| The Yes Album | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Yes | ||||
| Released | 19 February 1971 | |||
| Recorded | October–November 1970 at Advision Studios in London | |||
| Genre | Progressive rock | |||
| Length | 41:44 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Yes and Eddie Offord | |||
| Yes chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Robert Christgau | (B-)[2] |
| Pitchfork | (8.1/10) [3] |
| Rolling Stone | (positive) [4] |
| Rolling Stone | [5] |
| The Daily Vault | (B+)[6] |
The Yes Album is the third studio album from the English progressive rock band Yes, released on Atlantic Records. It is the last record to feature keyboardist Tony Kaye until 1983, and the first to feature guitarist Steve Howe, who replaced Peter Banks in 1970. The album was written and rehearsed at a farmhouse in Devonshire, then home to Langley Studios, which was later bought by Howe who now lives there.
Upon its release in February 1971, The Yes Album peaked at number 4 on the UK Albums Chart[7] and number 40 on the US Billboard 200[8], where it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The Yes Album is seen as the group's breakthrough release, setting the stage for their success with their following albums Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge (1972).
Jon Anderson is credited as John Anderson on the album. Soon after, he dropped the "h" from his first name.
The album cover shows Tony Kaye with his foot in a cast. He had been in a car accident shortly before the picture was taken.
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Steve Howe appeared with the band for the first time and played a prominent role throughout. The band explored longer songs with "Yours Is No Disgrace", "Starship Trooper", and "Perpetual Change", foreshadowing the many side-length tracks that followed on Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans and Relayer.
The spacey, electronic-sounding guitar effect in "Starship Trooper" was achieved via a flanger, a device that was relatively new at the time of the recording.
Tony Kaye preferred Hammond B-3 and piano over the "new" (at the time) Moog synthesizers that Anderson was interested in using. This became a cause of contention within the band and had an influence on the line-up change, bringing in Rick Wakeman and his array of electronic keyboards from Strawbs. (On the album cover's inside gatefold, however, Kaye is pictured playing a Hammond spinet organ, probably an L-100 or M-100.)
In 2000 Q magazine placed the album at number 86 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever.
Howe's solo acoustic tune, "Clap", was heavily influenced by the Davy Graham track 'Fingerbuster'. The piece was written to celebrate the birth of Howe's son Dylan and the baby's attempts to clap in his pram.
According to Alice Cooper on his radio show Nights with Alice Cooper, Anderson claimed to have written the first two movements of "Starship Trooper" alone, though the "Disillusion" movement (which evolved from an earlier song "For Everyone", heard on Something's Coming: The BBC Recordings 1969–1970 and The Word Is Live) is credited to Chris Squire.
The Würm part of "Starship Trooper" is a continuous cadenza of chords (G-Eb-C) played by ensemble and repeated adlib: first accompaniment: electric guitar on the right stereo channel, then acoustic guitar, bass pedals, and drums from middle channel, then organ and bass guitar with vibrato and distortion from left channel, then starts the guitar solo, that swaps from side to side. The whole piece lasts about three and a half minutes. "Würm" originally evolved from a song called "Nether Street" by Howe's earlier group, Bodast. While "Wurm" (without the umlaut over the "u") is an Old English word for "dragon" (worm, wurm, wyrm), the Würm is a river in Germany which gave its name to an ice age in geology.
The Yes Album was remastered and reissued in 2003 by Rhino Records with several bonus tracks, including a studio version of "Clap". The original LP and CD version of The Yes Album refer to the song as "The Clap". The Rhino reissue refers to the song as "Clap" on the traycard, as Steve Howe intended.
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