SIDE A
1. Roundabout – 8:29
2. Cans and Brahms – 1:34
3. We Have Heaven – 1:38
4. South Side Of Thy Sky – 7:57
SIDE B
5. Five Per Cent For Nothing – 0:35
6. Long Distance Runaround – 3:28
7. The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) – 2:36
8. Mood For A Day – 2:55
9. Heart Of The Sunrise – 11:16
So it has taken 20 ‘weeks’ surprisingly, but Yes are the first act to pop up a second time in this primary countdown. They do so with 1971’s Fragile, another iconic Progressive Rock reference, and massive mainstream success. Most conventional wisdom places this album second in the mighty Yes oeuvre, at the very pointy end of virtually any list of the top rung Prog masterpieces. It may in fact be their most broadly famous album, (certainly of the classic Prog period, notwithstanding the complicating factor that is 1983’s pop megahit 90125). It contains some revered classics, first united the greatest but so fleeting Yes lineup, broke them internationally and remained huge for a long period of time. Yet despite this, and its place deep into this countdown, subsequent ratings may show me up as having undervalued Fragile relative to much of the available consensus.
The primary reason this album remains slightly withheld from the true pantheon of legendary albums is because it is to some extent, only kind of half an album. Limits on available time and funds combined with creative efficient solutions to create a product where five of the record’s nine tracks were individual contributions, of varying quality, by the five band members. But the best of these are excellent, on top of the magnificent four band pieces, which alone transcend this album to its Top 50 status. With the band now well established and confident in their sound, plus the legendary Rick Wakeman on board, Fragile was at once their most ambitious and most immediately accessible work yet. It includes not just dedicated showcases of the best of each member of the band, but a bookending pair of ensemble masterworks as triumphant in technique, melody and energetic tone as any band worldwide could possibly manage. If you’ve heard of any bits and pieces of classic 70s Yes, it’s probably from here. It features in any curation of the greatest album covers ever, in a bonafide classic meme, and in assorted films, including an enthusiastic review in that most wholesomely excellent of all rock ‘n’ roll appreciation films, Jack Black’s School Of Rock.
It had been a busy couple of years for a young band in the lead-up to this breakout. In essence, from formation after their 1968 meeting, Yes had been vocalist Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire’s band, with their complex but always tight harmony focused writing and arranging defining the Yes sound. The energy and virtuosity came largely from drumming legend Bill Bruford, in the first and most mainstream gig of a storied career. The first two Yes albums had been patchy but excellent semi-original affairs, before frustrated original guitarist Peter Banks was moved on. The addition of freak guitar god Steve Howe was the first big acceleration of the Yes sound to a new level and in 1971 the supreme The Yes Album resulted. In truth, it was the critical game-changer, taking a struggling band who had slaved through two middling albums into critical and commercial success. It’s not that Fragile, released only six months later, was hugely bigger or better, it was a decisive continuing of momentum and another step in overall sophistication. This sense that Fragile was another big step is in no small part because of the latest big personnel change. After the Howe recruitment for The Yes Album, the biggest issue was how, or whether or not, to proceed with the lovely, excellent and talented, but rather traditional Tony Kaye. The original keyboardist was very much a devotee of the patented early Prog piano and organ sound. But all manner of exciting synthesizer technology was burgeoning and very much down the path of Yes’ always fresh, cutting edge sensibilities. Kaye was rather more reluctant and so it was that in no time, he was on the outer. Available instead was the enticing prospect of young prodigal superstar Rick Wakeman, already an established talent in the industry from his time with The Strawbs and extensive session work for David Bowie and Cat Stevens among others.
With Anderson, Squire, Bruford, then Howe and now Wakeman on board, as legendary a collective of any five musicians as has ever existed were together for the first time. That’s the gravity of Fragile and you get that sense of what a mighty ensemble they are throughout. The band seemed to recognise what a special set of talents they had to, for they chose this time, albeit conveniently coupled with necessity, to spend particular individual time focusing on each band member. Initial plans for Fragile had leaned in the direction of a potential double album, but funds were tight and, partly for the expediency of mouths to feed, partly from studio pressure, new content was needed. So with time and budget concerns, the band dived into a new album without a whole LP of composed material. The creative compromise was to pair the four prepared pieces with five shorter works, one per band member, dotted throughout the album. This fairly common gambit can tend to end in disaster but in this case it went about as well as it historically has. Mileage certainly varies, but other than a few of the shorter, quainter solo pieces, it all stands up.
Fragile opens with its most famous tome, and the most widespread icon of all classic 70s Yes tracks, Roundabout. It is a serious odyssey, spanning nearly nine minutes but never settling down into any lingering section that even threatens boredom. Yes had started exploring similar complex, constantly shifting arrangements on their previous album, and largely repeat that here. But the increased quality of the production and particularly, the more vibrant sonic palette that Wakeman brings, takes it to a new level. Beyond any more esoteric credentials though, the reason this track was so transcendent, becoming the defining Yes anthem and reaching beyond (also spawning a US Top 20 single edit), is because it just plain rocks, hard and directly. It is mostly composed by Anderson, with his penchant for mystical lyrics and quality arrangements, and Howe who provided most of its central riffs. But Squire’s monumental bassline is maybe its greatest legacy on rock history. Often, very rightly, held up as one of the all-time great rock basslines, Squire’s fast ascending is a deceptively simple and repeating figure, but is so trebly, melodic, loud in the mix and so genuinely funky that it drives the song forward, in up-tempo, easy to sink your teeth into, body-moving territory. Wakeman meanwhile is layering all kinds of new sounds to the Yes smorgasbord, with little prominent moog synth fills everywhere. Ironically though, it is on the traditional Hammond organ that he really unleashes, playing his first mighty solo with the band, Jack Black’s all time favourite and which he sets as study material in that great fun classic School of Rock.
In modern times of course, the song has taken on yet more new life, with its msot satisfying moment now recognisable to so many youn people thanks to its effective usage in ‘To Be Continued’ memes. This meme emphasizes what a special moment it is when the band first fires in, driven by Squire’s transcendent bass line. The moment in question occurs at the end of the patient, tender introduction, where Wakeman’s surging first chord alternates with Howe’s classical acoustic guitar figures. Then as we now all know, Howe completes the intro with a lovely acoustic descent that features in the meme, before the freeze-frame launches us into the robust jam at the centre of the track. But everyone who only knows this moment needs to persevere with the rest, as it remains constantly excellent and fresh. The main jam recurs throughout, alternating with the legitimately sing and clap along chorus. That core banger is broken up throughout by superb detours, some brief Wakeman or Howe flourishes, some lengthy workouts. The first few minutes is capped off by a very typically Yes dirge-like section, where Anderson enters trance-like mode repeating similar mantras over a crunchy heavy Howe riff. This gives way to a half-time break recurrence of the soft and slow intro, before the second half repeats all the same themes but with even more emphatic flourishes and lengthier solo detours.
The middle pair of songs on Side A are the first two brief solo interludes, with Wakeman and Anderson up first. Wakeman’s contribution is surprisingly underwhelming for a musician so indelibly associated with grandiosity and ambition. It is a reminder that for all his great talents and contributions, he was still a raw young musician and not really fundamentally a composer in his own right. Anything he could come up with was unavailable though, as at the time of recording, Wakeman was barred from appearing on the record as a credited writer (for this piece of any of his other contributions on band tracks) for contractual reasons. In the end, Wakeman’s effort is the brief and interesting, albeit self-described as ‘dreadful’, Cans and Brahms, featuring quotes from the work of the iconic title composer. It is an interesting enough concept, with a different keyboard sound representing each section of the orchestra. The electric piano sound substituting for the strings is particularly intriguing, and the way the organ parts fire in on the low end in place of brass is very satisfying. But the whole exercise is rendered somewhat moot by the sheer awfulness of the production quality, leaving much of it clipping and rather burying all the different keyboard sounds, which with great clarity could have juxtaposed really well, into one muddy mess. Anderson’s We Have Heaven is rather more organic and live sounding, especially for something that is essentially an overdub collage. Limited in any great instrumental talent, Anderson approaches his piece as an opportunity to layer many separate vocal dubs over themselves. He strums away on acoustic guitar, and plays all his own bass and drum parts on the recording, all in a serviceable enough fashion as required. But the piece is basically a vocal canon, one which depending on your mood and headspace, is either very lovely or somewhat infuriating. In headphones in particular it can become a disorienting exercise in the wrong circumstances. But casually playing in the background, the typical melodiousness of Anderson’s voice makes it a lovely light exercise.
Side A ends with maybe the last appreciated and certainly the least consistently magnificent of the album’s three long pieces. This just emphasizes the standard at play though because South Side Of The Sky is fantastic. A neat minimal transition out of the previous tracks leads to an extended intro of howling wind. After a boom of thunder, Bruford launches us into the track with a typically attention-grabbing, off-kilter but utterly precise little drum intro. Much like Roundabout, this eight minute piece is largely two rocking sections separated by a slow bridge. The main riff is as heavy as Yes had yet been, with Howe particularly dominant, constantly riffing off and filling every available space in his typical fashion, but with an at the time unusually overdriven guitar tone. Again, while driving forward energetically, there is nothing esoteric to be had. It is fabulous, dynamic but easy and palatable quality rock. The first half establishes these main themes, the second pushes them a bit further and reaches delirious heights, including a remarkable minimal high-pitched Howe solo. In between, Wakeman plays a gorgeous ominous piano section which gives way to a perhaps slightly too meandering harmony section with Squire and Howe’s voices backing Anderson. The terrifying mechanical monster sounding synth pulse that interrupts Wakeman’s returned piano sounds so ahead of its time and breaks us back into the second half through another Bruford intro figure.
Side B opens with drummer Bruford’s track, Five Per Cent For Nothing. The title is Bruford joking that this writing credit gives him five percent of album royalties for basically no work of any consequence. He’s certainly accurate that he’s created ‘nothing’. Bill Bruford is my all time favourite drummer. He is a marvel, with astonishing skill and ferocity but just as much intellect and thoughfulness. He is very much your ‘typical drummer’ at this stage of his career though. His creation is thirty seconds of inoffensive but unmelodious nonsense of which nothing more need to be said. Long Distance Runaround very much demands further attention though. Written by Anderson, but functioning as the fourth and shortest of the full band pieces on the album, this is a quick-fire, achingly simple and breathtakingly little nugget of disciplined energy and melody. The gem was the b-side to the US Roundabout single and it does not surprise me at all to know that it became an unexpected staple in its own right among the radio DJs. Based around the most lovely, joyous, spidery little riff from Howe, which sneaks and teases away and back over and over again. Uncharacteristically minimal brevity abounds, with very little ever actually going on and an always slightly left of field disorienting sense to things, no doubt contributed to by Bruford’s direct pounding rhythm being in 5/4 over the similar straight-laced rest of the band going four to the floor. One of Anderson’s best and most karaoke worthy vocals alternates with mighty staccato bursts of Squire and Howe bass and guitar impact in the gaps, all over Wakeman’s pounding organ dirge. It is legitimately a great and simple pop song, adored by my mother and one of the many hidden Prog gems that I stand by the universality of.
Via the most remarkable wash of reverberating harmonics from Howe, we transition seamlessly into Squire’s bass workout, named after his own aquatic nickname The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus). Howe and Bruford help out here, with a simple gorgeous ascending harmonic figure playing throughout from Howe, and Bruford jamming away in spindly anchor-less 7/8 time as was one of his great tricks. Over this solid base, Squire builds a collage of fantastic subtle bass parts, layering on top of one another. Starting with a core 7/8 rhythm, the first, and most melodic and memorable layer, is the high descending lead figure that is introduced after about thirty seconds then repeats, eventually doubled by the title vocal part at the end. But there are so many other little bits and pieces at play, some brief hits of emphasis, some constant meandering. The middle of the track introduces some Grade A funk-style wah-wah bass and a rapid low 16th note figure that would become the basis of the extended improv workout around the track Squire would undertake live. It’s essentially a quick little quasi-instrumental jam, with no structural changes as bass sound after bass sound stacks on. After such cacophony, relief is needed, and Howe provides it with his gorgeously tender acoustic solo Mood For A Day. The penultimate track, and final solo showcase, this unaccompanied acoustic guitar piece is full of typically dexterous rapid fire Howe moments, but by his standards is unusually slow and happy to dwell in the moment. Its best moments are when Howe contrasts brief surges of energy with moments of aching beauty, conveying more than ever his laughably obscene mastery of his instrument.
This just leaves the smaller matter of the twelve minute closing opus Heart of the Sunrise. Maybe the greatest Yes masterpiece to date, and the album’s crowning glory, even over a handful of other supreme classics, this magnificent piece represents all the best of early Yes in particular, with its extreme dynamic mix of beautiful melodies and heavy power. The track is anchored around its massive iconic main riff, which would not be out of place in any metal classic. Starting and ending proceedings, with constant recurrence throughout, this central figure is, like so many classic riffs, deceptively simple despite its busy frantic sound. After a first brief occurrence, the whole opening sequence is a superbly funky long opening jam, with Bruford expanding and exploring over a crunchy as anything anchoring Squire bass figure. The intro then returns and repeats a number of times, always with subtle changes of tone and timbre, to complete the frenetic first third of the track.
Eventually, the noise subsides and is replaced the most sweet imaginable little guitar figure and distant, tender, vulnerable Anderson vocals. The middle section is based around these new vocal melodies, journeying off into various detours where Wakeman cuts loose in all manner of ways, only to return each time more huge and harrowing than the last. The climax of this middle section is a return of the original main riff again, but alternating with some energetic Wakeman moog soloing. A new piano figure after eight minutes launches the final section, beginning with a bridge section largely unrelated to the rest where Anderson lets his punning lyrical explorations go to their fullest. After yet another little recapitulation of the main riff, comes the huge crescendo, with every player providing their fullest and most robust backing to maybe the most astonishingly powerful huge vocal of Anderson’s whole career. The whole experience is then driven home and brought full circle by a final sequence of the main riff before the song and album end abruptly, save for a jarring brief reprisal of Anderson’s earlier featured little effort We Have Heaven.
Brief mention must be made of the non-album bonus track which is included at the end of of modern editions, a ten minute blues and country workout ostensibly presented as Paul Simon’s America. It is a remarkable cover, with an unusual and slightly jarring treatment of the main original melody, but using the basic Simon chord progressions as a jumping off point for a great fun rockout, the band just jamming away in rare carefree fashion. It’s difficult to think how it could fit into the tracklist, but I functionally treat it as the last track on a 50 minute+ album, raising its whole level yet again. But it is on the strength of the original nine tracks as is that Fragile earns its place among the best.
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