Cities Made of Song, 1971

Cities Made of Song, 1971 - Heart of the Sunrise by Yes

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Lest we forget that we are now in the age of rock extravagance, here's Yes.

Starting as one of the many club bands in the Soho scene in the late Sixties, it's doubtful at the beginning that anything would have set Yes apart from the crowd. There was no shortage of bands made up of hopeful youngsters playing Beatles covers at the time. Of course, as fate would have it, Yes rose to the top. It's hard to say exactly what allowed this to happen, but it does go without saying that the first core lineup - Bill Bruford, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Jon Anderson, and Tony Kaye - are or were phenomenal musicians. For my money, Squire was the pulse of this group, and certainly a bass player to admire.

Despite their humble beginnings, by 1971 Yes were on top of the rock world after the release of "The Yes Album", their first megahit. In what seems to be a pattern for bands of this period, they pretty much instantly went back into the studio. This time, Kaye wouldn't be joining them, ejected for his unwillingness to experiment with the Moog or mellotron. (Or maybe his playing was just out of Kaye?) The band picked up Rick Wakeman, a session keyboardist in great demand, and thus the "classic lineup" was complete. "Fragile" would be the appropriately chosen title for an album delivered at a delicate point in the band's life, and would be the first Yes record to showcase the psychedelic art of Roger Dean.

Superficial changes are all well and good, but this record is also a league above their previous. Don't get me wrong, "The Yes Album" is a classic, but "Fragile" is something special. Every member of the band was allowed to cut loose and put one of "their" songs onto this record, which gives it a diversity of styles which are, nevertheless, clearly all the same brand of quirky prog rock. Roundabout is a standout, obviously (and has an amusing afterlife of popularity today, thanks to a certain anime), but I have to say that I like Heart of the Sunrise the best. This 11-minute epic has it all, including the time-honored prog tradition of taking almost four minutes for the lyrics to come in. Squire and Bruford are absolutely on fire, machine-gunning out that intro, and that coda at the end is just so charming.

Yes catches a lot of stick as the poster child of overblown progressive rock, but I've never really understood that position. The lyrics never make much sense and it's definitely over the top, but over the top things can be fun too, no? I think some people are simply allergic to having fun.

That's enough off-topic music discussion for the moment, I think. Day of the Daleks is next.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 30 March 2021.)