cleveland Coliseum.

... but unfortunately I had to leave early the second time

But I have seen plenty of concert footage and they always put on a helluva show.

Especially in the Cleveland Stadium. It was a great place for a concert.

The last really great concert they had was the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame kick off fund raiser. It was on September 2, 1995

The evening culminated with a benefit concert at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. An incredible roster of the rock and roll greats performed– Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Al Green, Jerry Lee Lewis, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Cash, the Pretenders, John Fogerty, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, George Clinton, the Kinks, John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Booker T. and the MGs, Eric Burdon and Martha Reeves.

http://rockhall.com/visit-the-museum/learn/history-and-overview/



Springsteen served as a back-up band for all the Singer Acts including Bob Dylan. Bruce was a major player in helping to get the Rock Hall in Cleveland.

Soon after that, The Browns left, The Indians were playing at Jacobs Field and the grey old stadium was razed and reconstructed as a sterile, fan inhibiting place with no distinguishing mark. Kenny Chesney plays there every year, completing the sanitization.

but I love Rush and I like a LOT of Yes songs. And a lot of Yessongs.


Of course, I also love Napalm Death, Carcass, Pungent Stench and Deicide

and Bill Monroe, Merle Haggard and The Louvin Brothers.

And NWA and Louis Logic.

And Mozart.

And Dave Brubeck and John Coltrane

And the Cranberries and Joan Jett and Wild Flag.


I don't know what it all means but there's a lot of cool music out there so go get it! DOn;t worry too much about what others think of what you like.

I have always loved the band Rush (a quiet appreciation for them, since I was a little girl) until I found some other friends who admitted to liking them, too. Believe me, for young women, liking RUSH was a quiet appreciation, as in keep it to yourself, you dork.

But YES?

How about, NO.

in the mid-80s I took a girl to see Rush on their Grace Under Pressure tour. It wasn't our first date but it was the first concert I ever took her to.

The fact that she enjoyed the show so much is one of the reasons we have been married for more than 26 years.

I am so happy that you found each other!
I wish DU still had the "rose" smilie. Congrats!

never really cared for rush.

What is the best YES song, and why?

there were several bands that got popular in the late 70s - rush, journey, supertramp that I never liked

yes and old genesis, king crimson were good, not sure if I have a favorite yes song

out in Oregon...

Breakfast in America: https:// Oh, fuck those smug British assholes. If you take the energy to make a gesture in your musical effort to say you hate America, it means you love them, in the same breath.

although most hardcore fans say Close to the Edge.

I like Starship Trooper because of all the little twists and turns it takes. It's really just three short songs spliced and weaved together. I also like it because it is a showcase for Steve Howe's guitar playing, culminating in the drawn out vamp that is the Wurm portion of the song, and ending with a blistering guitar solo that bounces back and forth between the stereo channels. It's just yummy to me.

... Ayn Rand and libertarianism is enough for me to consider it impossible for them to be artists.

Some of their later stuff isn't too bad *from a music standpoint*, but I don't know why anyone would subject themselves to that caterwauling nails-on-chalkboard vocalist of theirs either.

And it was just Neil Peart, the drummer and and lyricist, mainly. He has many times since said he grew up and outgrew her. No different than millions of other teenagers. Many good DUers, I'd wager.

Here's one from 1993 - they were getting better all the time



Words by Neil Peart, Music by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson

I knew he was different, in his sexuality
I went to his parties, as a straight minority
It never seemed a threat to my masculinity
He only introduced me to a wider reality

As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that he was gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
But he's nobody's ---

Hero --- saves a drowning child
Cures a wasting disease
Hero --- lands the crippled airplane
Solves great mysteries

Hero --- not the handsome actor
Who plays a hero's role
Hero --- not the glamor girl
Who'd love to sell her soul
If anybody's buying
NOBODY'S HERO

I didn't know the girl, but I knew her family
All their lives were shattered
in a nightmare of brutality
They try to carry on, try to bear the agony
Try to hold some faith
in the goodness of humanity

As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that she was gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
But she's nobody's ---

Hero --- the voice of reason
Against the howling mob
Hero --- the pride of purpose
In the unrewarding job

Hero --- not the champion player
Who plays the perfect game
Not the glamor boy
Who loves to sell his name
Everybody's buying
NOBODY'S HERO

As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that you were gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart

Hero

Even most of their older stuff isn't about that kind of thing.

For example: Working Man, Fly by Night, Lakeside Park, A Passage to Bangkok, Xanadu, Closer to the Heart, The Spirit of the Radio, and Red Barchetta just to name a few from the 70s and early 80s.

This is one my favorite tunes from Rush from the 70s.



Lakeside Park

Midway hawkers calling
Try your luck with me
Merry-go-round wheezing
The same old melody
A thousand ten cent wonders
Who could ask for more
A pocketful of silver
The key to heaven's door

Lakeside Park
Willows in the breeze
Lakeside Park
So many memories
Laughing rides
Midway lights
Shining stars on summer nights

Days of barefoot freedom
Racing with the waves
Nights of starlit secrets
Crackling driftwood flames
Drinking by the lighthouse
Smoking on the pier
Still we saw the magic
Fading every year

Everyone would gather
On the twenty fourth of May
Sitting in the sand
To watch the fireworks display
Dancing fires on the beach
Singing songs together
Though it's just a memory
Some memories last forever

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That statement is obviously false, on its face. That is just embarrassing, for you, for you to have suggested that.

Say what you want about not liking Rush's music. But for you to suggest that R........

were you kidding?

... the Rand crap and you could Google it rather than calling me a liar, IT IS WELL KNOWN.

Yes, Genesis, ELP--the big three. I like some music from each, but never got very heavily into them. I much prefer the North American versions of progressive rock--Rush and Kansas. The British stuff was just a little too...weird and whimsical sometimes for me, and a little too keyboardy and less guitary. The songs I like from Yes tend to be their better-known stuff--"Starship Trooper" and "And You And I".

The English prog bands (Yes, Genesis, King Crimson, ELP) were the true innovators. They did stuff that had truly never been done before. But they are certainly not for everybody.

The next generation (Rush, Kansas, Marillion, Styx, Asia) mixed in a heavier dose of traditional pop-rock accessibility. Many of the orignal prog bands got rich by heading in this direction themselves.

And lastly, I believe the much-hated (but loved by me) genre of arena rock (Boston, Journey, Foreigner, Heart) was just one more watering-down of the original prog formula.

the groundbreaking work of the original British bands, even if I can't get into them as much as I'd like to.

... Yes, ELP and King Crimson But then others would argue for Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd.

I ever attended. Too loud imho and I wasn't too old!

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Towards the end, we had 9 musicians and a soundman. One of our favorite gigs was a true
dive in Wilmington, DE (whose house quasi-punk band had a vocalist who performed in
nothing but a clear plastic raincoat with a pack of Marlboros in one pocket).
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When we started our first set, there were often only 5 or 6 people in the audience (though
it would be packed shoulder-to-shoulder by the end of the night). I used to tell the crowd
that we LIKED audiences that small, because if they got ugly, we could kick their ass.
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We were nice guys with onstage persona attitudes.
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Not really. We were all pretty nice folks who enjoyed the hell out of what we were doing.
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so I guess I am one of those people.

YOU PEOPLE.


Edit to wear the Santa hat:

They put on a hell of a show.

I have loved something about every different incarnation of that band. They were always able to evolve (even if that sometimes involved revolving-door personnel changes), and they never did the same album twice.

Progressive rock has fallen out of favor with the rock intelligentsia these days, but I originally sought out Yes because of the glowing reviews (subsequently revised, of course) in the Rolling Stone Record Guide. I was not disappointed, although it did take a few listens for me to get used to Jon Anderson's unnaturally high pitched vocals.

Listening to Yes is not considered cool. But I have never been one to follow the trends and fashions of the day. I know what I like, and I don't care if other people disagree.

These days?

In the 1970s, when Malcolm McLaren got everybody who writes about music on board with his don't-trust-anyone-who-knows-more-than-two-chords thing, it began a cultural slide we have yet to recover from.

I like some of the music that resulted from the manufactured phenomenon that was the Sex Pistols; many artists took the whole DIY thing to some great places, but the Sex Pistols themselves? Yuck.

Having to deal with musicians all through the 80s-90s-00s-10s telling me that they don't read music because they don't want to hurt their creativity? Yuck.

Albums like ELP's Love Beach as a result? Yuck. Gimme Tarkus (side 1 at least) any day.

Oddly enough, the Andrew "Dice" Clay movie The Adventures of Ford Fairlane deals with the media's systematic lowering of standards better than any other mainstream film I have seen.

I'm not a prog snob who thinks music has to have interlocking solos and be in 7/8 time in order to be good. Some of the best, catchiest songs ever have been simple ones. But it's hard to make consistently interesting music with only basic guitar playing, bass, drums and vocals. The songs start sounding "samey" really fast.

One of my favorite albums is London Calling by the Clash. It's nominally a punk album, but you would be hard pressed to identify more than four or five true punk songs on it. It's actually pretty diverse. And, in its way, it is just as pretentious as anything Yes ever did. They were, after all, the only band that mattered.

I've never listened to Love Beach, but I regularly laugh at the album cover.

Let's let the musical past be the past.

I love Kraftwerk, seriously. Would you like to argue with me?
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I'm a member of the YesFans website.

http://m.

(I, too, much prefer Rush.)

Steve Howe is one of the all time greats.

Bake