Classic Yes (1981)


  
1. Heart of the Sunrise 2. Wonderous Stories 3. Yours is No Disgrace 4. Starship Trooper 5. Long Distance Runaround 6. The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) 7. And You and I 8. Roundabout 9. I've Seen All Good People

 

Not sure you could really call this a ‘Greatest Hits’ album since Yes never really had, at this point, any hits. In fact, their biggest hits I’ve Seen All Good People and Roundabout are included here, but they were thrown in as a single with the original vinyl. Since time constraints aren’t as rigid on compact discs, these two songs were easily added to the CD pressing once that format became the norm. Strangely, these two songs are presented in a ‘live’ format –which may or may not be an advantage to the listener.

The rest of what is here could definitely be termed as ‘classic’, and many of the pieces are quite lengthy. This is probably why the above mentioned ‘hits’ were thrown in separately. If you want to have a nice selection of songs on a compilation, there won’t be much room when many of your classic tracks are much longer than most.

The record isn’t perfect, but my guess is that the main intention was to educate the casual listener to the music of Yes. With that intention, what is here definitely serves such a purpose. 35 years later, with streaming music readily available and a bazillion other compilation albums, a collection such as this could probably be deemed inconsequential. With that said, this record maybe, in fact out of print. It was a pretty good idea for its time.

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