90124

An album which is really a collection of Demos of songs recorded by Trevor Rabin before he joined YES in 1981 and until 1991, with songs which were recorded by the band in the albums "90125", "Big Generator", "Union" and "Talk". Being essentially Demos the recording of most of them is not very good. Only two of these Demos were not recorded by YES: "Would Yo Feel My Love", a Pop Rock ballad, and an arrangement of "Promenade" from Mussorgsky`s "Pictures at an Exhibition", played with electric guitars.

Some Demos are interesting, like the Demos for "Hold On" and "Moving In", with parts of both of them which were later used for the final version of the song called "Hold On" from the "90125" album, The Demo for "Changes" shows the song without the contributions that Alan White (the instrumental intro) and Jon Anderson (the final lyrics) made for that song in the "90125" album.

"Where Will You Be" is an instrumental version of the same song which was recorded for the "Talk" album, very similar to the final product. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" shows the song without the final arrangements and with different lyrics and also lacking the contributions that Jon Anderson (additional lyrics) and Chris Squire (bass guitar arrangements) made to the final song which was recorded for the "90125" album. In one interview Rabin said that producer Trevor Horn had a songwriter`s credit in this song more for his production and arrangements for the song and as a "thank you" gesture for thinking that the song could be a Hit Single than for really contributing something else to the song.

"Walls" has Roger Hodgson (one of the co-writer of this song) singing backing vocals, with some arrangements which sound very influenced by Hodgson, but anyway sounding very similar to the final version which was recorded by YES for the "Talk" album. This Demo lacks a brief section that maybe was Jon Anderson`s final contribution to the song (a brief lyric that he sings in the final version).

"Love Will Find a Way" is a bit differerent to the final version which was recorded for the "Big Generator" album, lacking the strings arrangement used as an intro and the harmonica solo used in the final version, but it still is very similar to the final product. The same is for "Miracle of Life", which was recorded for the "Union" album, having some different arrangements but sounding very similar anyway to the final product.

"Don`t Give in" (track number 11 in this album) is a different version of "Make It Easy", a song which was included in the "Yesyears" Box Set, with different lyrics and arrangements.

This "90124" compilation of Demos is interesting. Maybe it is more interesting to listen to the changes that the contributions of the other members of YES made to the final versions of the songs which appeared in the albums which the band recorded with Trevor Rabin as a member of the band. It also shows how important was Rabin for the new sound of the band after Steve Howe left the band in early 1981, and also shows why Chris Squire and Alan White asked Rabin to form a band, because they liked his songs and musical ideas to re-establish YES as a band in the eighties with a more accessible style of music.