Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's assesment of Yes

I actually quite like 90125, personally, but come on I have heard Owner of a Lonely Heart on the VH1 morning playlist.  They wouldn't touch prog with a bargepole.

what is there to disagree with Roger.. the proof is sort of in the pudding man.

do we imagine the venom Genesis fans have for their heroes leaving prog for the bright lights of pop stardom

do a certain element of Rush fans still bitch that Rush left prog and became a slick AOR band.

prog fans still hold on to those early albums..  the rest of the musical world moved on and saw them for what they became and make their 'names' as.

find me a thread here.. or anywhere.. even some sense of internet sentiment that Yes became either of those. They didn't and there isn't.. again one of the reasons Yes is seen as the quintessential prog band. It is for their longevity in the field as well as their glory days output.. otherwise it would likely be ELP for they debatably were the only band that could trump Yes for shear importance and impact on defining and popularizing  70's prog rock

micky wrote: what is there to disagree with Roger.. the proof is sort of in the pudding man. do we imagine the venom Genesis fans have for their heroes leaving prog for the bright lights of pop stardom do a certain element of Rush fans still bitch that Rush left prog and became a slick AOR band. prog fans still hold on to those early albums..  the rest of the musical world moved on and saw them for what they became and make their 'names' as. find me a thread here.. or anywhere.. even some sense of internet sentiment that Yes became either of those. They didn't and there isn't.. again one of the reasons Yes is seen as the quintessential prog band. It is for their longevity in the field as well as their glory days output.. otherwise it would likely be ELP for they debatably were the only band that could trump Yes for shear importance and impact on defining and popularizing  70's prog rock

Again, if you did listen to Owner of a Lonely Heart straight after CTTE, it WOULD be unrecognizable but for Anderson's voice.  There are other songs like Leave It which very much have the Yes trademark but not Owner.  I am not blaming them for it and imo they did it well but that necessarily involved temporarily casting aside their prog legacy.  And as for why they didn't get the kind of flak for it as did Genesis, it's probably a lot more complicated than just what Yes did stylistically.  For one, they handled the change more gracefully and didn't stop playing older material.  Banks boasting that those 80s albums (which are now so dated even RRHOF couldn't bear to play them and chose a prog classic for their induction instead) were where they really learned to write music properly or something to that effect cannot have helped matters.  Genesis were rather defensive in handling the heat from older fans.  Yes weren't.  And Yes failed with Big Generator and jumped at the chance to go back to prog.  Genesis kept succeeding at pop and continued with it.   Who's to say what would have happened in an alternative scenario where Yes did sustain themselves as a pop outfit?  Today nobody talks about Camera Camera/Timeline because they were such massive turkeys.  But what if they had succeeded?  Does their failure change the fact that the band chose to go commercial at the point?  No. Same goes with Yes.  Compared even to Drama, 90125 is a decidedly more commercial effort.  They did it more tastefully than Genesis and full props to them for that but it's still commercial.  It's fine if you don't see it that way and we can stop here.  

Edited by rogerthat - December 12 2015 at 08:35

That it is essentially a pop song repeated enough times until it gets up to 18 minutes still doesn't make it commercial in that radio-ready sense that it is implied.  You will not get an average pop listening fellow to get past that Steve Howe solo, for starters.  Where's the CLASSICAL in Owner of a Lonely Heart since you mentioned classical-rock fusion?  Any random band from the 80s could have written that song and that's the point.  It is strange that one of the most bland creations of Yes achieved so much success but then pop IS bland a lot of times.

That I don't disagree with - that they won't get it for 90125 because their pop stretch was too short compared to Genesis.  But as far as 80s bands, I don't know, man, the mainstream air is thick with the stench of the 80s.  I heard Pompeii quite by accident the other day and I swear the beats could be right out of MJ's Bad album or a zillion other dance pop albums from the decade.  Bruno Mars doesn't attempt in the slightest to disguise his MJ influence.  If Wham! were to get included in the RRHOF, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.  Or Spandau Ballet or some other 80s horror.

the crux of the biscuit Roger is that while can say Yes did a pop album(s) (think Big Generator is a better example than 90125, which had a pop song.. but that wasn't a pop album)..

the difference is of course.. while they have done pop albums..1 or 2 whatever...one can say they never really became a pop band. Never lost hardcore 70's fans for the foundational basis of their music, right from their debut, always was pop.

It is a good summation of the band. 

The pop duo Hall & Oates were admitted to the RRHOF, so when I learned that, I lost all interest in the thing. Clearly it is a commercial scam with no basis in reality. 

cstack3 wrote: The pop duo Hall & Oates were admitted to the RRHOF, so when I learned that, I lost all interest in the thing. Clearly it is a commercial scam with no basis in reality.  Members of PA have a much deeper appreciation of the history of all rock, including Prog, than anyone associated with that mess.   Count me as "disinterested."

Yep, that pretty much sums it up for me as well.