YESYEARS

BALANCE is the major problem of doing a box set. New fans would see a box as an opportunity as grabbing as much "classic" material and greatest hits as they can, long time fans would seek it as a treasure of rarities and unreleased tracks. This "Yesyears" offers neither of it - a lot of great songs are missing, and the rarities are almost second rate material. Virtually all Yes fans who bought this box set will complain about the choice of repertoire here, pointing tracks which "should be included here instead of..." here and there along these 4 CDs. But there are enough strong points to recommend "Yesyears": 1) A beautiful package; 2) A great booklet, with an abbreviated family tree, a good history of the band and excellent pictures; 3) Although some tracks are missing, there's a lot of great music here; 4) It's always funny listen to Jon Anderson trying to scream at "I´m down"; 5) Chris Squire's bass solo version of "Amazing Grace" is fantastic, almost as beautiful as The Byrds a capella version at "Untitled/Unissued" double CD; 6) Yes fanatics probably will crucify me, but the demo of "It can happen" and the live tracks from Rabin era are all very good, and are welcome additions to Yes catalogue. I don't know if this box set is still available, since there is another Yes box ("In a Word"). But "Yesyears" is still worth of searching if you don't have the newly remastered original albums, which have added most of the rare tracks of "Yesyears" as bonus tracks.