It's tempting to underestimate the music of Yes because it is so familiar now. It was actually a radical departure from conventional song forms, creating long, oddly structured suites that carried vague but often profound meanings. Their albums provide clear examples of what most people consider prog to be as a music genre. The Yes Album was also commercially successful and stands as a major landmark of early prog.
Departures from convention tend to be risky, if only because audience expectations can't be adjusted beforehand. I'm reminded of the turmoil that Ornette Coleman's music precipitated in the late 1950s. He has later been credited with freeing jazz from some of its self-imposed limitations, thereby expanding the possibilities for expression. Yes's departures are more about changing expectations of the way songs are written. Conventional songwriting would involve a lyric, perhaps some clever rhyming scheme, repeating melodies over a progression of chords (most often based on the blues), and bridges connecting the front and back ends of a song. Yes defied many of these conventions but managed to connect with audiences once they got past their formative stage, which included two earlier albums - Yes (1969) and Time and a Word (1970).
After a brief acoustic interlude by Howe, "Starship Trooper" closes side 1. It is my favorite Yes song by a wide margin. For one thing, the lyrics actually make sense. I quoted part of them in a published response to some academic criticism I once received.
All I know can be shown by your acceptance of the facts there shown before you.
Take what I say in a different way and it's easy to say that this is all confusion.
(I restrained myself from including the next line in my response: "As I see a new day in me, I can also show if you and you may follow.)
"Trooper" is organized as a suite of three songs: "Life Seeker," "Dissolution," and "Würm." "Würm" ends the 9:26 minute opus with an increasingly deep loud repeating phrase, eventually fading out. It reminds me of Abbey Road's "I Want You, She's So Heavy" except for the fadeout.
Yes's next albums, Fragile and Close to the Edge, would take even more risks that worked superbly. Two lesser albums followed (Tales of Topographic Oceans and Relayer), and I felt the band had moved away from its strengths both instrumentally and in the songwriting. Going for the One (1977) restored much of the earlier excellence, only to be followed by Tormato, which I never got into. Yes re-formed in the 1980s for 90125 and Big Generator. I liked 90125 and its hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart," but none of the later albums come close to the majesty The Yes Album.
Steve:
Because it laid the foundation for the peak albums in the Yes discography, The Yes Album can sometimes be taken for granted. Yet, when I listen to it, I often think it's my favorite album of theirs while it's on. One of the reasons for this is that they still sound human on this album, like a band of mere mortals getting together and just playing some rock and roll. Except this was rock and roll that they composed in the most radical way they could imagine, developing their ideas into long-form musical progressions that held your attention like a 3-minute pop song would. On future albums, their musical sophistication would sound almost otherworldly, but they're still relatively down to earth here.
"Yours is No Disgrace" is a good example. Although there are solos and instrumental breaks, this is not merely a 3-minute song stretched out to 9 minutes using extended vamps with solos. The song establishes (rather bluntly, so it's impossible to miss) a main theme at the start, introduces a secondary melody once the vocals begin, and then spends the rest of the song playing mutations and variations of these fairly simple musical themes, presenting them in multiple contexts that never sound repetitive. "Perpetual Change" uses a similar approach.
Long-form progressive rock songs often take the form of multi-part suites, and The Yes Album has a couple of these as well. "Starship Trooper" is essentially three songs combined into one, but it uses overlapping musical themes to tie them together - for example, the "speak to me of summer / long winter's longer than time can remember" bridge is used both in the opening "Life Seeker" section and after the 2nd "Disillusion" section. Speaking of "Disillusion", that part (credited wholly to Chris Squire) contains the pungent lyric Dan called out above, and I do recall him calling out that lyric way back in the day as well. Even if it didn't mean much to me at the time, the words just sounded cool together in their rapid delivery during that brisk section.
Update: As of December 2023, Steven Wilson's remix of The Yes Album became available as part of the Super Deluxe reissue. We auditioned the new mixes and find them a strong improvement over the previous digital versions.
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