''Union''. It's terrible . . . really?

I prefer Open Your Eyes to Union.

Union is Yes's only one star album to me.  Everything about it is cheesy, overblown, and completely forgettable (except "Masquerade").

Scott rushfan4 likes the album though, I believe. 

^ Well, I'm a 90125 fan, and I listen to the best of pop music from time to time, so perhaps I should give this one a chance?

As the saying goes, it is always best to judge for one's self.  I'm pretty sure that you can probably find it pretty cheap in a bargain bin somewhere.  I always see Magnification in the really cheap bargain bin, and it makes me sad since it is such an excellent album.

^ True. 

I love 90125, and I'm less enthusiastic about Big Generator and Talk but they do have their moments. For me Union is a level less good, though. They should have avoided to make this album the way they did. Read: they shouldn't have let a producer and a record company take so much control. My least favourite of all the Yes albums I heard.

I have to agree with Lucas on this one. Union is by no means a masterpiece, but it's a rather pleasant listen, if you don't expect CTTE-like quality. 

I don't find the album so very terrible either. The West Line-up songs sound just like that, so if you liked 90125 and Big Generator, this should be decent at least. As far as I know, most of the music from the ABWH songs aren't really played by Howe in the final mix, he got replaced by one Jimi Haun by the producer and Anderson. I think many of Ricks parts got replaced too. Suposedly both Howe and Wakeman were most apathic and uninterested in the project. However, in the end, I do love two tracks from this album: "Shock to the System" and "The More we Live, Let go"; and "I Would Have Waited Forever I like a lot too". The rest are at least listenable and even enjoyable up to a point.

It's mixed bag. I'm a huge Yes fan and I listened to it more than 20 times before I knew what I felt about it. (Unike Epignosis, Open Your Eyes is the only Yes album I haven't been able to listen to ridiculous amounts yet). It has some really good songs, and some songs that make me wonder how they could be by Yes. I would definitely consider it a 2 star (fan only) album, but it does have some nice songs, some of the better ones from Yes' poppy era. (That being said, I much prefer the versions I've managed to find played live during the tour, but there's nothing officially released from that tour yet).

Define over-produced.

I had really lost interest in following Yes after 90210 so much to the point that I skipped Big Generator entirely and still haven't heard it.  Union came in on the heels of AWBH and I was starting to get interested again in Yes.  Saw them for the last time to date on that tour.  It was an interesting idea but didn't yield great results.  Maybe if they'd just included Peter Banks in the effort...