Okay then Briks and powerstars: you've had your fun but it's time for the return of the original and best. Accept no substitutes! 
Title: Close to the edge
Artiste: Yes
Year: 1972
Chronological position: Fouth album
Previous experience of this artiste?: Mostly later stuff: “Big generator”, “Union”, “90125”, that sort of thing. I've always found seventies Yes overlong and meandering and boring...
Why is this considered a classic? I think it was the first time Yes had written an album with so few tracks and two of these being so long, and I guess it captured the zeitgeist of the seventies and prog in general. But I'm not convinced personally.
My thoughts
One minute (or thereabouts in) ---- Good, great, bad, meh, still waiting or other? Good but not blowing me away
One track in --- (Considering track one is over eighteen minutes long this would be a long time to wait to form some sort of impression, so I'll go for about five minutes into the title track) Good
Halfway through --- Great
Finished --- Great
Comments: You guys have been bugging me to listen to this almost as much as you did about Slayer, so here it is. I'm already on record as saying I don't like seventies Yes much but we'll see if this changes my mind. Nice soft opening with birdsong and nature sounds (you'd expect that of Jon Anderson I guess) then you can see where bands like Spock's Beard and IQ got their inspiration as the mammoth title track gets going. I hear guitar and bass phrases that would resurface a decade later on “90125”. Piano part at the tenth minute is really nice, but sort of the first time I've really sat up and taken notice so far. Seems to be part of
Part III: I get up I get down? Superb organ solo from Wakeman. Now I'm interested.
Nice guitar opening to “And you and I”, very Steve Hackettish. I of course have always loved Anderson's voice, just something about earlier Yes albums has never quite clicked with me and I don't know why. Maybe it's because the stuff I heard from them so far was typically shorter and less convoluted than this. But then, I'm well known as a lover of long epic songs. So where does the problem lie? It's the same with IQ: they should be a band I'm totally into, and yet every time I listen to them I end up losing interest or occasionally falling asleep! This is turning out to be good, but I'm absolutely not blown away as everyone expected me to be, asking myself why didn't I listen to this twenty years ago or anything. Unless it gets amazing in the next short while I don't see myself listing it as one of my favourite prog albums, unlike it would seem ninety-nine percent of you.
Favourite track(s): Well there are only three so I can't really pick but
Close to the edge III: I get up I get down, Close to the edge IV: Seasons of Man; And you and I is pretty solid all the way through and the last track is good too, so not much not to like other than
Least favourite track(s): Close to the edge I and II
Final impression --- Yeah really quite good but not the revelation I expected it to be, and if people think I'm going to be banging my head against a wall
saying why didn't I listen to this sooner they'll be waiting. I certainly see why it's a classic but I don't see why it's considered THE classic??
Do I feel, at the end, A) I wish I had listened to this sooner
B) I'm sorry I bothered
C) I might end up liking this
D) Have to wait and see
E) Bit underwhelmed; was ok but a classic?
F) Definitely enjoyed it, but again would I consider it a classic?
Mixture of E and F I guess: hard to put into words. I do like it, I see it's a classic but it would not be top of my list, ever. The old problem with seventies Yes continues, it would seem.