FEATURE:
402023
Yes’ Superb 90125 at Forty
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ON 7th November, 1983…
Yes released the brilliant album 90125. Some sites say it was released on 11th November, though their official social media say it is 7th November. Perhaps best-known for its single, Owner of a Lonely Heart, there is not a weak moment on 90125. The eleventh studio album from the London band was a little rocky and controversial in terms of band line-ups ands changes. Jon Anderson, who left the group in 1980, was convinced to rejoin on vocals. With the legendary Trevor Horn producing, 90125 has a more Pop feel compared to previous Yes albums. Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Tony Kaye and Alan White released an album that took their music to new fans. Charting at five in the U.S. and sixteen in the U.K., it was a big success for Yes. I want to mix together some features and reviews concerning an album that turns forty on 7th November. Louder writing in 2016, provided background to the album. This was an incredibly unlikely comeback from a band who, in 1983, arguably released their finest album:
“In 1983 Yes stormed the charts with a new pop sound. Yet just months before, the band hadn’t even existed. This is the story of one of music’s least likely comebacks...
By 1981, Yes had disappeared. As the new decade dawned, the line-up that had given us Drama the previous year had cracked and splintered. Keyboard player Geoff Downes and guitarist Steve Howe became founding members of Asia and enjoyed huge success in their own right. Vocalist Trevor Horn was on an upward trajectory as a producer. And that left bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White trying to find a cohesive musical direction.
“Atlantic, to whom Yes were signed, were determined to keep Alan and I working together,” recalls Squire. “We had tried to form a new band, XYZ, in 1981 with Jimmy Page, but that had fizzled out. And then in 1982 Trevor Rabin’s name came up. Brian Lane, our former manager, had actually played me some of his tracks in 1979 and I thought it was the new Foreigner album. But three years later, we agreed to meet up with him.”
While Squire and White contemplated where life might lead in the post-Yes era, multi-instrumentalist Rabin had been facing an exciting, albeit uncertain, future. After releasing three well-received but commercially disappointing solo albums, he relocated to Los Angeles from the UK after signing to Geffen.
“I went through an intense writing phase out there, when I effectively came up with the songs which would appear on 90125,” he explains. “But Geffen weren’t impressed, so they dropped me.”
After getting some interest from other labels, Rabin eventually agreed a deal with Atlantic, and it was Phil Carson, one of the most powerful men at the company, who put him in touch with Squire and White.
“He felt that I needed a rhythm section,” Rabin says. “So, the three of us agreed to meet at a sushi bar in London. Chris was late, which I was to discover was usual for him, but we eventually went back to his place and jammed. I have to say, it wasn’t a very good session. But there was clearly a chemistry between us which was worth pursuing.”
Despite coming on to the scene rather late, Anderson still had some input into the writing process. “I changed some of the choruses and added lyrics to certain songs as well. I only had about three weeks in the studio to do my parts, but found it to be a very rewarding experience. I loved working with Trevor Horn as he was always so receptive to any ideas I had.”
But Squire has a different take on the relationship between the returning vocalist and the producer. “Oh, they butted heads quite a lot. At times, there was major friction.”
To add to the melodrama in the studio, Kaye had his own problems with Horn. “They didn’t get on at all,” says Rabin. “So, he left the band before we’d finished the album, and I had to finish the keyboard parts.”
Squire, though, has an alternative version on what happened. “Tony actually completed all his work. So, because he wasn’t on good terms with Trevor Horn, we suggested he should go home to Los Angeles. But he was never fired from Yes, nor did he quit. The only reason we had Eddie Jobson feature in the video for Owner Of A Lonely Heart was because he was around when we shot it. We never talked to Eddie, or anybody, about replacing Tony.”
“We did hold discussions with Eddie about coming into the band for touring,” disagrees Rabin. “And we also considered Duncan Mackay. But we got Tony back in the end because he knew all the parts and with Horn not involved in touring, there was no chance of any of those problems rearing up again.”
Rabin recalls the studio sessions as running well behind schedule. “We had a very laissez‑faire attitude. There were times when I was in the studio with just one of the engineers doing my parts because Trevor was away working on Malcolm McLaren’s Duck Rock album. It was typical of the inefficient beast called Yes.”
And there were even problems with Horn’s final mix, as Squire recalls: “Trevor Rabin wasn’t satisfied and did a couple of his own remixes. But the label were very happy with the original mix, and we didn’t want to compromise and have a few Rabin mixes alongside the rest from Horn. So we went for the amazing sound that Trevor Horn got for us.”
So where did the idea for the album title originate? There’s no consensus on this, with both Rabin and Anderson claiming to have come up with the idea. But Squire has his own view. “The suggestion came from Garry Mouat, who designed the sleeve. We couldn’t come up with any suitable title and he thought of using the catalogue number. Actually, it was supposed to be called 89464. That was to be the album catalogue number. But we were two months late delivering the album [in July 1983], so the release date and the catalogue number changed.”
The success in 1983 of 90125 gave Yes a fresh impetus for a new era of achievement, which is something that Squire acknowledges: “We reinvented Yes,” he says. “Because the album was so fresh, we picked up a new audience. Some 70s diehards might have been upset by what we did. However, it gave us an extra dimension.”
“I was delighted with the reaction the album got,” adds Rabin. “The fact that Owner Of A Lonely Heart was a big hit gave us a new profile for the MTV age. I was determined this wouldn’t be seen as a continuation of Yes as they were in the 70s, and we got it right. It was a new beginning for Yes, not just another chapter”.
I want to come to this 2015 feature from Ultimate Classic Rock. It seemed nearly impossible that a band who seemed to be on rocks in some ways made this big statement with 90125. A massive chart success, Yes toured for the album in 1984 and 1985. This included two headline shows at the inaugural Rock in Rio festival:
“It's often said that it's always darkest before the dawn. This has proven particularly true for Yes fans, who endured the band's ugly 1981 breakup only to watch the prog legends rise from the ashes with one of their most popular albums two years later.
The group's 11th LP, 90125, arrived on Nov. 7, 1983, the happy end result of a long series of twists and turns that included yet another flurry of lineup changes for the famously fluctuating outfit. In fact, while comings and goings had become customary for the band, 90125 didn't even start out as a Yes album. Following 1980's rather poorly received Drama album, the group more or less imploded, with bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White left at loose ends.
Knowing they still wanted to keep making music together but unsure of what form it should take, Squire and White dabbled for a bit with a couple of short-lived projects (including what would have been a mighty intriguing-sounding supergroup with Jimmy Page) before getting down to work with guitarist Trevor Rabin. Although he wasn't known to many Yes fans, Rabin had been hovering in the band's axis for some time – to the point that he nearly ended up joining Asia with former Yes members Geoff Downes and Steve Howe.
Aside from his considerable guitar skills and a sturdy singing voice, Rabin brought a stack of songs to the new band, which would eventually be named Cinema – a group whose ranks were quickly expanded to include former Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. By the time Cinema entered the studio at the tail end of 1982, it had started to look less like a new enterprise and more like yet another iteration of Yes. Once former Yes singer Jon Anderson heard what the new group was up to in the spring of '83, it was obvious that the band would reform in earnest.
Although Rabin was initially reluctant to make the change from Cinema to Yes, and bristled at the notion that some would see him as a replacement member of the band, he was eventually won over by Anderson's enthusiasm. Looking back, it's easy to see why: Even though Yes had suffered from lack of direction in the years leading up to 90125, Rabin's influx of fresh ideas – coupled with Trevor Horn's clean, technologically driven production – brought the group a new sound that managed to be fresh while still bearing many hallmarks of the band's past.
Best of all, at least from a label perspective, was the eminently radio-ready focus of Rabin's songwriting. Where Anderson's lyrics tended to focus on more esoteric subjects, Rabin tended toward poppier fare. And although Yes would never truly be thought of as a Top 40 band, there was no way for radio programmers to resist hook-laden tracks like the album's lead-off single, "Owner of a Lonely Heart."
Boasting grinding guitar, clattering synths and a soaring vocal from Anderson, the track signaled the start of a new era for Yes – and a fairly lucrative one, too. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" eventually became the band's first and only chart-topper, helping send 90125 to the Top Five and paving the way for three more singles (one of which, "Leave It," broke the Top 40 the following year). It certainly wasn't Tales From Topographic Oceans, but it was identifiably Yes, and it expanded the band's audience to a degree that nobody could have predicted.
Unfortunately, as it so often tended to be with Yes, the harmony proved short-lived. In fact, Kaye left the lineup even before 90125 was finished, forcing Rabin to handle a substantial portion of the keyboard work. Although kaye returned in time for the tour, ongoing tensions with Horn added another layer of difficulty to the already-messy sessions for the follow-up album.
By the time Yes re-emerged from the studio, four years had gone by, and the result – 1987's Big Generator – was neither as cohesive nor as cutting-edge as its predecessor. By the end of 1988, Yes had split into different factions yet again ... and yet another reunion loomed on the horizon”.
There are two more features that I want to get to. Progarchy provided a retrospective on 90125 on its thirtieth anniversary in 2013. With a new guitarist, Trevor Rabin, in the fold, that caused some controversy and split among fans. Also, in terms of the music and style fans were used to, 90125 was a big departure. Even so, the album was a huge success and an unexpected triumph from a band some presumed all but finished:
“Yes, it was definitely Yes
A cursory examination of the membership makes it hard to declare the band that created ‘90125’ anything other than Yes. Four of the five members on the album were Yes veterans. Three of them – Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, and Tony Kaye – were original members of Yes. The fourth, Alan White, had originally joined Yes more than a decade prior, and was firmly established in the band. Calling the band Cinema, as they were before Anderson’s return, would have been odd, to say the least. In fact, I’m willing to bet most of the “it’s not Yes” crowd would have said “well, it’s really just Yes” had they tried to get away with calling the band Cinema. Four established Yes veterans with Jon Anderson on vocals is, for all intents and purposes, Yes. And thus an album created by such a band is, for all intents and purposes, a Yes album. When Anderson reconnected with Rick Wakeman, Steve Howe, and Bill Bruford in 1989, they may have called themselves Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe for legal reasons, but everybody knew is was really just another incarnation of Yes. Otherwise, why call the shows on your tour ‘An Evening of Yes Music Plus’?
One person who was decidedly a fan of the new band – Rabin himself – was also against calling it Yes. I have sympathy for Rabin’s position, given that he took the brunt of the criticism from the established Yes fans. Still, there was nothing else you could call this band, with four veterans in the lineup including Anderson on vocals. It simply would not have been credible to call it anything else but Yes. With a different vocalist – or with the pre-Anderson lineup, the Cinema name would have worked. Once Anderson came on board, Yes was the only name that would do. The band that did ‘90125’ was not Cinema. It was Yes. Yes with a new guitarist? Sure. A Yes wherein the newest member had the most impact on his first recorded output with the band? Undoubtedly. But still Yes. There is simply no other credible band name for the lineup that recorded ‘90125’.
Musically?
Even with as radical a departure as this album was from its predecessors, it’s hard to think musically of ‘90125’ as anything other than a Yes album. Certainly, it had a heaviness that was rarely heard on previous Yes albums. The intro to ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ telegraphed early on that this was going to be a different kind of Yes music. ‘Hold On’, ‘City of Love’, and ‘Changes’ produced more power chords than had been heard in any previous Yes album. The music also had much more of a 80’s feel to it, and Tony Kaye’s description of it as sometimes being dimensionally sparse was fitting.
Still, there were more than a few common threads with previous Yes works. And despite Anderson’s late entry into the project, there is no doubt that his creative impact on the final product was second only to Rabin’s. No other song exemplifies this more than ‘It Can Happen’, in particular when the Cinema version is compared to the final Yes version. The Cinema version of ‘It Can Happen’ appears, among other places, on disc 4 of the YesYears box set. The lyrics on that version were those of a rather sappy love song. Even keeping in mind that this is more or less a demo version, the music was relatively mundane. In contrast, it is clear that Anderson had completely rewritten the lyrics by the time the final version was recorded. The rewritten lyrics have much more of the trademark cosmic mysticism that infuses so much of Anderson’s output. Moreover, the music has much more in terms of ‘Yessy’ touches to it, beginning with the sitar intro. If a Yes fan had entered a cave in 1979 and emerged in early 1984 to hear ‘It Can Happen’ on the radio, he or she might have concluded that Yes had never broken up or had gone through the turmoil of the intervening years. The final version of ‘It Can Happen’ clearly sounds like a Yes song, and, 80’s production values notwithstanding. It would not be out of place in the earlier Yes catalog.
Various vocal arrangements on the album also tie in nicely with Yes music past. In ‘Hold On’, a multi-part harmony is sung on the verse that begins with “Talk the simple smile, such platonic eyes …”. This bears a lot of similarity to the final chorus of “Does It Really Happen” (“time is the measure, before it’s begun …”) from ‘Drama’. And of course, ‘Leave It’ is a vocal tour de force that begins with a huge five-part harmony that is unmistakably Yes (this was the second song I heard off of this album, and the one that told me “Yes is back!”). In the previously mentioned ‘It Can Happen’, Anderson and Squire alternate on lead vocals, with Squire singing lead on those portions that serve as a transition from the verses to the chorus. And finally, Anderson’s delivery on the album’s finale, ‘Hearts’, is not something that sounds unusual to the experienced Yes listener.
Other notable connections to previous Yes music includes the ebb and flow of ‘Hearts’, Squire’s bass work on ‘Our Song’ and ‘Cinema’, and the keyboard intro to ‘Changes.’ Had this lineup of musicians released these same songs under the guise of Cinema, I would have scratched my head and asked “why didn’t they just call themselves Yes?”, and I doubt I’m alone in that aspect”.
I will finish with a Classic Rock Review assessment from 2013. Forty years after its release, 90125 still sounds fantastic. Maybe some say it is dated, yet I don’t think that is the case. We still hear songs from it on the radio today. It is a magnificent album I hope a new generation have discovered. It is accessible and deserves to get a new audience and appreciation:
“The album’s original first side was filled with charting singles. “Hold On” reached #27 On the Mainstream Rock chart and starts as kind of an upbeat bluesy ballad with later added sonic textures including a choppy organ, a heavy guitar and plenty of vocal motifs. The tune was actually a combination of two songs by Rabin and the two distinct parts of the song are held together nicely by the simple but effective drumming by Alan White. “It Can Happen” may be a song either of hope or foreboding and uses a synthesized sitar sound for the main riff. The song, which gets a bit more intense towards the end, reached the Billboard Top Forty in 1984. “Changes” has a long xylophone-like intro playing a very syncopated riff, similar to Yes of yesterdays, until it breaks into a standard rock beat with bluesy overtones.
The lead single from 90125 and the band’s first and only #1 hit was “Owner of a Lonely Heart”. The song originated from a solo demo by Rabin in 1980 and was originally written as a ballad. Trevor Horn later developed this album version as a final addition for commercial purposes. The song contains excellent production which includes plenty of orchestral and odd instrumental samples above the crisp guitar riff, strong rhythm, and soaring vocals.
The second side begins with a track named after the original group name for this project. “Cinema” developed from a twenty minute-long track with the working title “Time”, but was paired back to a barely two minute final product. The song is driven by White’s intensive drumming and Squire’s fretless bass, which topical instrumentation that gives it a sound more like old Genesis than old Yes. In 1985 it won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental, the Yes’s only Grammy. A half decade before Bobby McFerrin made it popular, the a cappella vocals of “Leave It” drove the early choruses of this fine pop song with precision polyphonic vocal effects. Above this orchestra of vocals, Squire and Anderson alternate lead vocal duties on this popular radio hit which peaked at number 24 on the American pop chart.
The fun continues with the exciting intro of “Our Song”, which sounds like a cross between Rush and Dire Straits stylistically. It is the hardest rocking track on the album, led by Kaye’s intense organ riff. The song references a 1977 Yes concert in Toledo, Ohio, where the temperature inside the arena reportedly reached over 120 °F, resulting in the song being a big hit in that area (while a moderate hit everywhere else). “City of Love” starts with doomy bass and synth orchestral effects and is decorated by 1980s sounds while maintaining an entertaining rock core. The album’s closer “Hearts” works off a simple Eastern-sounding verse with vocal duet sections and a couple of inspired guitar leads by Rabin. After abandoning this initial riff, the seven-minute track morphs into many interesting sections, with Anderson firmly taking over vocally while building on the general feel of the song.
90125 reached #5 on the album charts and has sold over three million copies, by far the band’s most successful album commercially. This same incarnation of the band and production team returned with Big Generator in 1987, another successful album of contemporary and catchy with the edge that only Yes provides”.
On 7th November, we mark forty years of Yes’ 90125. Few bands release something so complete and unexpected when they get to album number eleven. Yes released their twenty-third studio album, Mirror to the Sky, earlier in the year. Even if the line-up is different again, the band still have plenty of life and brilliance in them! In my view, 1983’s 90125 is their…
FINEST work.