No 'Yes'

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

Spring, 1970

Jon Anderson's plan to get rid of Peter Banks are put on hold when his planned replacement, Steve Howe, agrees to join Jethro Tull instead (replacing Glenn Cornick). Banks stays on to complete The Yes Album; but with him and Jon constantly bickering the album is a disaster. Atlantic drops their contract early in 1971 and they break up.

- - -

Another person directly affected by poor sales of The Yes Album is a London record shop owner named Richard Branson. After pre-ordering a bunch of copies, he can barely give them away. This, plus a seven week postal strike, and a huge customs fine for importing records without paying tax on them, all leave him rather short on cash that year. As a result, that fall he turns down a demo tape called Tubular Bells ; already spent enough on experimental music for one year, thank you. He regrets this bitterly in the years to come; if only he had published it, his fledgling record label might not have gone under...

So:

- No Fragile, Close To The Edge, or Yessongs. But on the plus side, no Tales From Topographic Oceans or Big Generator.

- No Virgin Records (or Airways or any other Virgin Group enterprise).

- No Never Mind The Bollocks , since by 1977 the Sex Pistols have already pissed off every major label except the nonexistent Virgin.

- Possibly less punk rock in general (since it was partly a counterreaction to overblown progressive rock...).

Thoughts?
​

 

[the_lyniezian]

A few years ago this might have got you flamed from this direction (well, maybe not, I don't like to do that!) since I was once something of a Yes fan.. before uncertianties over whether some of my religious beliefs and the lyrics conflicted and most of them went in the bin/to the charity shop (except 'Fragile'). It's actually interesting that Yes could have had quite such an effect on things in your view, including killing off Virgin! One possible derogatory effect: would Rick Wakeman* have managed to spawn a succesful solo career of his own if Yes hadn't been so popular? (I did hear he'd considered being part of Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' thing, at one point- but decided Yes had more going for it!)

I guess there were other excessive prog bands around too, at least peformance-wise (Peter Gabriel's dressing up on stage, Pink Floyd's sets etc.) Musically, I think Tales was just excessive in that it went on far....too...long.... (Well, I musically didn't mind 'The Revealing Science of God'** but that's about it.) How no Tales at least might have affected punk... (a TL in itself!) ...who knows?

Personally I'd have missed Yes- I think one of the few at least relatively interesting and different-sounding bands which didn't manage to soun pretty dreadful (which is more than I could say for ELP, Van de Graaf Generator, King Crimson from what I've heard and some others***).

*Wakeman is still at least partly in my collection, BTW.

**With emphasis on the musically!

***Other bands I did like probably include Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Camel, Renaissance, and Focus. Rick Wakeman is not a band, but I like him too.

 

[Hendryk]

Never cared much about Yes, but pity about "Tubular Bells". I was a big fan of Mike Oldfield around age 20, though in hindsight I can't decide whether he was just doing glorified atmospheric music all along.

before uncertianties over whether some of my religious beliefs and the lyrics conflicted and most of them went in the bin/to the charity shop (except 'Fragile').

There's something religiously objectionable about the lyrics of an anodyne band like Yes?

 

[Lord Grattan]

No YES? A thousand musical memories of mine just rose up in anquish at the thought of being erased! Oh the humanity! Would Weakeman still have created "The Six Wives of Henry VIII"?

 

[the_lyniezian]

There's something religiously objectionable about the lyrics of an anodyne band like Yes?

Tales from Topographic Oceans was based on the hindu scriptures for one, and the rest seemed to be some sort of new agey gobbledeygook (well, it must have meant something, and though it might have been slightly fun to try and work out what it all meant, I was too interested in the actual music. I think I may have got freaked out by the idea of Led Zep's 'Stairway to Heaven' being apparently satanic backwards (seriously!) and wondered what else might be dodgy backwaards...)