Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) Newsgroups: net.music Subject: Re: I've had it with you-know-who Message-ID: <2000@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Wed, 30-Oct-85 22:38:40 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.2000 Posted: Wed Oct 30 22:38:40 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 01:46:56 EST References: <866@decwrl.UUCP> <> <822@nmtvax.UUCP> <520@scirtp.UUCP> <225@mit-eddie.UUCP> <527@scirtp.UUCP> Organization: Whatever we're calling ourselves this week Lines: 69 Keywords: Yes No Maybe Summary: Who? > When I was 14, I had a passion for the band "Yes." If I had access > to a net.music forum (God forbid) I would have undoubtedly have spewed > forth the virtues of Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, etc... until everyone > else on the net was so sick of it they puked and sent me the collected > drippings. [TODD JONES] Imagine the fact that there are still people alive today (who post to the net in fact) who consider Yes (and Rick Walkman!!) to be the "cutting edge", even though their version of "progressive" rock is no longer progressive in any sense of the word (tell THAT to a Rush fan, though!). I find that kind of strange, like calling Renaissance painting "progressive" because four or five hundred years ago IT was the "cutting edge"... Not that Yes (and their ilk) WEREN'T progressive in some sense of the word or that they didn't make great music (I might have dwarfed your own adulatory feelings for Yes). But to assert that they are now (after the advent of 90125) strikes me as preposterous. (Mind you, "Close to the Edge" is still on my desert island list, somewhere...) > 14 years later I am no longer a Yes fan (Thank God!), Why "thank God"? (Religious assumptions notwithstanding) There's nothing wrong in liking "old" music (hell, I like music plenty older than Yes by a long shot). The fact that it's no longer at that Leading Edge of progressivity doesn't make it not worth listening to. > but I have my pet bands (XTC, Eno, Gabriel, Zappa, Prince, Pere Ubu, etc.). And I'm sure a lot of ex-Yes freaks share many of those newer pet bands in common (myself included). I often wonder what other progressive rock mavens find to be their favorite bands today. (Some are still stuck in the past, but more than a few have popped up here with some examples like those you've mentioned.) I keep hearing Tears for Fears getting compared to Yes by critics and DJs, and I think they share a lot of composing mentality with Yes, but I wonder if ex-Yes freaks think the comparison is valid in any way. In any case, here is some interesting food for thought: Who will be the first big band hit by the rock ratings affair? One possibility: Yes. Examples: Profanity: The end of "Roundabout" contains the voice of someone saying "Fuck you" in opposite channels. Satanism/Witchcraft: Their most famous album, "Close to the Edge" begins with the words "A seasoned witch can call you from the depths of your disgrace..." Violence: ... and the words that follow are "and re-arrange your liver to a solid mental place" (this means "stick your bodily organs upside yo' head" in "street lingo" ---Sen. Paula Hawkins) Sex: "All com-plete in the sight of seeds of life with you" (according to Tipper Gore, this means "wanna f-u-c-k you, make you inhale my anal vapor") Anti-Christian values: "Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of time, insane teacher..." (obviously a veiled derogatory reference to Christ) Glorification of suicide: the video for "Loner of an Only Heart" depicts a man jumping off of a building in an obviously humanist way (how one jumps off a building in an obviously humanist way is beyond me...) How much you wanna bet... -- Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts. Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr