YESTERDAYS

"Yesterdays" in an interesting assortment of Yes stuff from their pre-classic period ('Yes' and 'Time and a Word') which includes the adapted version of Paul Simon's "America." This is not a bad arrangement of songs as it covers all the good stuff from the two early albums. "America" is really an interesting song when compared to the original version which is a folk song written by the legendary Paul Simon. It is interesting making a comparison between the two songs and seeing just how warped Yes's music was for it's time. The song is basically dominated by Steve Howe who plays many cool riffs on the electric guitar, it is very good song.

"Yesterdays" really did a good job of capturing all the best moments from their first two albums, all the best are there "Time and a Word"," Sweet Dreams", "Dear Father" and so on. The cover picture is another extraordinary piece of art by the amazing Roger Dean and, if you look very closely you will see something very interesting, wink, wink. The inside picture is a bit disturbing though. Basically this CD is a very uplifting one and every song takes on a happy tone except "Then" and "Survival"," Sweet Dreams" is a prime example of a nice, happy Yes song.

It is interesting to listen to how the early Yes sounded, the compositions were not as complex as they were and are. The synthesizers and guitars weren't used so much as lead instruments and they were fillers with the occasional short solo here and there. It is interesting to compare these songs to some of their more complex stuff from The Yes album, 'Close to the Edge', 'Fragile', exedra.

"Yesterdays" is a good album as far as best of CD's go and it is not a bad album to have from a collectors point of view. I believe that all true Yes fans should have at least one album of the band's early arsenal to see what it was like in the beginning. "Yesterdays" is an excellent place to get such an example of early Yes. I would recommend "Yesterdays" to all hardcore Yes fans, but beyond that the songs are good but not essential to your collection. Good, but non-essential