Album title: Fragile
Artist: Yes
Nationality: English
Label: Atlantic
Chronology: Fourth
Grade: A
PA Rating: 4.41
Introduction: If
The Yes Album was the one to break the band, then this was the one that enabled them finally to break the USA, taking them to number four there (and seven in the UK) and bringing in the final piece to the puzzle with the addition of Rick Wakeman, a lineup that would take them through the seventies and several more albums. This album also features for the first time the distinctive Yes logo designed by Roger Dean, the cover also created by the artist who would be so linked with the band.
Tracklisting: Roundabout/ Cans and Brahms/ We Have Heaven/ South Side of the Sky/ Five Percent for Nothing/ Long Distance Runaround/ The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)/ Mood for a Day/ Heart of the Sunrise
Comments: Nice acoustic guitar to start off, and “Roundabout” would become a real Yes standard, bopping along nicely with some sweet bass from Chris Squire and Anderson’s distinctive vocal. The keyboards of new boy Rick Wakeman are all over this, sometimes blasting out in trumpeting arpeggios, sometimes just painting subtle soundscapes behind the guitar or vocal, but always there. More of those close harmony vocals Yes would become known for and identified with and by, something few other bands were doing at the time, and which would be taken up by the likes of Queen. Wakeman introduces himself on “Cans and Brahms”, one of two instrumentals on the album in which he gets to show what he can do with one of Brahms’s symphonies. Apparently he was annoyed that he was under contract to his previous record label and could not write any new material.
“We Have Heaven” starts off with a double vocal, one a repeating one which runs behind the main verse, very short but it’s made up for by the seven-minute-plus “South Side of the Sky”, driven very much on Steve Howe’s grinding guitar riffs until Wakeman’s piano comes in and takes the melody, joined later by vocalise from Anderson, Howe and Squire. Guitar then comes back in to take over and fade out the track. Pretty cool I must say. Not so cool is “Five Percent for Nothing”, thirty-odd seconds of bass, drums and a bit of organ, then “Long Distance Runaround” has a nice sort of mid paced tempo but it’s not really much to write home about, I feel, and it’s quite short, as are the next two tracks. “The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)”segues directly into the previous song and is bass and guitar-driven, probably an instrumental though not marked as one, but the next one certainly is. Okay at the very end there’s some sort of vocal from Anderson. “Mood for a Day” is an acoustic guitar number, again quite short and then we’re into the epic closer.
“Heart of the Sunrise” runs for over eleven minutes, making it, I think, the longest Yes song at that point, opening with a characteristic Bruford attack into Wakeman’s lush organ playing, making almost half of the song instrumental before Anderson comes in with a very quiet vocal, almost inaudible or at least discernable, as the song moves briefly into a kind of slow blues style, then Wakeman punches in with the organ again. And so it goes. Yes have yet, at this point, to really wow me, really take all my attention. I personally don’t get the love many of their albums get, and have yet to find a seventies one that does it for me. But no matter what I think, this was the album that finally launched Yes properly on the world, and from here there was never going to be any question of turning back, as the band went from strength to strength, towards the status of prog superstars.
Favourite track(s): I don’t hate anything, but I really don’t like anything enough to single it out.
Least favourite track(s): The Fish (no I'm not writing it all out again!), Five Percent for Nothing
Personal Rating: 3.0
Legacy Rating: 5.0
Final Rating: 4.0