I’ve never been a huge fan of 60s-80s prog-rock band “Yes”, really.
But I am a huge fan of artistic excess.
Actual “Yes” fans dunk on me pretty hard for being much more into their eighties incarnation, with Trever Rabin replacing Steve Howe on guitar – the edition of the band that did Owner of a Lonely Heart almost forty years ago…
…and, its followup single, this weird, elliptical, “prog”-rock meets new wave detour “Leave It”, with one of the weirder videos in the early history of MTV:
Did I say “one?”
I recall a brief blurp of controversy in the eighties about the video – or videos – to this song, but I never retained many of the details.
But details, there were – a total of 18 videos, produced by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, the art-rock polymaths behind the band “10cc”, who went on to write the figurative book on “groundbreaking”, disconcerting and, now, oddly archaic video production.
And the story just gets better and better:
I’m almost sorry I missed this the first time around.
It’s from the brief period where I could actually enjoy “Yes”, apropos not much.
Well then, Mitch, I’m right there with ya. I never really liked Yes, either.
Just because you can play a lot of notes quickly— doesn’t mean you should.
“Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes — Just find a pretty one.” ~ Miles Davis
Alright… who has the video tape?
JPA – that’s the funny part. They produced 18 versions of the video, and aired 15 of them on MTV. But nobody can find more than two of them.
Fire up some Gentle Giant if you want to up the prog rock ante.
Good one, Mr. D. But I’ll raise you King Crimson and anything Robert Fripp did.
I’m listening to Relayer right now.
Gentle Giant & King Crimson are a little beyond my ‘Prog’ sensibilities; I cut my teeth on (and still keep in my rotation) The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge & Going For the One. Never quite got the same enjoyment from Relayer or Tales from Topographic Oceans …..
Did anyone else see them “in the round” (rotating stage) in 1979 or ’80? (Tormato tour, I believe) Was not a big fan of that stage effect ….
I bought a King Crimson album once, because of the name “Larks tongue in aspic”.
The name and cover art were cool, but the music sucked, I thought.