90125 had revived Yes from cold, grim death – not only keeping them alive, but supercharging with more energy and spectrum than they’d ever had. They’d gone from 0 to 11 in about seven seconds.
“Owner of a Lonely Heart” had been the band’s first-ever #1, and the album remains their biggest-selling ever. The subsequent world tour had been a monster success, and they played very well on MTV.
The success owed to Trevors Rabin and Horn – the former being Steve Howe’s replacement on guitar, who brought powerful songwriting mojo and AOR rock vocals to the party; the latter had been a Yes man himself for about 15 minutes, during the Drama episode that temporarily ended the band. 90125 was largely built on songs of Rabin’s, and Horn in the producer’s chair led to an album that was sonically pristine, creatively surprising and more user-friendly than anything Yes had ever produced.
The follow-up, Big Generator, had all these strengths going for it. But it took far too long to put together, bouncing from an Italian castle to LA, and squabbles led to Horn’s early departure.
All of that said, when the album arrived, it glittered. While not as strong as its predecessor, it had some gems – the lead-off track “Rhythm of Love”, which channeled the Beach Boys; “Shoot High Aim Low”, an ethereal political tract that had ominous keyboards and glistening acoustic guitar; “I’m Running”, which served up the expected Yes complexities and some rhythmic surprises; “Final Eyes”, a Jon Anderson swoon with almost tender acoustic touches; and the AOR-friendly but somewhat ordinary “Love Will Find a Way”, which looked good as a video but bored the radio.
I could find no fault with it at the time; I was an unapologetic Yes disciple, and I’d waited years for this album. I wore it out. So did my bandmates at the time.
Big Generator then became a family thing. I reviewed the album for the paper, then saw Yes perform it at Freedom Hall in Louisville. It was the first time I’d ever seen Yes live, so it was a real thrill for me – but more so for my little brother Maxx, who had never been to a rock concert and attended with me. He was dazzled, and likewise ingested the album for life.
It then proceeded to take on extended life with my son Steve, who was only five years old at the time, but learned the songs and kept them in his heart for years. (His brother Trey was more of a 90125 kid.) [As mentioned in the Introduction, this book came to be after prompting by Trey’s Facebook project of posting album covers of bands that had formed his musical thinking. One of the 20 albums he posted was 90125.]
The Yes story gets complicated after that. I would go deeper and deeper into the band as the years passed, eventually writing two books about them and starting a fan forum (see “Fragile” above). That story continues to this day.
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