Love for Tales from Topographic Oceans

Bought recently on vinyl. Analog tapes. Sounds delicious, more humble. I still don't like the drummer, but I have the same problem with Relayer. 

siLLy puPPy wrote: Ghost Whistler wrote: Tales has some excellent music on it, but each track is about twice as long as it should be. Part 4 is the weakest, part 2 is the strongest, IMO. I have it on vinyl somewhere, like all my Yes stuff. But rarely do i listen to it. Not everyone sees it that way. I personally don't find it long enough. I would want to live in a world where this kind of music is playing every minute of the day. It's about pacing. Complex parts mixed with contemplative parts. It's brilliant. It took me a long time to appreciate this one. It's one that has to be worked for but in the end is one of my favorite albums of all time

siLLy puPPy wrote: Ghost Whistler wrote: Tales has some excellent music on it, but each track is about twice as long as it should be. Part 4 is the weakest, part 2 is the strongest, IMO. I have it on vinyl somewhere, like all my Yes stuff. But rarely do i listen to it. Not everyone sees it that way. I personally don't find it long enough. I would want to live in a world where this kind of music is playing every minute of the day. It's about pacing. Complex parts mixed with contemplative parts. It's brilliant. It took me a long time to appreciate this one. It's one that has to be worked for but in the end is one of my favorite albums of all time

Of course. It has some great moments, but I find listening to each piece in its entirety less appealing than, for example, Close to the Edge or Awaken for example.

Terrapin Station wrote: Love it. Would give it a 10/10. As is the case with every other Yes album, the ABWH album, etc.

The ABWH is a funny one.

The first time I heard Yes was actually For You, For Me by Jon Anderson from Song of Seven. I then bought the ABWH album having confused it with that song. I heard that song listening to the Friday Rock Show (years ago for those who know, not 'arf!). Took years to get round to finding Song of Seven, let alone knowing what it was.

The ABWH album has some really good material, but i wish theyd included Vultures on the album and gotten rid of the gimmicky Quartet. The only real criticism is that it's not actually ABWH given the list of guest musicians who are also, inexplicably, involved. Almost as bad as Onion. :D Geoff Downes is on the thing ffs! (In fact you can see him on the video package that accompanied the album from the studio sequences). Really it's an Anderson solo album featuring the rest of Yes (except poor old fishy).

And now he's about to do the same thing with Trevor and Rick! lolz

I maintain Topographic Oceans is not as good as it could be. It is an accomplishment, don't get me wrong. Just putting it together is impressive (so impressive it nearly finished off Rick). But the longer pieces just don't gel as well as something like Gates, Close, or Awaken, which is their greatest single piece of work. Gates comes close but Jon's thick Lancashire bur, the awful drumming and production don't help. Patrick could have made a really interesting replacement for Rick had he stuck around, his jazzy style really works.

There's a really god version of Revealing Science performed by Transatlantic and Jon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXaR2RknAFg

Listen to the first line of Gates and you can hear his accent come through really loud!

I'm not entirely serious.

The drumming though isn't that great and the production makes Steve's guitar sound horrible.

It's a shame ebcause it's a good record

30 years listening to this gem. Between so many reviews, what else can I say? Like siLLy puPPy wrote here: "It's one that has to be worked for but in the end is one of my favorite albums of all time".  

I've been listening to Tales a lot lately; if it's not in rotation on my stereo, I'm likely to be humming melodies from it or playing it in my head throughout the day, and I think I've just recently been able to pin down (one of many) reasons that I love it so much.

Magnum Vaeltaja wrote: I've been listening to Tales a lot lately; if it's not in rotation on my stereo, I'm likely to be humming melodies from it or playing it in my head throughout the day, and I think I've just recently been able to pin down (one of many) reasons that I love it so much. I really feel that Tales From Topographic Oceans was actually very much a return to the sound and style that Yes had achieved on The Yes Album. More dominant songwriting presence from Steve Howe, more conservative use of keyboards, and simpler, lighter melodies than on Close To The Edge.  There are more specific Yes Album similarities that I can pick up on in certain tracks, as well. The grandiose, sprawling passages from The Revealing Science of God really remind me of the Life Seeker section from Starship Trooper; rhythmically simple passages that mesmerise you with the grandeur of the chords and the mysticism of Jon's lyrics. The Remembering also has sections that are reminiscent of Starship Trooper. The lively acoustic sections ("Sail the skies...Other skylines...") really remind me of the acoustic Disillusions section. And then Ritual perhaps more than any brings me back to The Yes Album. The whole first five minutes, with the lively uptempo rock section, wouldn't seem at all out of place in Yours Is No Disgrace. And then the slower, more sentimental ballad section captures the same sort of "summer of love" mood as Perpetual Change. Not to mention the more avant-garde break closer to the middle/end of Ritual seems to share a similar approach to the polyrhythmic 7/8 section later in the same song. So I think what really makes Tales so great (#1 Yes album for me, perhaps?) is the fact that it's the culmination and combination of everything that made Yes so successful and interesting leading up to it. Tales may have been inspired by a lengthy footnote in some religious text, and the four shastras, and Jon Anderson's general hippie-ism, but that's not really what it's about. Tales is really about the love and appreciation of life and music, which is really what the three Yes albums before it were all about, too. The simplicity and charm of The Yes Album, the artistic immersion by Roger Dean of Fragile and the epic proportions of Close To The Edge, all in one great package - that's Tales.

This is THE DEFINITE prog rock album.

Edited by Devoncir - October 11 2016 at 08:44

In the new version of Tales , the Steve Wilson 2016 mix.

Edited by Devoncir - October 14 2016 at 09:42