Is Yes really Yes anymore?

Well, if Stravinsky gave up composing and turned over the business to his cousin Squiggy Stravinsky, I would say Stravinsky -- Igor Stravinsky -- is not Stravinsky anymore.  And if Mozart sold his naming rights to a Viennese music conglomerate ran by some guy named Hans Schnitzelbach, Hans may be able to play piano, but he ain't Mozart, even if he's selling Mozart t-shirts at the next concert in Salzburg.

How are you equating a band to a composer? Is this like the "corporations are people too" philosophy? 

No one's saying Yes isn't Yes anymore just because they don't like the music they're putting out anymore. U2 have been regressing and muddying up their musical legacy for years, but it's still the same four guys who made The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, War, and all their other classic albums.  Those four guys together are U2, and no one debates whether or not they should call themselves U2 anymore even though they've barely had a fresh idea in 24 years. The reason people are arguing that Yes isn't Yes anymore, and why I felt it was in question enough to start this thread, comes down to membership. Look at the current lineup. It isn't just no original members, it's barely any classic members, especially when you consider Alan White is being supplemented by some other guy because he can't play much anymore. The only guy who's both fully active in the band and with any decent claim to the Yes name is Steve Howe, the rest of them are either poor replacements of iconic members or have a merely tangential history with the band's classic era. 

I'm not saying bands can't change. Certainly change is one of the things that made Yes' classic period so enthralling. But that was decades ago, and back then there was always the consistent through line of Squire and (almost always) Anderson. If Steve Howe walked up to a group of five random, decent, studio musicians and sold them the rights to the name Yes, and then they went around playing classic Yes songs and recording new music with that name, would that still be Yes? To me it wouldn't. There has to be a line drawn somewhere, and I think with the passing of Squire and the minimal involvement of White the line has been crossed.

 If you disagree, that's totally fine. They own the rights to the name anyway, so in practice you'd be right! However, your argument isn't relevant, because the reason Yes' current authenticity is being debated is not centered on the quality of their music. 

No one's saying Steve Howe and the rest of what is now Yes shouldn't go around playing classic Yes songs or making new music. They're musicians, and that's the catalogue they like to play from. They have the right to do it and enough history with the band to draw people's interest. The question on the table isn't whether or not they're any good, whether or not they should be playing, nor certainly whether or not Isaac Stern does a good job with Mozart's music. Side note -- I'm still not getting why you're bringing 18th century European composers into this discussion about a 20th and 21st century progressive rock band. Yes, they are a rock band and of course will be treated as such by rock fans. Yes is not a composer, it's a band. They play drums and guitars and use distortion and amplifiers and draw from the well of rock and roll. No, the question on the table isn't about their musical merits, it's about the lineup and the philosophical rights to the band name. Just like it would be silly to say that an Elvis impersonator is really truly Elvis, no matter how good of an impersonation they can pull off, it seems silly to many people here to say this lineup really deserves to call itself Yes. They aught to go by some other name, because that's what they are, some other band. Related to Yes, good at playing Yes songs, good at writing music in the style of Yes, but not the real thing.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: But you guys will still probaby buy the new album.

There are so many brilliant artists out these days that i can't even keep up so i can safely say i won't even be listening to the new album unless i want to write a negative review :)

Buy it? I can listen to it some place on the internet.  I very much doubt I will have the desire to buy it.