Schindleria praematurus

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

20/05/73 : Yessongs - Yes



Our third visit with Yes, and our second visit this year - generally I appreciate the skill whilst not necessarily "getting" the album or what they're trying to achieve with it.  I'm interested enough to listen to this though, but am slightly concerned about the length of it (129 minutes).

And yeah, it's alright but faaaar too long.  There's an awful lot of musical noodling going on, but obviously skilful noodling so it makes some interesting noises (although the sound quality isn't always the best).  I enjoyed this a lot more than my recent experience with the Hawkwind live album - although there's absolutely no danger of me listening to this again either.  Regarding the length, I'm intrigued as to how long a Yes concert lasted - yes, I appreciate that there are several concerts involved but a couple of the tracks are mere excerpts.  I like the album cover though - it's very Yes.

We're at #7 with a new entry this week on the start of a seven week run, although it managed six more weeks over four more runs before the end of the year (which seems rather odd).  The top five this week were Bowie, Beatles Red & Blue, 20 Fantastic Hits (a new entry) and Wings.  Roger (#6) and Donny (#9) supply two more new entries in a surprisingly busy week in the top ten and Wishbone Ash only just miss out at #12, but that was it for the entire chart.  And yes, Linda is the top woman again, but there are FIVE women in the charts this week - no new women though, obviously!

Wikipedia tells me this is their first live album - which is, as you'd expect from Yes, a subtle understated triple album.  Having said that, it's nothing compared to their 2015 release Progeny - Seven Shows From Seventy-Two, which has the full concerts from which these tracks are taken and is a 14 CD boxset coming in at 11.5 hours!  It also tells me that the shows cover two tours with Bill Bruford, their original drummer, leaving the band 11 days before the start of the second tour, with Alan White stepping in and learning their entire repertoire in three days - good effort, lad!  It also tells me that the opening track, which is the closing section to Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky, had been a live staple of theirs since 1971 - because that was the year of his death.  The lad must be so proud.  The whole album did surprisingly well for a triple album - #12 in the US selling over a million copies.

"Customers also listened to" Crack The Sky, Renaissance and U.K. - none of whom I've heard of, but I can make an educated guess as to the kind of noises they make.  And I liked a lot of the noises on this album - but I'd also have to say there were FAR TOO MANY noises on this album.  Far, far, far too many.

13/05/73 - Not great, but an interesting Wikipedia entry
27/05/73 - Much better than I was expecting

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