Close to the Edge: Best prog song ever?

I think many more are of higher caliber. Gates of Delirium comes to mind.

No, but it's up there.

yeah man.. a lot of nos.. and little in the way of examples much less reasons why anything could or did top the execution and performance of CTTE.

put it his way as some sh*thead reviewer once did...


One of more defining.. yet at the same time moth eaten prog cliches is the side long epic. Of course other groups had tried them before. Some were just extended instrumental jams where structure and composition were an afterthought. Most were of the cut and paste variety. Song vignettes of several minutes apiece strung together with instrumental bridges. What made Close to the Edge so powerful.. and at the same time so ..progressive was that it was a single 19 minute composition. The dangers inherent in that are obvious if you take any time at all to consider the music.. and the prospective audience. There is no way to quantify musical quality.. or is there? The proof is in the numbers.. and in the logic. Take a piece like Supper's Ready that some would proclaim to greatest side-long ever. Say there is a piece that doesn't really catch the listeners ear.. it is no problem.. Willow Farm is right around the corner. By the time you've grabbed a ham sandwich.. the musical context has changed. The listener is happy and goes on his merry way. With Close to the Edge.. not so fast. If the merry men of Yes hadn't paid extreme attention to perfection on that song and crafting a near flawless piece of music you would have been left with 19 minutes of sheer boredom.

Close to the Edge is nothing more earthshaking than possibly the world's first..hell maybe only 19 minute long pop song. Complete with the intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/middle8/instrumental-break/verse/chorus/outro format that supposedly seperates prog from lesser forms of music hahaha. While everyone went on thinking that standard popular song formats would only support 2 or 3 minute long songs.. Yes showed that the standard pop format could support complex and sustained melodies. The trick of it again.. to pull it off it had to be all about quality. Otherwise.. you would have to aural equivilant of having 19 minutes of 'My Heart Will Go On: Love Theme from Titanic' pumped into your brain. Even with the kick ass rickenbacker.. I suspect that would not be enough to hold on to many listeners.



Edited by micky - August 15 2015 at 23:17

Man With Hat wrote: No, but it's up there.

This.

Personally, I prefer Awaken.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

#3.

Great song,but Awaken and Gates of Delerium are superior,and South Side of the Sky is a gem too!The best prog song ever? Starless maybe?

CttE is much like the four options in this poll - none of the parts are perfect nor well constructed but somehow have managed to be crashed together into some semblance of order (coincidentally, not unlike the "classic" Yes line-up). It's not the best prog song ever nor do I believe that it is "up there with other greats" but I don't think it is bad, (the weight of popular opinion suggests it is far from bad even if I don't personally like it a great deal). Yes did better songs than this and better epics/long-suites.

it's usually number 1 for me, but a quite a few epics are up there too along with some shorter tracks too. so option 2 for me.

To paraphrase John Lennon, tt's not even the best song on the "Close To The Edge" album.