Review of Yes' 90125

Released 1983

"Talk the simple smile Such platonic eye
How they drown in incomplete capacity
Strangest of them all
When the feeling calls
How we drown in stylistic audacity
Charge the common ground
Round and round and round
We living in gravity"

The fact that I have attempted to write this review four times is entirely symptomatic of the frustrating experience I have each time I listen to the album.

Why I chose to purchase 90125 as my fourth Yes album remains a mystery to me. It was probably heavily influenced by the fact that at the time - mid 1985 - Yes were still riding high on the success of this, their most commercially successful album by a country mile. When flicking through the 'Y' section in any music emporium, the ubiquity of the hideous silver sleeve must have burned it's sickly way into my being. Of course, Owner Of A Lonely Heart was played as often on the radio as Kayleigh. I'd almost certainly also seen the video, complete with blonde highlights, silly outfits and drum machines akimbo.

Why then, was it not plain to me that this was a very different animal to the prog monster albums of their which I already owned and loved? Goodness only knows?

Mind you, there is the horrible possibility that I've conveniently forgotten that I may have actually liked it first time around. I don't think so, but who knows.

My wife has just this last week, bought the latest Depeche Mode album whose sleeve shares a remarkable similarity with 90125; sharing the same metallic silver background and pastel awfulness in the foreground. This speaks volumes to me. Yes, it was a different line-up. Yes, it was a different decade, and they were undoubtedly, and ultimately very successfully achieving the objective of reaching a different audience, but the degree of difference served to alienate a large number of the long-standing fans.

I am conscious that, at the time I bought 90125, I wasn't the biggest Yes fan in the world and that my view is largely coloured by my perception many years later and with over twenty of their albums on my shelves. While this has coloured my judgement, I find it difficult to put my current view to one side.

There are some redeeming aspects of the album, though few and far between. Without Jon Anderson's involvement, I very much doubt that the album would have enjoyed a second listen. In many respects, in sharing some of the vocals with Trevor Rabin added a worthwhile dimension to Jon's styling; he was forced out of his comfort zone and produced a very pleasant result. Although I have no time for Mr Rabin's horrid MOR vocal growling, when combined with Jon's unique delivery, the result is not half bad. Throw Chris Squire's solid background vocals into the mix and it's no surprise that commercially this worked so well. Old school Yes fans took some solace in the fact that Jon's nutty mysticism was kind of still there, not completely eradicated by the Journey-Foreigner-REO Speedwagon-esque glossiness of the overall effect.

Old school Yes fans would have originally been delighted that Tony Kaye was coming back into the picture. Many of us favour his approach over that of Rick Wakeman. We were all then bemused in the resulting departure in style from anything remotely Yes-like keyboard wise on 90125. It's all special effects and very contemporary and not what most fans expected or wanted.

The rhythm section of Chris Squire and Alan White is still present, but not immediately recognisable as such. I've always felt that Alan White's background as a more straightforward rock and roll drummer meant that he probably relished the opportunity to branch out from the odd time signatures and get back to familiar territory. Chris Squire's contribution, like Jon Anderson's remains relatively unquashed, such is the distinctive nature of his playing.

As a Yes purist, I struggle to say anything positive about Trevor Rabin's role on guitar. He was no doubt was the main change from the norm and he obviously was very successful in doing what he set out to do. For me, and for many others, his style was just not Yes-like.

I don't like being negative in reviewing any album, but, as a prog album, 90125 fails on practically level. At least for me.