--- Sez Bill Harris to David Marheine ---
 DM> --- Sez Josh Ryman to All ---
 DM>  JR> IS there any such thing as a 'bad' Yes album?
(My one word reply omitted to save bandwidth.)
 BH> Compared to 99% of what passes for good music
 BH> today, the worst Yes album is better.
I dunno, I don't think _Tormato_, for example, is even better than
_90%_ of "what passes for good music today", whatever that is.
Let's try a little "thought experiment".  If your least favorite
Yes album was the ONLY Yes album, would you be eager to hear more
by the group?  Would they still be one of your favorite groups?
I'm not even sure what my least favorite Yes album is, but if I had
to listen to them all I'm sure I'd have more than a couple candidates.
Considering _Yesshows_ is sorta weak, I'd still answer "Uh huh" to
the first question since there is strong material there despite
the bad sound and general distant feel of the whole mess.  But
anyway, I can't think of many groups in any genre that would get
an affirmative response to both the above questions, particularly
the second.
On a slightly related note, I played ELP's _Pictures At An
Exhibition_ last weekend, and I gotta say it's a lot more fun to
listen to this album than it is to think about listening to it.
I cringe every time I think of "They were sent from the gate, Ride
the tides of fate", but among all the Moog squonks and tweets,
pounding drums etc., the whole thing sounded darn good.  Still not
my favorite ELP, but not the half-star embarrassment critical
hindsight led me to believe the last 15 years.  To swipe a phrase,
it may be bad in parts, but it's at least good-bad in that lovable
seventies fashion...  And if you've got no taste for bombast and
pomposity, what are you doing in the Prog Rock echo anyway?  Get
your own Arts program, ya fairy...   ;-)
Dave
... Smiley captioned for the irony impaired.
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