Fragile (Yes album)

Fragile
Studio album by Yes
Released	26 November 1971 (UK) 4 January 1972 (US)
Recorded	September 1971 at Advision Studios (London, England)
Genre	Progressive rock
Length	41:10
Label	Atlantic
Producer	Yes, Eddy Offord
Yes chronology
The Yes Album (1971) Fragile (1971) Close to the Edge (1972)
Singles from Fragile
"Roundabout" Released: 4 January 1972 (US)

Fragile is the fourth studio album from the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 26 November 1971 on Atlantic Records. It is their first album recorded with keyboardist Rick Wakeman after the departure of Tony Kaye earlier in the year. Fragile comprises nine tracks; four are group performances while five are solo features written by each member. It marked the band's first collaboration with artist Roger Dean, who would design their logo and many of their future covers.

Fragile was a commercial and critical success upon its release; it is considered to be the band's international breakthrough.^[1] It peaked at number 4 in the US and number 7 in the UK. The album is certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over two million copies.

Background

Fragile is the first album recorded with keyboardist Rick Wakeman, pictured here in 2012.

On 31 July 1971, the day of their final concert on their 1970–71 tour of Europe and North America to promote The Yes Album, keyboardist Tony Kaye performed his final show with Yes before his thirteen-year absence. Kaye was reluctant to expand his keyboard sound, other than his usual piano and Hammond organ, and play the Mellotron and Moog synthesiser.^[1] In mid-1971, Yes began rehearsals for their next record which was originally going to be a double album with one disc of studio material and the other containing live tracks.^[2] The idea could not be realised due to the time required to make it.^[3] Ideas also surfaced to have the album recorded in Miami, Florida with producer Tom Dowd, also never came to fruition.^[4]

Kaye was replaced by Rick Wakeman, a fellow classically-trained player who left the Strawbs earlier that year. He joined Yes in August 1971 as they rehearsed "Heart of the Sunrise".^[5] Rehearsals took place in what Squire described "a little rehearsal studio in Shepherd's Market ... that marked the first real appearance of the mellotron and the Moog—adding the flavour of those instruments to a piece we'd basically already worked out".^[5]

Recording and composition

Fragile was produced in five weeks from September 1971 at Advision Studios using a 16-track tape machine.^[6] Rolling Stone reported the album cost $30,000 to make.^[7] Eddy Offord, who had worked with the band on their 1970 album Time and a Word, assumed his role as the album's recording engineer and producer. Both Offord and Yes shared the album's production duties. According to Michael Tait, the band's lighting director, the album's title came from their manager Brian Lane who, while on the phone to "some press guy" asking Lane about the new album, "was looking at some photos from that Crystal Palace gig, saw the monitors at the front of the stage and, like all equipment, they had 'Fragile' stamped on the back".^[8] Bruford claims that he in fact suggested the title because he thought the band "was breakable" at the time.^[9] While the band were recording, Wakeman remembered children being brought into the studio to watch them play.^[10]

As explained in the album's liner notes, four of the nine tracks on Fragile are "group arranged and performed".^{[nb 1]} Squire reasoned this approach was necessary in part to save time and reduce studio costs,^[11] as money was used to purchase keyboard equipment for Wakeman. According to Bruford: "There was this endless discussion about how the band could be used ... I felt we could use all five musicians differently ... So I said—brightly—'Why don't we do some individual things, whereby we all use the group for our own musical fantasy? I'll be the director, conductor, and maestro for the day, then you do your track, and so on.'"^[11] Wakeman commented on the album's structure. "Some critics thought this was just being flash. The thinking behind this was that we realised there would be a lot of new listeners coming to the band. They could find out where each individual player's contribution lay."^[12]

"Roundabout", written by Anderson and Howe, has become one of the group's best-known songs. Howe recalled the track was originally "a guitar instrumental suite".^[13] The introduction is a piano note played backwards.^[14] "Heart of the Sunrise" is a track where Wakeman's classically-trained background came into play; he introduced the band to the idea of recapitulation where previous segments in music are revisited.^[15]

The remaining five tracks on the album are "the individual ideas, personally arranged and organised" by the five members.^{[nb 1]} "Cans and Brahms" is Wakeman's adaptation of the third movement of Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms, with an electric piano used for the string section, an electric harpsichord used for the reeds, and a synthesiser used for the contrabassoon.^{[nb 1][16]} Wakeman later described the track as "dreadful", as contractual problems with A&M Records, who he was with as a solo artist, prevented him from writing a composition of his own.^[17] Anderson described "We Have Heaven" as a "rolling idea of voices and things",^[18] with its two main set of chants containing the phrases "Tell the Moon dog, tell the March hare" and "Yes he is here."^[19] Bruford's track "Five Per Cent for Nothing", with a 35-second duration, is his "first attempt composition—but we've all got to start somewhere".^[20] According to Tait, its original title was "Suddenly It's Wednesday",^[11] but it was changed in reference to Yes paying off their former manager Roy Flynn with the deal of five percent of future royalties.^[20] "Long Distance Runaround" segues into Squire's solo track, "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)". Tait recalled Anderson calling him "at ten o'clock one night from Advision and said, 'I want the name of prehistoric fish in eight syllables. Call me back in half an hour'". Tait subsequently found Schindleria Praematurus, a genus of marine fish, in a copy of Guinness Book of Records.^[11] Howe performed his solo guitar piece "Mood for a Day" on a Conde flamenco guitar.^[20]

Wakeman also claimed to have made writing contributions to "South Side of the Sky" and "Heart of the Sunrise" by adding piano interludes, but did not receive credit because of the contract disputes. He was promised more money by executives at Atlantic Records, but claims he never received it.^{[citation needed]}

Sleeve design

The album's sleeve was designed and illustrated by English artist Roger Dean, who would design many of Yes's future album covers, including their "bubble" logo. On reflection of the design, Dean said: "'Fragile' was very literal, really. I think the band has named a number of their albums after their current psychological state, and 'Fragile' described the psyche of the band. And I thought about that very literally, painting a fragile world that would eventually break up."^[21] He commented further: "'Fragile' was quite a complicated cover because there was a book inside. It was elaborate although it wasn't one of the most striking of all the Yes covers. I was kind of learning my trade at the time. The main feature on the cover was a little Bonsai world with a wooden space ship flying overhead! It was literally meant to be a fragile world".^[22]

The band had wished for an image of a fractured piece of porcelain; to compromise, Dean ended up breaking the planet into two pieces. This idea of a broken world would continue on the band's live album, Yessongs.^[22] Bruford thought Dean "brilliantly parlayed that idea [one of Fragile] up to the prescient image of the fragile planet earth, with implications of a delicate and breakable eco-system".^[9]

The LP's accompanying promotional booklet contains two additional Dean paintings; the front cover depict five creatures huddled under a root system; the back cover depicts a person climbing up a rock formation. The inside shows several photographs of the band with an individual page dedicated to each member, with smaller illustrations and photographs of their wives and children. Anderson's page contains a short poem, while Wakeman contains a list of acknowledgements, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The White Bear pub in Hounslow, and Brentford F.C..^{[nb 1]}

Release

Fragile was released in the UK on 26 November 1971 followed by its US release on 4 January 1972. It peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart^[1] and number 7 in the UK.^[23] "Roundabout" was released as a single in the US with a duration of 3:27; it peaked at number 13 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in April 1972.^[24] Howe thought the idea of editing the song for a single "was sacrilege ... but in the end we did have to edit it".^[13]

In April 1972, Fragile was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).^[25] The album is certified double platinum by the RIAA for selling over two million copies.^[26]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[27]
Robert Christgau	(B)[28]
Pitchfork	(8.8/10)[29]
Rolling Stone (1972)	Favourable[30]
Rolling Stone (2003)	[31]
Piero Scaruffi	(7.5/10)[32]
Sputnik Music	[33]

Fragile received a mostly positive reception upon its release. Billboard magazine selected the album in its "Billboard Pick" feature, describing it as "vibrant, soothing, tumultuous, placid and instrumentally brilliant" and Anderson's vocals "deliciously ingratiating".^[34] In his review for Rolling Stone, Richard Cromelin pointed out the album's "gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise and energetic performances" and "cryptic but evocative lyrics", but pointed out that Yes "tend to succumb to the show-off syndrome. Their music (notably "Cans and Brahms" and "We Have Heaven") often seems designed only to impress and tries too hard to call attention to itself".^[30]

Ed Keheller for Circus magazine summarised his review of the album with "Fragile is unquestionably their most cohesive and mettlesome undertaking".^[35] In the same issue, Squire responded to the criticism regarding the album's solo tracks, "in a way you've got to appreciate the circumstances. We had to get another album out quickly from a purely financial point of view. We have a lot of mouths to feed. Rick ... had to buy a vast amount of new equipment when he joined, and it all costs much more money than people seem to imagine."^[36]

In 2005, Fragile was included in the musical reference publication 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In his review for AllMusic, Bruce Eder gave the album five stars out of five. He writes:

Fragile was Yes' breakthrough album, propelling them in a matter of weeks from a cult act to an international phenomenon; not coincidentally, it also marked the point where all of the elements of the music (and more) that would define their success for more than a decade fell into place fully formed. The science-fiction and fantasy elements that had driven the more successful songs on their preceding record, The Yes Album, were pushed much harder here, and not just in the music but in the packaging of the album: the Roger Dean-designed cover was itself a fascinating creation that seemed to relate to the music and drew the purchaser's attention in a manner that few records since the heyday of the psychedelic era could match.^[1]

Reissues

Fragile was first reissued on CD in the United States and Europe in 1990.^{[nb 2]} A remastered edition for CD and cassette by Joe Gastwirt followed in 1994, which includes a reprise of "We Have Heaven" after "Heart of the Sunrise" for a track running time of 11:32.^{[nb 3]} In 2002, Rhino and Elektra Records released Fragile in stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes for the DVD-Audio format. The band's cover of "America" is included, along with other supplemental features.^{[nb 4]} 2003 saw Rhino and Elektra put out a new remastered CD conducted by Dan Hersch, with "America" and an early rough mix of "Roundabout" as bonus tracks.^{[nb 5]}

In 2006, two new "audiophile" remasters were released. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab put out a "24 KT Gold" edition for CD headed by Shawn Britton,^{[nb 6]} and a 200-gram LP from Analogue Productions by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman.^{[nb 7]} Warner Japan released Fragile in 2011 in a hybrid stereo/multichannel edition for the Super Audio CD format as part of their Warner Premium Sound series.^{[nb 8]}

Tour

Track listing

Personnel

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ref|Atlantic K 50009|name=ukvinyl|group="nb"}}

• Jon Anderson – vocals and production
• Bill Bruford – drums, percussion, and production
• Steve Howe – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, and production
• Chris Squire – bass guitars, backing vocals, guitar and production
• Rick Wakeman – Hammond organ, piano, RMI 368 Electra-Piano and Harpsichord, Mellotron, Moog synthesizer, and production

Production

• Roger Dean – photography, sleeve design
• David Wright – photography
• Eddy Offord – engineer and production
• Gary Martin – assistant engineer

Notes and references

Notes

References

Sources

• Bruford, Bill (2009). Bill Bruford: The Autobiography: Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, and More. Jawbone Publishing. ISBN 9781906002237. 
• Hedges, Dan (1982). Yes: An Authorized Biography. Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 978-0-283-98751-9. 
• Morse, Tim (1996). Yesstories: "Yes" in Their Own Words. St Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-14453-1. 
• Welch, Chris (2008). Close to the Edge – The Story of Yes. Omnibus Press. ISBN 978-1-84772-132-7. 

• Wooding, Dan (1978). Rick Wakeman: The Caped Crusader. Granada Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-0-709-16487-6. 

External links

• Official Yes website at YesWorld