YES - Talk (1994)

YES, it's TIME AND A WORD of well-deserved praise now for THE YES ALBUM that often gets overlooked. YES, it is of course the TALK album. The recording of this album was relatively trouble-free and was recorded, mixed and produced by YES guitarist Trevor Rabin at his home studio in Hollywood, California. The recording of TALK had none of the tensions and surrounding DRAMA of recording the legendary TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS album twenty years earlier, where FRAGILE egos were at stake and a MAGNIFICATION of simmering tempers were often CLOSE TO THE EDGE of boiling over. In the constant RELAYER race of YES line-ups, the personnel for the TALK album were:- Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Tony Kaye & Alan White. The album was to have featured Rick Wakeman, but he was unable to appear due to "contractual obligations" and he appeared in a re-UNION with his YES bandmates on the following album, KEYS TO ASCENSION in 1996. The TALK album was generally treated like a squashed TORMATO by the music press, but it was well-received by YES fans and was a BIG GENERATOR of album sales, climbing THE LADDER of success to reach No. 20 in the U.K albums chart. The album may not have moved HEAVEN AND EARTH, but if you haven't heard the TALK album before, it may just OPEN YOUR EYES and ears to the sound of one of the best YES albums since the release of GOING FOR THE ONE in 1977 and 90125 in 1983.  The TALK album contains nine YESSONGS and I'll post the individual YouTube videos below before I FLY FROM HERE.

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - April 06 2024 at 07:55

Love "Talk". One of my favourite post classic era Yes albums.

Generally underappreciated, as you say, and, for me, "Endless Dream" is one of their finest efforts.

Every self respecting Yes fan should own this album

I really like the first movement (AKA the first two minutes) of the Endless Dream suite, the rest of the album is a sea of boredom

Been trying to get a vinyl copy of this for years. The heaviest Yes album IMO.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Tom Ozric wrote: Been trying to get a vinyl copy of this for years. The heaviest Yes album IMO. I always think of Big Generator as being the heaviest Yes album, but maybe that's just down to the album title.

Well, the title cut has some balls for sure.

Strong 3 star album. Endless Dream is superb.

richardh wrote: I like the music , I like the minimalistic artwork. 4 stars. Point of trivia - this saw ELP and Yes returning to the same record label (Victory Music) after both had been 'stable mates' on Atlantic through the seventies. ELP also released the very respectable Black Moon around the same time. You could make an argument for pairing these 2 albums up and both certainly helped galvanise the 90's prog revival.

Tom Ozric wrote: ^ Don’t ‘doubt’ until you’ve heard it Paul. It’s very good indeed.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Tom Ozric wrote: ^ Don’t ‘doubt’ until you’ve heard it Paul. It’s very good indeed.   To be honest, I've never been a big fan of ELP. I bought the Love Beach album because I liked the cover, but I gave the album away because the music didn't live up to the promise of the album cover.

Really ??

Psychedelic Paul wrote: ^ No, not really, I was just jesting with you, but I DID buy the first ELP album and later gave it away.

Understandable if you expected Saturday Night Fever done ELP-style........
I like the album enough to spin it a couple times a year (had it for more than 30 years...)