| | Yes Close To The Edge CD Yes Discography of CDs
 (23 Customer Reviews)
One of the high-water marks of progressive rock (and thus of 1970s rock in general), CLOSE TO THE EDGE found British prog godfathers Yes firing on all cylinders. Throughout their history, they've undergone numerous lineup changes, but this album featured the "classic" formation responsible for their absolute finest achievements. Here Rick Wakeman is at his Moog-goes-Baroque best behind the keyboards, Steve Howe sounds like a blues guitarist from Mars, Chris Squire delivers confoundingly contrapuntal bass lines, and Bill Bruford seemingly solves complex mathematical equations from his drum stool. The lion's share of the album is occupied by the title track, a complex piece that moves through numerous modes and moods. In latter decades, the extended song-suite has been denigrated as indicative of the worst rock pretensions, but, on CLOSE TO THE EDGE, it was a fascinating new concept, and Yes made it work more convincingly than anyone else before or since.
2003 remastered, reissue of 1972 album with redesigned booklet (digipak/slipcase), restored LP art, archival photos and new liner notes. Includes 4 bonus tracks 'America' (single version), 'Total Mass Retain' (single version), 'And You And I' (alternate version) & 'Siberia' (studio run-through of 'Siberian Khatru'). Elektra.
Yes: Jon Anderson (vocals); Steve Howe (guitar, background vocals); Rick Wakeman (keyboards); Chris Squire (bass instrument, background vocals); Bill Bruford (drums, percussion).
Liner Note Author: Mike Tiano.
Uncut (1/04, p.122) - 5 stars out of 5 - "CLOSE TO THE EDGE remains an untarnished pinnalce of '70s tech-flash..."
Q (Magazine) (p.120) - "Yes achieved unity here....The title track alone set the template for a strand of brainy rock music that continues through Radiohead's PARANOID ANDROID..." Close To The Edge Music Review Average Rating: (4.3 out of 5 stars)   List All Reviews Greatest Group Ever!
Greatest Group Ever! "Yes" the are! Better than the Beatles, Zep, the Who, the Stones and Donny Osmond! Progressive Symphonic Rock forever! Jon Anderson is the best male vocalist of all time! Better than Sonny Bono of U2! Better than Grace Slick! Better than Fish, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Steve Hogarth! Better than Frank Zappa! Better than Captain Beefheart! "Yes"! The Best!!! Unequivocals the best!!!
Submitted by mheinen3 (Oklahoma City, OK, USA) 
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 3 of 4 found this helpful.
Prog at its best
Together with some album from Genesis and King Crimson, this is one of the best example of progressive rock of the seventies.
Brilliant sound, exellent music writing and arranging, great band.
What else do we need?
Submitted by Daniele (Venice, Italy)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 2 of 3 found this helpful. Added Music
I don't know if all the added songs do this but they seem to skip a bit while playing. I thought it might just be my CD player but it happens in my car also. I think the recording is off a little. I have made CD's myself and have noticed this condition also. Yes is fantastic. I have liked them since the early 70's. I hope they never quit making music.
Submitted by rgisom1 (Jefferson, Ga. USA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 1 of 2 found this helpful. Another Must have Yes cd
All songs are top notch here. More amazing prog rock.
Submitted by trampfan (INDIANA)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 1 of 2 found this helpful.  A Equilibrate Sound
At least, We can enjoy the quality of sound of this Masterpiece.
It is not harsh, no saturated, this remaster is the best way to listen one of the best piece of music ever made
Daniel Padilla
Lima, Perú
Submitted by a reviewer (Lima, PERU)
Was This Review Helpful? Yes No 1 of 2 found this helpful.
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Purchase Close To The Edge CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Yes Album CD (1971) Bonus Track; Remastered
Close To The Edge
 $7.25  
With THE YES ALBUM, Yes began an important new chapter in its career and defined much of what the next decade would bring. They had left behind not only their original guitarist, Peter Banks, but also the covers of 1960s tunes by the likes of the Byrds and the Beatles. The arrival of the more hard-edged Steve Howe signaled the group's ascent into full-blown progressive-rock mode, a style whose parameters Yes helped craft with this recording. Though Rick Wakeman and his classical-influenced arsenal of keyboards had not yet come aboard, Tony Kaye's roiling Hammond organ and Chris Squire's busy bass lines perfectly interacted with Howe's idiosyncratic playing to create a uniquely fugue-like sound, as Bill Bruford's polyrhythms and Jon Anderson's angelic voice simultaneously kept things on a more abstract and ethereal plane than almost anything that had been labeled "rock" up to that point. "Starship Trooper" and "Yours Is No Disgrace" would ...
| | Yes Fragile CD (1972) Bonus Track; Remastered
Close To The Edge
$14.65 
Atlantic's Gold Standard Audiophile Compact Discs are gold-plated CD's that boast 20-bit digital reproduction technology for improved sonic dynamics. Each re-issue comes in a specially designed mini-box which includes the jewel CD box plus a 24-page color booklet featuring new liner notes, photographs, and the complete original album artwork.
FRAGILE marks the moment when Yes left the planet and took up residence on one of cover artist Roger Dean's far-off lands. While the band managed to capture the popular imagination with its condensed, accessible version of "Roundabout," which they edited down to a single from the lengthier album version, for the most part FRAGILE laid the groundwork for the expansive, complex, keyboard-dominated work that typified the style known as "progressive rock." The record also marks the arrival ...
| | Yes Relayer CD (1974) Bonus Tracks; Remastered
Close To The Edge
$8.69
Recorded in 1974. Originally released on Atlantic (18122). Includes liner notes by Doug Gottlieb, Glenn Gottlieb.
Carnivorous, alcohol-loving Rick Wakeman was always at odds with the health-food mindset of the other Yes members, though his brash pomp was at the heart of their sound. When he was replaced by Patrick Moraz (late of '70s prog obscurites Refugee and Mainhorse), it freed the band up to dive headlong into the ethereal, spiritually oriented themes that had always been Jon Anderson's stock in trade. Thus, RELAYER consists of three extended cuts (the 22-minute "Gates of Delirium" was once jokingly assessed as the reason punk became necessary). Even on the inside cover's band photo, the Yes boys look like they're in the middle of a prayer meeting. The elaborately structured arrangements take the band's loftier side to previously unreachable heights (even compared to TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC ...
| | Yes Tales From Topographic Oceans CDs (1974) Bonus Tracks
Close To The Edge
$11.89 
For prog rock's detractors, Yes's TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS is the genre's nadir. For admirers it is an artistic pinnacle. Whichever camp you're in, it is hard to deny the sheer chutzpah necessary to undertake this sprawling epic. Though broken up into four sections, TALES greeted 1973 listeners as a single composition spread across four sides of a double album. This was unprecedented in the world of mainstream rock. For the band, it was the closest they would ever come to a true fusion of classical structures and themes with rock-oriented instrumentation and sensibilities.
The lyrics are typically elliptical and spiritually oriented, and many a bad trip was probably launched by trying to interpret them. The real pleasure of this album lies in the elaborately textured, harmonically sophisticated interaction between keyboardist Rick Wakeman, guitarist Steve Howe, ...
| | Yes Tormato CD (1978) Bonus Tracks; Remastered
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There's no ignoring the fact that TORMATO was Yes' ...
| | Yes Drama CD (1980) Bonus Tracks; Remastered
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$6.35
It was widely assumed that when vocalist/songwriter Jon Anderson left Yes at the end of the '70s, the band was doomed. Most folks forgot that bassist/composer Chris Squire was the other founding member of the band, and he had as much to do with their sound as Anderson. It was surprising enough when the band decided to continue with a new vocalist and keyboardist. It was even more surprising when the new members turned out to be Trevor Horn (later a famed pop producer) and Geoff Downes (who would soon depart with Steve Howe for Asia). And it was downright shocking when the resultant album DRAMA turned out to be a great one.
While Horn's voice is in the same general range as Anderson's, he tends to blend more with the vocals of Howe and Squire for a distinctive three-part harmony sound. Similarly, the individual instrumental statements of Howe and Downes avoid grandstanding in favor of the group dynamic. Consequently, DRAMA is one of Yes' most direct, concise offerings, full of relatively short songs that still maintain all the Yes ...
| | Polvo Today's Active Lifestyles CD (1993)
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| | Human Drama 14,384 Days Later CD (1997)
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$13.69
Supported by most of the musical crew from the Songs of Betrayal album, Johnny Indovina leads Human Drama through an excellent, fascinating set of old and new songs on 14,384 Days Later, demonstrating that the near-obsessive focus he brings to his music in the studio is equally matched in concert. The unquestioned revelation lies with all the Feel-era tunes, here given truly wonderful renditions and arrangements that leave the overwrought studio versions well in the dust. "Death of an Angel" gives a new, prominent place to electric violin courtesy of Jamil Szmadzinski, who carries out work on that instrument excellently throughout the set, while Indovina's guitar work is simply soaring. The almost too heavy-handed for words "Dying in a Moment ...
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Japan; Remastered; Super-High Material
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