I just watched the DVD "Inside Yes 1968-1973" a critical review of the
band's early career. For TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS fans, it's pretty sad.
It
ends with TALES, and the comments are pretty negative. The only unqualified
positive statement comes from Chris Stilmant (a sound engineer) who said it was
"THE album of YES; I just love it. It was long songs, double album, the artwork
was beautiful, the music was beautiful, and it was what I was expecting music
to become...it was a masterpiece." The worst statements come from Jerry Ewing
of Classic Rock Magazine, who describes TALES as "a crap album," "tuneless
dirge" and asks of the lyrics "what on earth are they talking about?" Other
commentators talk of it meandering and being hard to pick out the melodic and
rhythmic highlights. Well, of course this is all nonsense to me. I started
studying TALES (and I do think it requires some extended attention) in 1975,
and I
liked it right away. The lyrics did not impress me until 1976 when I suddenly
became interested in all things mystical and spiritual, and then the lyrics,
the
liner notes, the book that inspired it, and the artwork all became of intense
interest. The music did not seem too extreme at all. Sides one and two were
VERY mellow and melodic (for a rock band), with little of the boogie feel of
rock and none of the crunch of typical guitar riffs. However, I was already a
big fan of Renaissance, so mellow folkie stuff like The Remembering (it
obviously had other influences like ambient electronics) was totally up my
alley. Side
three was the most experimental arrangement of YES' career, but since I was
fan of other manic, weird instrumentals like ELP's arrangement of "Toccata,"
King Crimson's "Lark's Tongues In Aspic Part One" or Todd Rundgren's "A
Treatise
on Cosmic Fire," "The Ancient" did not seem too extreme to me at all. Heck,
around this time I was even listening to the free jazz duets of singer Ursula
Dudziak and pianist Adam Mankowitz, and that didn't seem too extreme either.
Side four of TALES,"Ritual," seems like the only logical climax (no pun
intended
on it's tantric implications) to the effort.
I would say that progressive rock taught me to love a wide range of
music. YES in particular gave me a taste for classical, jazz, country,
electronic,
and folk music. In many cases, it wasn't until years or decades later that I
really delved into these genres, but I credit YES with giving me my first taste
in many cases.
As for today, I still enjoy a good, challenging piece of music. Right
at the end of last year I heard Sufjan Stevens ILLINOIS album (2005), and I
studied it for months. Just yesterday I played his new album THE AVALANCHE:
Outtakes and extras from the Illinois Album, and all I can say is that if these
are
"extras" then we are dealing with a major songwriter here. His music has been
labeled "chamber folk" which I think is a good description because though
rooted in acoustic songwriting, he embellishes to his heart's desire. He also
likes minimalism, prog (you can even here a tad of Genesis-like synths on a
couple of tracks) and classical. I'm also listening to some great early 60s
Blue
Note jazz albums, especially Lee Morgan's CORNBREAD.
Philosophically, I'm still interested in those 1960s questions about
"hate and death and war" (as the Moody Blues phrased it in their lyrics). I'm
currently watching a couple of amazing documentaries that just came out on DVD:
WHY WE FIGHT about the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower
warned us about, and LEFT OF THE DIAL, about America's first liberal talk radio
network, Air America Radio. I'm also ooking forward to rewatching CONTROL
ROOM about the bombing (probably deliberate on Bush's part) of al-Jazeera's
offices.
To me, TALES was just a part of this flow of thought: trying to save the
world while living on another one. -===-=-=-=-= om-=-=--= Nick
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