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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Falls Short of Great, September 21, 2004
Once you recognize there is no perfect Yes collection, you'll eventually come around to the idea that Classic Yes is a pretty good album. A reasonably complete compilation of Yes' best work would consume several CDs. This single CD does a decent job.
The album suffers from poor song selection. How could anyone put the LIVE version of Roundabout on a best of album and still call it Classic? Unbelievable. There's also the issue of mediocre sound qualty. The more recent Highlights has improved sound quality and the studio version of Roundabout...but it has problems of its own. Classic Yes is an imperfect collection, but still a must for fans of 70s Yes.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, May 24, 2006
I want to make it clear before I write anything more that I know nothing about Yes. I don't know the name of a single member in the band, except Jon Anderson and I don't even know what he does in the band. I don't know who the lyricist is, I don't know the inspiration for any of these songs, and this is the first Yes album I've listened to. So, if my review is sketchy. Forgive me. My friend let me borrow this CD and listening to it, I have to say that these guys rock. They're true musicians, they all play what they play so well. The bassist is one of the best bassists I've heard in a song. He's up there with Geddy Lee and Flea (two odd people to be together I know). The keyboardist is one of the best keyboardist's ever bar none...The singer sounds like a mix between Geddy Lee and Steve Perry, even though I'm pretty sure he was around long before the both of them. Almost all the songs on this CD are long, which is something I usually don't like. I really don't like long songs, but these were cool. They're songs start off one way and, usually, take a completely different direction towards the end. It's like two songs mixed into one. Although I know nothing of the band, I think solely by listening to this I can say that these guys are some of the best artists of rock. Here are the songs and some opinions I have on them;
1. Heart of the Sunrise-5/5-I heard this song in Vincent Gallo's movie "Buffalo 66".
This song would've worked better as an instrumental (even though about 85% of it is). The music they've worked out is killer.
2. Wonderous Stories-5/5-The lyrics to this song are really cool.
3. Yours is No Disgrace-5/5-The musicianship on this song is awesome. It sounds really cool.
4. Starship Troopers-5/5-This song takes so many different turns, but it's still great.
5. Lond Distance Runaround-5/5-A fantastic instrumental.
6. The Fish-5/5-Great keyboard playing. Everything about this song is cool.
7. And You and I-5/5-This song's really awesome too.
8. Roundabout-5/5-This song is totally awesome, it's Yes's "Stairway to Heaven". Is the original version live though?
9. I've Seen All Good People-5/5-I'd heard this song before in movies like "Almost Famous". It's a really beautiful song, with fantastic lyrics.
This whole CD is rocking. If you haven't listened to Yes you should really check them out...If you like Rush (and I know the guys of Rush like Yes) then you should like this band.
GRADE: A
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Compliation of Yes, July 15, 2001
There are a few other compliations of "Yes" music. I think this is far and away the best one. The great guitar bassist of Yes' Golden Age - Chris Squire selected the songs on this compilation. Most are the orginal remastered studio versions. The last two (Roundabout, I've Seen all Good People) are from live preformances. Because Chris compiled this, you might expect that he would select those songs where the bass figures prominately. By and large he does (The Fish, Starship Trooper, Heart of the Sunrise, Long Distance RunAround...) , but he picks some songs like "And You and I (Cords of Life)" where Steve Howe on Acoustic guitar and Wakeman on Keyboards are the dominate features. "Wonderous Stories" is another great piece where bass plays a relativley minor role. So I think Chris Squire did a fair. balanced job of choosing the tracks for this compilation.All songs are taken from Yes' "Golden trilogy" of albums: "The Yes Album", "Fragile", "Close to the Edge", which many consider to be Yes' finest work. "Yesterdays" is another compilation of Yes' first two albums (before Howe and Wakeman) "Yes" and "Time and a Word" when the group was immature. If you were going to choose one album from the "Golden Trilogy", I would make it this compilation and get the very best of all three. Chris selected the very cream from that 3 album era and they are arranged not by album but in a very pleasing way. I believe that I would have selected the same songs - He certainly selected the best one off of each of the 3 albums: "Heart of the Sunrise", "Starship Trooper" & "And You and I". Those songs represent the most "Progressive" songs from each of the albums, where the focus is the music displaying many "voices". "Heart of Sunrise" has at least 4 distinct themes interweaving their taprestry of sound. I personally would have tried squeezing in "Fragile"'s 'South Side of the Sky' - but you can not have everything. Summary: best compilation of Yes' most critical era - when the band was at its most creative and before wholesale changes in personel diminished the talent of the group. Here you get the talent ("chops") and the composition - you get it all and the very best.
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