Yes: Going For The One - 1977

Rick Wakeman returned for this album, released three years after the previous album, Relayer. The result was an almost commercial offering, showing a huge change in sound in places. Even long-time cover artist Roger Dean has gone, replaced by a more contemporary, abstract, Pink Floyd-esque angular piece of work. That  artwork stood as a most potent symbol of the group's change in direction, almost as much as the music itself, weirdly. Even the album's title sounded positive, to-the-point and cool as opposed to pretentiously proggy. No topographic oceans here. 

The album was released at the height of punk, and was the very anti-punk but its phenomenal success showed just how many proggers still roamed the earth. Casting my mind back to my peers in 1977, they were around 65% prog or heavy rock and 35% punk. Cheesecloth and long hair still beat leather and safety pins hands down. 

Well, this is a turn up for the books - Yes sounding like Led Zeppelin on the distinctly riffy, rocking opener of Going For The One. This was as rock as anything they had ever done. With a stronger lead vocal it could have been much better, but musically it is a great change in style for the group. Listen to that slide guitar. Yes? surely not? It also reminds me of Supertramp here and there. 

The ethereal Turn Of The Century is a beautiful, dreamy, acoustic-driven track. Steve Howe's guitar is recognisably sumptuous on this one and Jon Anderson's soaring vocal is as good as it has sounded (I am not always a fan, as previous reviews have expressed). Wakeman's piano at four minutes in is just lovely. I really like this track, I have to say. 

Parallels is a rousing, swirling upbeat organ-driven number - very proggy but rockily accessible too. Love the melodic bass line on the track too and the solo-ish guitar near the end. Good stuff. Another surprising thing was that Yes had a top ten, radio-friendly and highly popular single in the Tolkein-esque Wonderous Stories (why was it spelled incorrectly, I wonder? It should be wondrous). Even I liked this catchy, grandiose tune back then, with its trademark high-pitched vocal. For some reason, though, its production sounds a little muffled to me. 

It wouldn't be Yes, would it, without a lengthy workout, and the album ends with the beguiling Awaken. it is a true prog creation, full of classical keyboard influences and rambling changes of tempo and stands slightly apart from the more instantly appealing (comparatively) other material on the album. So, that is it for Yes, as far as my reviews are concerned. They will never be proper favourites of mine (indeed at one time I could not conceive of my listening to even a minute of their output) but I'm sure you will see and maybe accept that I have given their unique, challenging music a fair go.

Secondary, 2 of 5

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