How would you rate Yes' Close to the Edge album?

Edited by ExittheLemming - May 20 2020 at 16:01

BaldJean wrote: 4 stars. it is too "normal" (for prog that is), not challenging enough to get 5. "Relayer" on the other hand - now that's a 5 star album

 

It's obviously a 5 star album or else such a thing doesn't exist...

I think I’d give The Yes Album and Fragile top marks for Yes. After a second listen Today alone, I am giving CttE a three. I do think it’s an essential album for those delving into Prog to hear, but it doesn’t rank anywhere close to my favourite albums either generally or in the Prog sphere.   Never-the-less, I now appreciate it more than I did and may well come to enjoy it quite a bit more. I love various music on it, but it doesn’t gel quite as much as I might like or resonate deeply with me.

4.25 for me. Never liked And You and I.

Edited by Grumpyprogfan - May 20 2020 at 13:48

It took me a second listen to get into but after that I loved it. It's otherworldly, and insanely catchy too. It tends to battle with The Yes Album for my favorite Yes album. I'd give it five stars any day of the week, and 6 on Christmas.

Had to go with 5 stars on this one, it is easily the best Yes album IMO and is a quintessential album for any progressive rock fan to experience at least once. Any album that can be described like that generally would deserve nothing less than 4.5/5 stars. Though Relayer is my personal favorite of theirs, CttE is easily the most balanced, emotive and well-constructed album they made as a creative unit. Whether I'm just popping it on for a casual listen or pouring my "undivided attention" into it, I find CttE the easiest Yes album to completely lose myself in and I always come out the other side noticing something about the record I had never heard before.

It's certainly a very good album and if anyone asks me "what is prog rock?" I think it's the best album to define the genre stylistically. I have a ton of albums I'd rate ahead of it in the masterpiece category. A solid 13 (4.5) for me.

So I just listened to the whole album again, and rIght now, and this despite listening to this album many times since I first heard it in the 80s, I don’t know how I’d rate it. It seems messy. There are parts throughout the album that I love and parts that irritate me. I’ll have to listen again without any distractions to hear if it gets better for me. I’ve heard it called safe before, but that’s not how I would describe it. I do like contrast in music, and can enjoy jarring justpositions. I am a little surprised that some who find, say, King Crimson’s Lizard suite (which of course features Jon Anderson in part) find that to be too much, but find this album easy to listen to. My tastes are rather less out there than they used to be on the whole. I like my loungey Muzak.

Well, it’s kind of like how I see ELP as quintessential Prog and can really appreciate ELP from that perspective but I don’t necessarily enjoy it much. I am enjoying the album more this time around than I usually have.