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

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

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

 

Edited by ExittheLemming - May 20 2020 at 16:01

^ Interesting perspectives......
Albums that I rate higher than CTTE are : Fragile, Topographic, Relayer, Drama and Yessongs.
Technically, Yessongs contains the entire CTTE album.

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Two questions for those who say CTTE is only good and or don't give it more than three stars. One, how many(if any)Yes albums do you think are better and which ones? Also, what other symphonic prog albums(if any)do you think are better or maybe you just don't care for this kind of prog(symph prog).

I'm one of those who opted to give it three stars, and while I've kind of answered both of those questions in posts already, I will go into more detail. First off, I don't make claims of better, certainly not in an objective manner, it's just preference. I just want to make that clear in case it's not obvious to all that this is a subjective appraisal. I tend to avoid terms such as best, worst, and the like when talking taste.

I prefer all of Yes' earlier albums to Close to the Edge, as well as Relayer. The Yes Album and Fragile would be the two that I'd rate highest. At one time Fragile ranked amongst my very favourite albums (when still a teenager) and it was at that time that I first heard Close to the Edge. I recognised that my love of Fragile may have biased me against the album early on as I had been told that CttE was even better by the same one who introduced me to Fragile, and was disappointed with CttE. By the way, I listened to Fragile again recently, and I still really dig that one (there are a considerable number of albums I once loved that I went off).

Symphonic Prog once was the kind of Prog I primarily listened to -- later I shifted more to Krautrock, Canterbury Scene, Prog Folk, RIO, Zeuhl and Progressive Electronic, as well kinds of JRF and a huge amount of music that has a psych component.. A search for the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, specifically "Hairless heart" is what led me to exploring Prog websites. Long story which I won't bother to share again other than to say I heard it at the after party of a play, and didn't know what it was. Various Genesis albums have been faves of mine. Focus has long been a favourite band of mine, I love some Earth & Fire ("Song of the Marching Children" is one of my absolute favourite tracks). I have particularly gravitated towards lots of French and Italian symphonic Prog. Clearlight's Clearlight Symphony and Forever Blowing Bubbles are favourites of mine. While not in PA, I would include Willam Sheller's Lux Aeterna under the Symohnic Prog umbrella, and that is commonly labelled as Symphonic Prog. I like Camel, love The Snow Goose. Arachnoid is a favourite of mine. Love Ange, Shylock.... I adore Bo Hannson. I like Renaissance, Mona Lisa, Harmonium. I am into Memoriance, Pentacle, Wapassou, Carpe Diem (I asked for that to be moved to Eclectic and it was). In modern Symph, I have been very into Kotebel. RYM lists Jean-Claude Vannier's L'enfant assassin des mouches as symhonic prog (I pushed for it and approved it in Eclectic) and that is one of my absolute favourite albums in PA.

There's a tonne of Italian Symphonic Prog and Symph related, it generally gets lumped into RPI here, that I have been very into: Le Orme, PFM, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Metamorfosi, Alphataurus, Goblin, Metamorfosi...

If I didn't care at all for Symph, then it's likely that I wouldn't even rate Close to the Edge with a three (meaning, I mostly enjoy it, but it's not really special to me or resonates deeply with me). If you look at my ratings you'll only see two ratings for Symphonic Prog albums, but I've hardly rated anything in a decade, and at the time when I did most of that rating ( did most of that over a short time), I was most into RIO and Zeuhl and more experimental music than I am generally currently into.

Even when I was big on lots of Symphonic Prog, and even when I was big on other Yes, I wasn't big on Close to the Edge. I've tried returning to it many times over the last three decades, but it never wowed me. Maybe my expectations were too high to begin with. When things seem to be over-hyped, that can be a turn off. My Art Zoyd and Magma hype may well have turned some people off in the past. I do generally try to avoid hyping albums and prefer to recommend music that I think fits people's tastes well. I don't expect people to appreciate what I like unless I know they are into similar music. And I avoid telling people "this is good, you should try it" or telling people that they should appreciate this-or-that. To each his or her own tastes.

By the way, perhaps the first Symphonic Prog album to wow me was Focus' Hamburger Concerto. Now that remains a meaty masterpiece to me. I haven;t remained as interested in Yes on the whole,but I did start to get back into the band some years ago with Time and a Word, an album I appreciate much more than many. If I were to play one album included in Symphonic Prog at PA right now, it would be Bo Hansson's Sagan om ringen -- I love the psychedelic qualities. I think there's a lot more music that I like that has a Symphonic Prog element than is Symphonic prog proper, and many of my favourite Symphonic Prog sphere albums will be found in various categories at PA (some of them are ultimately quite eclectic, and a psych component is not uncommon). I have nothing against Symph, but it is definitely not one of the more consistently enjoyable categories for me, and there is plenty in Symph that sounds milquetoast to these ears which may have been dulled by the screams of my enemies.;)

Three is still quite a good rating. I find Close to the Edge quite enjoyable, but it's not essential to my collection. I know a huge number of albums that I'd rather listen to and would rate higher. I've even given threes at PA album pages for some albums that I really like, including Comus' To Keep From Crying whose highs are very high for me, and I still enjoy the lows. I never got into rating things that I didn't enjoy and most of my ratings I enjoyed immensely.

Edited by Logan - May 20 2020 at 18:43

like Close to the Edge considerably more than Tales From Topographic Oceans, that said, I haven't tried to spin TFTO much over the years.

I rated it a four as it was one of my first prog albums and I loved the atmospherics and especially the bass playing. I was a bass player and guitar player at that time but tended to play bass in bands as the guitarists usually had the bigger ego so i was the bass player. anyhow, learned a lot from this album in regard to bass playing in that I became quite a good bass player and liked to accent or add stuff that may have been better not in a tune, sometimes to the annoyance of the band i was in at the time. 

Edited by tigerfeet - May 20 2020 at 21:08

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Logan wrote: like Close to the Edge considerably more than Tales From Topographic Oceans, that said, I haven't tried to spin TFTO much over the years. You might want to consider "spinning" it again. I know of people(mostly hardcore Yes fans)who like it better than CTTE.

I am listening to Tales, and it feels like I've never really heard it before properly as I am genuinely loving it. And this might well really bring me back to Yes so much that I will appreciate Close to the Edge much more (I really liked a lot of Close to the Edge already). Yeah, this sounds great. It might have helped listening to as much Yes as I have already today. Thanks. Now I hope to get it on vinyl so I can properly spin it (I remember the gatefold sleeve album being a thing of beauty). I do seem to have a thing for double-albums. Consider me transported and properly back to Yes fandom.

Edited by Logan - May 20 2020 at 21:28

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Logan wrote: AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: Logan wrote: like Close to the Edge considerably more than Tales From Topographic Oceans, that said, I haven't tried to spin TFTO much over the years. You might want to consider "spinning" it again. I know of people(mostly hardcore Yes fans)who like it better than CTTE.  I am listening to Tales, and it feels like I've never really heard it before properly as I am genuinely loving it. And this might well really bring me back to Yes so much that I will appreciate Close to the Edge much more (I really liked a lot of Close to the Edge already). Yeah, this sounds great. It might have helped listening to as much Yes as I have already today. Thanks. Now I hope to get it on vinyl so I can properly spin it (I remember the gatefold sleeve album being a thing of beauty). I do seem to have a thing for double-albums. Consider me transported and properly back to Yes fandom. For the musically adventurous and open minded Yes is a magical band. For others they are pompous, self indulgent and boring. Glad to see you are in the former and not the latter group.  I've been a fan since the 80's and have seen them live more than any other band(about 11 times).

Magical is the prefect word. Honestly, I haven't felt this way about music, or had this level of experience, in a very long time. In fact I don't know that I ever have at quite this level. I was talking to my wife the other day about the sense of magic I had as a kid, and that I never feel that way anymore -- became so jaded. Well, this has changed me and is it is still playing, it's still changing me. Truly wondrous. Remarkable. Wow!

Edited by Logan - May 20 2020 at 21:42

5 Star album for me. Even if they had a 4.5 star rating on this site this one wouldn't change while a lot of other albums would come down from 5 stars to 4.5 stars.