I like your thread title, Trollheart, and your ambition in going for the discography of a band that you have mixed feelings about. I'll be following your thread with interest - which is either a gesture of encouragement or a veiled threat, I haven't quite decided which.
Regarding the first album you've reviewed, may I make plea on behalf of this track?:-
Quote:
“Every Little Thing”
Sadly, a second cover version, and by a rather obvious band to cover in 1969, the Beatles. I don’t know the song, but that kind of doesn’t matter, because where there are cover versions I’m just going to gloss over them. Musicianship is undeniable and I suppose how you cover a song is important in one way, but not to my appreciation of Yes, or the lack of it.
What I like about this: Nothing
What I don’t like about this: It’s another cover, too guitar-driven, too frenetic, too long and I’m no fan of the Beatles
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Having listened to a bunch of blues music, I'm probably more used to tolerating cover versions than you seem to be, TH. I judge a cover version by what it brings musically to the original table, and this track by Yes, scores in spades.
It could be said that Yes didn't explore very far by doing a Beatles song, but I think they chose well; an often overlooked song with a delicate melody. And this is no slavish copy of the type that many bands were offering their fans at the time. In fact, for the first 1 min 45 seconds, there's no hint of the original song, then in quick succession, Yes plays about 9 secs of
Every Little Thing, then 9 secs of
Ticket to Ride which morphs straight back into
Every Little Thing. And so it continues, with the band stamping the song with various bits of their own, like tempo changes that were not in the original, as well as constantly tweaking the original melody. They fleshed out the song with sounds that would soon to became Yes trademarks.
To me, Yes have done a great job of revitalising a song from 1964, freshening it up for a new audience, and at the same time buiding a neat bridge from the older pop of The Beatles to their own particular style of more modern prog. In that sense, it's like a bold statement of intent from Yes, and a stellar choice for their debut album.