Yes - 90125 (1983)

The first time I heard "Owner of a Lonely Heart" on the radio, I was smitten. "What in the heck was that?" It was one of those HOLY SHIT songs that seemed to come out of nowhere. KISM from Bellingham had a strong enough signal to reach over into the suburbs where I lived. The song quickly worked it's way into heavy rotation, but I don't remember hearing it on the two big stations in Vancouver. It took me a while to find the record after first hearing the song. There was a record store across the street from where I worked and I looked for this new Yes album, and all I found where the old Yes records, nothing new. Of course this only happened once, and I'm sure this was all compressed into the span of a couple of weeks, if that. Soon the song along with the bleeding edge orchestral blasts that were unlike anything I'd heard before was everywhere.

This was Yes?

Yes.

Of course there was no internet back in the day, just word of mouth and the burgeoning age of video ... you learned what you picked up. Although I was a sporadic reader of Rolling Stone, and Spin didn't exist yet (Penthouse for Music, courtesy of Bob Guccione Jr.). I really had no idea what the back story was on 90125. Apparently it was a hell of a story too. I'm not about to try and retell it, suffice to say that this was never meant to be a Yes album. The band referred to themselves initially as Cinema, and it was only after the band sort of ran out of money and Jon Anderson came on board that things started to signal a change. Everyone in the band except Trevor Rabin had previously been members of Yes, and after Atlantic founder Ahmet Ertegun heard the early tapes he agreed to cover the rest of the album (of course, I'll bet that was code for "to be recouped later") and the rest as they say is history. 

I'm guessing it was also be a pain in the ass for Trevor Rabin who I'm sure had no desire to be in Yes, or have to learn the band's back catalogue when they went on tour. The album came out under the Yes banner, and was now the new album by the legendary band and was now subject to all of the comparisons and scrutiny of their long time fans. "WHERE'S STEVE? Blah blah blah, play the old stuff. Where's Roundabout?"

Me, I did not give two shits about the band's past or legacy. This is where I started, and I would follow the Rabin era. 90125 at least according to the writing credits seemed to be very much a collaborative effort, although how much of that was merely tweaking Trevor's original demos is probably another story and frankly I don't need to know. See my earlier two shits comment ... consider this the second shit.

For me I got hooked on the rock songs, "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "Changes" and the incredible "City of Love" and of course the how was this a hit, "Leave It" a song I absolutely adore. There were a couple of songs that didn't quite scratch the itch, like the Grammy winning instrumental, "Cinema" and the album's closing opus 'Hearts" that oddly over forty years later is a stunning song.

I read somewhere not long ago that Trevor wanted the album to be judged on it's own merits, and back when I got this I didn't have any baggage with the band - this was truly my introduction and it made me a fan. Sure Jon had the quirky voice that was the hallmark of the old Yes, but I loved Trevor's voice and his guitar playing.

I'd actually mail order a terrible sounding CD copy of Trevor's debut album from 1977 Beginnings in the late '80s, and practically wore out my CD copy of Can't Look Away I bought in '89. 90125 to me was a near perfect blending of cutting edge tech with good old fashioned progressive rock, and the production by Trevor Horn gave everything a sparkle and shine that still holds up and sounds absolutely massive. Admittedly some of the more bleeding edge keyboard jibber jabber has aged like mayonnaise in the sun, but dagnabbit it still sounds awesome.

Yes' follow up album Big Generator had it's moments, and the albatross that was Union was mostly horrible (I've not listened to it in decades) except for a couple of songs that were written by Trevor, "Life Me Up" and the incredible "Saving My Heart" but it was 90125, that for me, captured a band that was hungry to prove itself, and they did. Once they climbed to the top they weren't able to stay there which was a shame.