Biggest Band Drop-off After One Quits/Fired

Yes - a death by a thousand cuts. So many talented players - and for a while, if one left, they usually could find a pretty decent replacement.

As a hardcore Bruforite, I would say that after he left the rhythm section suffered a massive loss - but some of White's first albums with the band were quite strong, despite being in a different, more straightforward rock style - great moments to be heard on TfTO and Relayer, and he also matched Squire pretty well on Drama by attempting a Peart-lite hard rock style, if you will. You can hear how solid they were even when only the Squire-White-Howe power trio remained in the pre-Drama sessions, just after Anderson and Wakeman left/Horne and Downes joined.

But I think when they kicked out Anderson it was starting to get pretty questionable as to whether or not they could still lay claim to the Yes name, at least at that point, in terms of line-up - even though I actually really enjoy both versions of Fly from Here.

I think Benoit was a stronger singer for that material than Horne even (though I've always respected his songwriting), and for me he brought a more unique sound to the vocals than the Glass Hammer guy, who just sounds super-forced and amateurish to me.

But after Squire died I really think they should have thrown in the towel, especially considering that they still didn't bother to get Anderson to return. If they had wanted to continue on as ... whatever it is they are now... they should have called themselves Steve Howe's Yestacular or something.

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Spock's Beard after Neal Morse left. SB struggled to find their own voice after Neal left. They finally did but initially it was a pretty big drop off.