90125

The eighties presented us with bad hair styles, plastic earrings on girls, all white dresses and a lot of bad bad commercially driven music. The eighties cultural scenario was driven by the artists' desparate attempt to capture the mainstream American market. No wonder why bands like Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull et al tried to copy bands like Cars. The album 90125 should be taken in the context of the 'new-wave' eighties. In addition, Yes had the strong influence of Trevor Rabin in this album and the follow up albums. Plus, the story behind making of this album (that Squire and White approached Anderson for vocals in their newly formed band Cinema) actually tells us that its all a brand new stuff. Its not really Yes. This is the album where Yes performed like mainstream rockers. If you do not know anything about Yes history, you might think this is a superb rock album. The opening track Owner of a lonely heart is Yes's only true US chart topper and it is still heard by Yes and non-Yes fans. This song has recently been used in a Hollywood flick Breaking Up. Owner of a lonely heart also came out in the MTV along with a music video. It was rather odd for Yes. Changes, leave it, Hearts are some good highlights of this album. However the remaining songs are not too bad, not too great. If you can accept Yes as a "good rock band" for this album-- you will like it. But if you even expect anything like CTTE or even Drama, you might want to trash this. Its a good specimen of a supergroup performing mainstream rock.