Published on Sep 3, 1997
Some readers may remember back in April I pulled Yes’s
Tales From Topographic Oceans out for a serious case of
Texas whup-ass. I honestly don’t remember a time I had more fun
writing a negative review.
Now that the smoke has finally cleared from that one, I decided
I should be fair and pull out of the Archives (where we won money
betting on the Packers Monday night) one of their albums I enjoyed
from my youth – 1972’s
Fragile. It was not nearly as pompous, and does contain some
incredible performances, despite being incredibly dated.
Yes was in the middle of yet another personnel change — like
this would ever change in the band’s history — replacing
keyboardist Tony Kaye with Rick Wakeman. The band was coming off
the semi-hit “I’ve Seen All Good People,” and was ready to break
into the big leagues. They succeeded —
Fragile became their second-highest charting album, hitting
number four.
The album opens up with “Roundabout,” an eight-minute opus that
seems to wrap up the band the best for this period of their career.
From the opening guitar build from Steve Howe to the technical bass
line of Chris Squire to Jon Anderson’s lifting vocals that almost
seem detached from the music, this is a song that doesn’t seem as
long as the record label claims it is.
The only real negative of this album is the “individual ideas”
that each artist is given room to create. I’ll concede that each
artist is a master of their instrument – do they really need their
own private forum to show off? Drummer Bill Bruford’s “Five Per
Cent Of Nothing” is a waste of vinyl, and Wakeman’s “Cans And
Brahms” is a bit overblown – should that really surprise me,
though?
(Editor’s note: When re-posting this review, I learned that the
reason the album features these individual works is because the
band needed to get an album out to help pay for the costs of
Wakeman’s equipment. Thanks to Bruce Eder of All-Music Guide for
the enlightenment.)
Now then – having run this concept into the ground, I again make
a concession that there are some good performances here. Howe’s
“Mood For A Day” is a nice piece for the classical guitar, though I
prefer an instrumental he did on the video for
Yessongs more. Anderson’s vocal montage on “We Have Heaven”
is beautiful – though one wonders if we needed the uncredited
reprise at the end of the album. And while I’m not particularly
fond of Squire’s contrubition with “The Fish {Schindleria
Praematurus)” it is forever part of our minds for being linked to
the single “Long Distance Runaround.”
So in reality, we have an album which is really made up of only
four real
songs, two of which we’ve already touched on. Of the two
remaining tracks, the real treasure is “Heart Of The Sunrise,”
another epic opus which begins to demonstrate that Yes knew there
was a fine line between art rock and pompousity, a line they choose
not to cross here – smart move. The remaining track, “South Side Of
The Sky,” is one I just can’t really get into for some reason.
Fragile is also noteworthy for being the first Yes album
which featured the artwork of Roger Dean,who would be almost
permanently linked to the band for his work for them. The “bubble”
logo for the band, however, was not developed yet – it would make
its debut on
Close To The Edge.
But like the psychadelia that is featured in Dean’s artwork,
some of Yes’s music has not aged well – maybe this is why I can’t
get into “South Side Of The Sky.” Still, most of the band
performances on
Fragile — as well as a few solo performances – are quite
enjoyable 25 years after this one first hit the bins.