Dawn of light lying between a silence and sold sources

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

30/12/73 : Tales From Topographic Oceans - Yes

I am aware that this is viewed as a progressive masterpiece - which is, in all probability, why I've never listened to it.  Although, I have to admit that prog is probably one of the few music genres which has gone up in my estimation after increased exposure, so you never know - I'm certainly intrigued to hear it.

Hmmm - it's certainly got lots on it.  And I mean LOTS.  I actually don't think I minded it, but I feel like I only got about 1% of it.  Will I listen to it again?  Well, you know what?  Actually, I might - wonders will never cease!  I think "The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)" (snappy title, eh?) has my favourite noises on it, but you'd have to say "Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)" really heads out there towards the end (and no, I've no idea where "there" is).  Yes, it's all incredibly full of itself, but there's certainly a large amount of musicianship and creativity on display - no, it doesn't all work for me but I "enjoyed" it a lot more than I was expecting to.  It's a very prog album cover though, isn't it?

For this year, I won't be telling you whether we've ever owned it.  Just assume we haven't - you can be certain I'll let you know if we have (and if we get more than three in the year, I'll be surprised).

We're at #1 in the charts this week, three weeks into a 13 week run spending its first of two consecutive weeks at the top.  The rest of the top five were Emerson, Lake & Palmer (I think we might see quite a bit of prog this year), Elton John, Donny Osmond and Gilbert O'Sullivan.  I also think we might be seeing a few men this year - the highest album in the chart by a band featuring a woman is Wings at #13 and the first woman mentioned is Dianne Lee of Peters and Lee at #16.  And she's the next one as well at #31 - throw in a couple of Carpenters albums and that's your lot for the women in the top 42 (and no, I've no idea why it's a top 42).  

Amusingly, the highest new entry this week is the best of Tom Jones at #22 - this was only his second compilation album (he's done another 14 since).  The next highest new entry is Introducing Michael Ward at #26 and I'm sorry to say it didn't exactly introduce him to many.  Apparently, he was a 13 year old soprano who'd appeared on Opportunity Knocks - I suspect 1970 is going to provide a lot of such rabbit holes for me to explore!

Back to Yes, Wikipedia has a huge amount on the album (279 milliPeppers) and it's worth a read - I can't even begin to do it justice.  Some highlights are "Singer Ozzy Osbourne recalled the Yes studio also had a model cow with electronic udders and a small barn", "They stopped the car to find that the tapes had slid off and fallen on the road, causing Anderson to rush back and stop an oncoming bus to save them" and "his keyboard technician brought him a curry, which he proceeded to eat on stage".  The critics were divided in their opinions - they all agreed it was a monstrously overblown affair but they couldn't agree whether this was a good or a bad thing.  It did well commercially though getting to #6 in the US and selling 500k copies over there.

"Customers also listened to" Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman - you'll never guess which group they were in.  I can't claim to have instantly fallen in love with this, but it's certainly an intriguing listen which I enjoyed more than I was expecting and I'm still looking forward to at least some of the prog I'm going to be made to listen to this year.

23/12/73/ - Enjoyably quirky
1996 - Another one down!