Close to the Edge questi&#111;n

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Posted: June 08 2019 at 19:02

Atavachron wrote:

richardh wrote:

There are no wasted moments

Pretty much ~

Isn't the last minute of AYAI a wasted moment?

In my opinion AYAI should finish after 6 minutes.

Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.

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Posted: June 08 2019 at 19:34

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy

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Posted: June 08 2019 at 20:48

Following from Logan's point, one element I find missing in much of today's prog metal that I miss tremendously from earlier prog rock is the use of classical guitar (or even electric guitar arpeggiated like classical guitar). I started out learning classical music but fell in love with prog rock (with guitarists such as Steve Howe, Steve Hackett, Alex Lifeson, Robert Fripp, David Gilmour, Andy Summers, etc.). It was their use of classical/arpeggiated guitar that eventually made me circle back and appreciate classical guitarists such as John Williams (formerly of Sky), Julian Bream, Andres Segovia, Christopher Parkening, and others. The chords, chord inversions, and chord progressions in prog at that time could be very complex and interesting, much like Bach's preludes/fugues for lute, or even those found in jazz guitar. Yes certainly had this complexity, but with a pleasing modern and organic sound that incorporated a number of other styles as well. For some reason, later prog guitar became much heavier, single note oriented sequences/runs with drop-in chords that were harsher and more cacophonous. Not worse - just different. This is not to say that ELP's Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery ... or that Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn weren't heavy/cacophonous. They are. But ... prog back then could be very beautiful and ethereal sounding, too, and I miss that aspect when I listen to much of today's music. If you start out heavy, there's nowhere else to go. Back then, bands focused a lot more, I believe, on dynamics. They could incorporate silence and rests and sweet music in addition to the heavy and bombastic.

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Posted: June 09 2019 at 21:20

I do think CttE is Yes's best, and though it might not be my favourite prog album, I am perfectly fine considering it the top of the prog albums. Mostly, I do think it is excellent all the way through. All of it's songs are great (yeah yeah, since it's got so many songs...), though Siberian Khatru may be a little bit behind the other two, it's still and excellent song. And for me, it's got the best line-up I could think of for a band, with no weaker member, all the instruments at the top. As for Relayer, I do love GoD... perhaps even slightly more than CttE (depending on my mood, I guess), but the rest of the album just doesn't do it for me. To be Over is actually a rather frustrating one... I do find it's melody really special, one of their best moments... but somehow I feel it was not very well developed... the song does drag on and it becomes tedious for me, and I guess I like that melody played by acoustic guitar better (I like that song so much more on the solo instrumental versions by Steve Howe). And Sound Chaser... yeah, that song is indeed too much for me... and even if at times I might think I am close to getting into it's melodies and let it grow on me... then the Cha cha cha's come in and ruins any possibility of liking the song. None of these sort of things happen on CttE.

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Posted: June 09 2019 at 23:25

jamesbaldwin wrote:

Isn't the last minute of AYAI a wasted moment?
In my opinion AYAI should finish after 6 minutes.

“And You And I” is a bit drawn out. I think it works as part of the album, but yeah, they could’ve accomplished the song in six minutes. It’d be interesting to see what they would’ve done with an extra 3 or 4 minutes on Close to the Edge.

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 00:16

Close to the hedge, down by the flowers

This song goes on hours and hours.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 01:31

BaldJean wrote:

patrickq wrote:

Posting this in this here subforum because Close to the Edge comes up so often in Personal Top 10 lists.

Personally I think Relayer is slightly better, but I agree that CttE is truly a masterpiece. But then again, Yes is my favorite band. My question is what exactly about CttE makes it so broadly popular among PA people? It seems like you could be a Tech Metal or Math Rock fan, and your Top 10 favorite albums will be nine from your favorite prog subgenre, plus Close to the Edge.

I totally agree "Relayer" is better, but not just slightly. "Close to the Edge" is in my opinion not daring enough; it is too "pleasing". it is the aural equivalent of a "Handschmeichler" (German word for an object that is nice to hold; literally it means "hand flatterer")

I think Relayer overall is the superior album. And you & I and Siberian Khatru seem to do less for me than they do for many folk around here, but the track CTTE is up there with Awaken ad The Revealing Science of God.

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 05:08

This forum loves to debate endlessly in circles, so I'm only speaking FOR MYSELF and do not claim this is an objective, empirical review of why CTTE is scientifically the best prog recording of all time.

Many have said there's no wasted space. I agree with this. From the starting moments that crescendo into the intro section, Yes means business. It's 17 minutes of, in my honest personal opinion, archetypal symphonic progressive rock of the highest caliber.

The word zeitgeist gets thrown around a lot; I truly feel this record is just that for where prog was coming from and was heading in 1972.

There are tons of stellar prog records from this era. CTTE just surpasses those by a hair in every category that counts most. What it also does, however, is manage to make those little tweaks all more than the sum of their parts. It's one of the few prog recordings that even as it ages it continues transcending itself.

I say this also as a massive, massive Relayer fan.

"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 05:22

Atavachron wrote:

Close to the hedge, down by the flowers

This song goes on hours and hours.

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 08:00

patrickq wrote:

Logan wrote:

I don't know. I seem to be one of the few that has never really liked the album other than liking the title-track, even when I was big on other Yes. I prefer the earlier Yes albums. Close to the Edge wouldn't rank in my top 1000 albums, I don't even think it would make it in my top 2000. It just never clicked with me, and I've tried listening to it considerable times over decades.

Sounds like me and Tales from Topographic Oceans. I’ve really tried, and I will again, to understand why so many people who like the same kind of music as me dig it so much.

My remembrances from that time, and I SAW YES doing TFTO at the Long Beach Arena, is that there was a very "logical" progression to the music and its words. CTTE, was a kind of spiritual attempt, even if a bit on the vague side. To me, TFTO was a serious spiritual quest, that only failed because a clown or two consistently makes fun of it, and keeps saying that playing on it was a waste and not important or interesting. Combine that with a nasty press that was getting tired of long cuts and things that supposedly were "out there" in the lalalaland of some imaginary spiritual trip, and it took some serious trashing from just about everybody, and it still does in many ways today, RIGHT HERE, by people that sometimes (I think) are not looking at the band as a composer ... they continually look at a band as their only masturbatory effect, for the songs they like!

RELAYER is a nice album, and I think the title cut is a reaction and huge finger to a lot of YES fans, and the press ... you play something that has less lyrics, and more noise and louder, and make it look like it is important ... and in the end, you do not care if it is liked or not ... you got it out of your system!

CTTE was a nice step up from the "songs" (only) album before. That they ended up creating something that was nice, and still considered 47 years later one of the nicest and probably favorite "progressive" albums is something that YES could never have conceived, but the album worked and the cohesion to create a wonderful album and piece of music showed a group improving by leaps and bounds.

The harsh, and hard part of it all, is a lot of YES fans, not being able to make sense of TFTO because the lyrics don't tell you something of a kid story ... about nothing. Instead it tells you a sort of bunch of tales that might or might not be connected, but ... "nous sommes du soleil" ... which tells you that regardless what you and I say, it all fits under the sun each and every day of our lives ... are we spiritual enough to even conceive that thought or idea?

The answer would likely be no, because we think that Stairway to Heaven is more of a spiritual song than TFTO is. Specially when one is about an orgasm, or supreme moment and the other is more about like within a spiritual context, not just a small moment in life compared to the life changing event!

I, personally, don't like to get into these discussions, because an artist has a life and THEIR WORK is about ALL OF IT, not just one song that we like a lot, or prefer. AND, this is the part that has a tendency to make a lot of this stuff seem not important ... we like Layla, but who cares about anything else Eric has done that you have heard on the radio other than 2 other songs ... all of a sudden, he is not important or valuable but for a total of 10 minutes, and you do not have words to extend that ... beyond (and before) .... I like it!

Seeing a lot of all this work in context with its time, place and living, makes a lot more sense. It could be said that YES, or at least Jon Anderson, because a drunkard obviously could not discuss anything else, was more interested in doing something more far out and valuable ... and we make it look like they are not allowed to do so, because I don't like this or that they did ... and it's not fair ... you don't go around saying the same about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, or Stravinsky ... but then, it makes it look like you are not exactly a music fan, otherwise you would know more than just one song or two ... you might have noticed the progression and what the work was about ... instead of just relegating it to your preference ... not its inherent value or life.

It really makes it tough, to answer your question, and sometimes it can only be answered from a preference top ten kind of thought/design ... and the album and the music piece was NOT a top ten hit, and neither was it exactly 100% appreciated until much later ... LA stations did not play it for at least what seemed like a year later, when all of a sudden a piece from side 2 took off on the air. All of a sudden CTTE is selling better than hot cakes and porn!

It's strange, and even I get worried saying all these things ... but they are very true and ... for my tastes sometimes sad ... so I'm remembered for the one shirt and pants I had and nothing else! It's down right weird and strange for me!

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 12:09

This. I have to say that I really don't like it. Would not be in my top ...anything really.....

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Posted: June 10 2019 at 22:58

CTTE was the product of a band that was 100% on top of their game....they were young, strong, and high on their musicianship and camaraderie (at least!).

I saw Yes on the CTTE tour in the USA, 22 September 1972....I hadn't even heard the LP yet, imagine my surprise!

Relayer was another strong effort, and I dearly love that LP as well, but CTTE came first, so I call it my own favorite Yes LP.

This is how Squire looked the first night I ever saw him....he was amazing.

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Posted: June 11 2019 at 01:41

^
“isn't it a sin they're so thin?”

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Posted: June 11 2019 at 11:51

CTTE is a very good piece of music but for me it's not necessarily any better than many other great works of prog.......regarding the album I honestly would be hard pressed to say why I like it or why it's better than others. As mentioned above the musicians were at their peak and hit a stride of good writing and playing...perhaps it's that simple.

One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
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Posted: June 13 2019 at 05:35

I like Relayer a little better as well. Only because I'm not as big a fan of Siberian Khatru as everyone else seems to be..

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Posted: June 14 2019 at 07:29

Spacegod87 wrote:

I like Relayer a little better as well. Only because I'm not as big a fan of Siberian Khatru as everyone else seems to be..

This is my thinking .... so don't get any ideas that I believe this to be true.

In the past 20 years, most of the fans, progressive or not, have heard a lot of music in rock, from prog to a lot of other things, that included a lot of guitar thrashing, and it made the mode and the idea of it much more viable as a true instrument and a compositional item.

Thus, a much younger fan, that has heard a lot of things like Dream Theater, Iron Maiden and many other bands that love to guitar loud and play so many notes and scales, would (more than likely), enjoy RELAYER a lot more and better than they would the more melodic and classical minded CTTE, and then the compositional design of TFTO ... something that RELAYER appears to not have, and gives away to a more ... let it all hang out ... kind of thing.

In terms of "better", that is so subjective and crazy that I am not sure that any opinion is representative or the right thought or context, specially within the band's canon and history. It all becomes a part of the ensemble called YES and its music history.

For me, the better album is trivial ... I would tell you in 1.2 seconds that TFTO is the album I love the most, and not name a 2nd or 3rd album from that group at all ... but that would be a bit on the preference side. Composition-ally, I find that they had their best work with Rick Wakeman in those early days, but sadly, he has trashed and talked too much crap about too much of it, and his work on the solo side, has not even half the design and ability that the band showed, including the talent it takes to help define something so different and valuable, which his solo albums did not do ... even past the first solo album, that while nice, was a mess in terms of pure design and composition!

And all the rest, is just fan fiction and some money laundering for the fans who suck it all up!

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Posted: June 14 2019 at 10:23

^
I’m not sure... I think it’s not only me for whom Relayer takes a lot of plays before it even starts making sense. But I definitely see what you’re saying. Led Zeppelin must’ve sounded like crazy noise or devil music when it wcame out. Now it’s mild compared to many genres!

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Posted: June 14 2019 at 11:01

patrickq wrote:

^
I’m not sure... I think it’s not only me for whom Relayer takes a lot of plays before it even starts making sense. But I definitely see what you’re saying. Led Zeppelin must’ve sounded like crazy noise or devil music when it wcame out. Now it’s mild compared to many genres!

Black Sabbath too for sure.

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Posted: June 14 2019 at 12:44

patrickq wrote:

^
“isn't it a sin they're so thin?”

LOL!! Them and everyone else from the 70s!

This photo of Steve Howe was taken at their Cicero, IL "Solo Album Tour" show by my friend Curt. It was during "Ritual," the only song that Howe plays on his Gibson Les Paul Jr. guitar. Man, he looks ripped!!

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