Not a good look at all. Geoff Downes continues to compete for his spot as the biggest buffoon in prog history.

Comedic Relief:

https://www.reddit.com/r/yesbandcirclejerk/comments/oqhjrs/woah_new_yes_track_just_dropped_i_hope_this_one/

  Jon Davison sounds much better on here... although it does make me think of another tune...

I agree about Davison, I think he is letting go of trying to imitate Jon Anderson and singing in his own style. 

This bit of JD's vocals reminds me of his vocal work on Glass Hammer's "Perilous," my favorite CD by that band. 

Downes, on the other hand, remains bad as always.  

I hope THIS^ is true.  I like happy endings.

I've exchanged words with Downes via email, we don't like one another.  I prefer the other chap. 

What shocked me (a bit) was how easy he gave up, out of the blue it seems, his partnership with John Payne who was his main collaborator and songwriter in Asia for 15 years. Quite shady if you ask me... 

This^  ...and I like the fluctuating vocal melody line at the end of lines like,

 "We're pushed to the edge of the ice"  Ice has five notes.   I like Sherwood's bass lines too. 

Wouldn't quite be the first time.

The opening to "Yours is No Disgraced" is borrowed from the theme to "Grandstand," a BBC sports program (listen at thirteen seconds in).

Same rhythm but not the same notes.

Quite right.  Howe has said they took them rhythm and changed the chords.  I'm only referring to borrowing from a TV show theme. 

Chris isn't coming back and none of them are getting younger. I think it bodes well for the album and I don't care if it sounds like a TV show no one watches anymore

I read years ago, and I can't find the source now, that Steve Howe was originally inspired by the Big Valley theme song for that section. I don't know who the source was and how reputable they were. And really, that pattern in the intro to the song has certainly had numerous variations that sound similar. Its not particularly unique, except in the context that Yes adapted it. 

I listened to it. I actually thought it was very good. If the rest of the album is this good then I'm looking forward to buying it. 

Totally agree with you. If the complaint is that the melody line isn't original in that it reminds you of a TV show then I think it's the least of your worries. There is no such thing as an original melody. In 400 years of musical literature every melody on the musical scale has been used up. 

Jon Anderson told that same story in his live "Voice of Yes" show in the Chicago suburbs, 5 August 2011.  He gave a very enthusiastic telling of that story, even pretending to be riding a horse like a charging cowboy!   The way Jon told it, they were all inspired by the song, not just Howe.  

Thank you for verifying. Good to know I am staving off dementia, so far.

Happy to help!  I recorded this clip at the same show, Jon was brilliant! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUW6lBS57Cc&t=55s" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUW6lBS57Cc&t=55s

This source speaks quite a bit about the Western TV show influence on their music including "Yours is No Disgrace," mentioning Howe, Anderson and Bruford. 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/yes-yours-is-no-disgrace-inspiration.437025/" rel="nofollow - http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/yes-yours-is-no-disgrace-inspiration.437025/

Steve refers to the Western TV show theme influence about 1:00 in...

Interesting. I recall Bill Bruford saying in multiple interviews that the intro to "Yours Is No Disgrace" was directly inspired by the theme from Bonanza, but I personally never thought it sounded similar to that, unlike this theme. Now I'm wondering if he just remembered the wrong Western TV show somehow.

In His words: "Geoff has supplied an mp3 of the cassette (with a cue sheet
from his then-company HMM) and it's clearly a copy of our recording of
"Dawn of an Era". Aaron Harry, then at Bruton, tells me that they sent
round a few copies of tracks (presumably as-yet untitled) after the
recordings were made (in Summer, 1977 at Lansdowne Studios). On the cue
sheet it's simply entitled 'library track', while all Geoff's pieces and
ideas that precede it have a 'GDxx' tag (xx being a two digit number).
So there really doesn't seem to be any doubt about it - a simple mistake
so no hard feelings (hope Yes fans feel the same!)."

What a silly story this has become. And what a fiasco for Yes, recently claiming that their next album would be all new material, and then teasing it with a track written in 1977 which appears to be a cover!

Monkman must be LHAO. I hope for Yes that they haven't printed all the booklets and other liner notes yet...

Downes has said on Twitter that it was "a simple error on my behalf" and the track will be credited as a Davison/Monkman/Downes composition.

There are two phenomena happening here IMHO and professional opinion (psych and health background):

1. Geoff Downes is actually mentally slipping

2. He's pretending since he's old he's forgetful and seeing how much bullsh*t he can get a pass on.

I say it's a combination of the two!

Right you are!  They may as well call it the Steve Howe Ego Project!

Steve Howe's Inflated Trip.

been over for a long time for me--but liked a few things with the lineup with Benoit and Wakeman---just surprised Howe did it--he was always against making new music it was Squire who wanted to do new music---maybe they r keeping this alive to make some money for Squires family etc.

^Let's be honest with ourselves here...Genesis and the plethora of backup musicians/singers sound good. When last did Genesis only, play live?

I count 10 musicians on stage from this 2020 video.

Opps, just realized this was a Phil Collins Video not Genesis.

However, a search showed 5 musicians on stage for the Genesis rehearsals.

Still...

I saw the "And Then There Were Three" tour, and recognized the guitarist from an old photo in Guitar Player magazine = Daryl Stuermer!  He's a seasoned jazz-rock blazer who came to fame with Jean Luc Ponty, and he was an outstanding fit for the band.  

Rutherford is an amazing bassist, but not much of a 6 string player, so it's too bad that he didn't step back to let the superior guitarist in as a full member of the band.  

Chester Thompson also had huge credibility, and the entire band was amazing with their input.  

twosteves wrote: ^correct they did add an established guitarist and respected drummer in the 70's to replace Hackett and Phil--both of them were well respected musicians --but who never became official members---Yes never did this late in their career they let anyone in---CAS was the only time they let an outsider into their band---and the results didn't work.

What's your point here? Genesis and Yes are very different bands, and they have taken radically different approaches over the years. They cannot be straightforwardly compared to each other. Yes has always had a revolving cast of members, rarely staying the same for more than a couple of albums. Still, even in the case of Genesis, both Collins and Hackett were once "outsiders" as they are not original members.

Yes wasn't successful musically in bringing in many mediocre players and letting them take over the band--say what you want about Genesis they never did this.

Intriguing comment, and I tend to agree!  Which members of Yes do you consider to have been "mediocre?" 

I'll start = Benoit David.

No, Genesis didn't bring in many mediocre players and let them take over the band; on the contrary, they became far more mediocre than Yes could ever be....and without any assistance.

I'm only a hobby musician and don't profess to be a professional.  I warm up with Yes/Chris Squire on bass however.  Very challenging to play.

However, the output of Yes has been putrid for ages, something they are doing is wrong.  There is better talent available than David, Davidson, Downes etc. but Howe won't hear of it.  

5 musicians on stage for the upcoming Genesis tour sounds about right to me. Phil can't play drums anymore, so obviously they need a fourth guy to drum (plus they always had a fourth guy for drumming after Phil took over vocals, so that's nothing new). The fifth guy I'm sure is an all around auxiliary player, probably to help Mike with his dual bass and guitar duties on songs that might require both simultaneously (such as pretty much all of the Hackett era material... which gives me a lot of hope I hope isn't misplaced). Plenty of bands tour with an auxiliary guy anyway. Queen did it in the 80s so Freddie could do more frontmaning, Muse have done it since the BH&R album... it's not something I really mind. 10 folks on stage seems like a stretch for Genesis. For Phil solo, sure. After all solo musicians have the privilege of hiring whoever they want for whatever they want. Phil can have a tamborine specialist if he so desires, but for Genesis the personnel is pretty well defined. 

I know it is maybe more interesting to talk about Genesis than about Yes these days, but let's not make this a Genesis thread. Regarding playing with "other" musicians, you all know that Yes played with themselves - I mean, with Yes. I'm referring to the Union tour... They also played with a symphonic orchestra during the Symphonic Live tour (one of their best live shows I've witnessed!)...

Personally, I think that the fact that a band is interpreting (or reinterpreting) their music with other musicians is not an issue; the quality of the performance is, though.

I don't think hip-hop fans care (or know) where the samples come from. 

False, there are plenty of websites dedicated to finding out where samples come from, such as the sample of Dancing With The Moonlit Knight that provides the basic backing track to OutKast's Spottieottiedopaliscious.  I've also seen plenty of YouTube videos and Spotify playlists comparing songs that sue samples with the songs they sample. People do care where the samples come from.

I definitely disagree with Hrychu here. Ice Bridge doesn't sample that theme song. Sampling involves taking a clip of the original recording and playing that exact clip as a part of your new song. Check out Kanye West's Power for a familiar example.  If I were to spin this Ice Bridge case more positively, I'd say Geoff Downes is quoting that other song. Quoting is a long tradition going back to jazz and improvised soloing. Rather than taking the actual recording of another song and inserting it (often manipulated) into your new song, quoting involves playing a lick or a riff from another song on your own instrument in the context of your new song. Usually quotation isn't used to form the backbone of the song, but rather for melodic intrigue on top of an original song structure.  Since Ice Bridge seems to use its quote for more than a bit of melodic interest, and especially since Downes is denying having plagiarized the other song, I'm going to guess it's more a case of unconscious copying. Downes was probably exposed to the song, even briefly, back when that TV show was airing, and the melody must have embedded itself somewhere deep in his memory without him remembering where it came from. Is that plagiarism? Maybe technically, but it doesn't have the same malicious intent that plagiarism does. 

Anyway it's not a sample, sorry for the rant.

I know there are videos and people that are curious about samples but the casual, average listener, I very much doubt it. Some of them don't even know what samples are and how they are used. 

Hrychu wrote: Kanye West's Power is actually a sample that's been reproduced. ;p But anyway, IMO quoting is a form of sampling. However, that's debatable

Conscious sampling/quoting is one thing, accidentally using somebody else's composition is quite another.

I doubt that's relevant here because neither will the average Yes listener worry about what Monkman did 150 years ago and how that's related to the Ice Bridge. If Yes have any "average listeners" left, that is.

I think I know 5 people in real life that know who Yes is and two of them because of me.  What does it mean? what does it mean? 

If by reproduced you mean had extra effects added on to it so it fits in aesthetically with the rest of the song, sure. But that's definitely Greg Lake's voice and the drums fills from the original.

Well generalizations don't do any argument any favors, but while I might be inclined to agree a lot of people don't particularly care to figure out where every sample comes from once I think about just how many different people listen to hip hop, I do think most people who have been listening for a long enough time are totally well aware what a sample is and how a sample gets used.

Obviously someone who knows a lot about hip hop knows how samples work, I'm not disagreeing about that, just that I think there are more people that don't know about that than those who know. Maybe I am wrong, but it's just my opinion. 

Where did sampling come into this? I thought it was just that Downes had mistakenly used someone else's melody?