The interesting thing for me about CttE is how, besides the themes of enlightenment and such, the structures of the three songs themselves are utterly impeccable and full of little nuances beyond the technicality involved. The title track itself reminds me a lot, for example, of those creation stories you read about in various mythology: it spends a few minutes burbling in chaos and dissonance at the beginning before coming together in a big "eureka" moment around 2:54 or so. Or the layered guitar outro in Siberian Khatru, etc. etc.

Hence, what makes CttE special and untouchable for me are not the lyrical themes, execution nor even the musical themes, but the bloody genius of how each track seems extensively whole and self-referential despite their long lengths. Much like some of the best classical music centuries ago, the architecture and coherence that's gone into this album is simply flabbergasting to me even now. Especially when you compare it to a lot of today's standards in prog. and songwriting on the whole. xD

^Brilliant post, Anty :D I know what you mean!

I'm a big fan, and yes since the 70s and made his concert to see them do this song again and again had the opportunity. The best album of close the edge from Yes, it's my favourite and in more than 35 years has been a mainstay of progressive rock.

The neat thing is that while the songs on CTTE are longish, the album itself is just 38 minutes, which makes for a rather quick and breezy listen with not a second of wasted space, particularly in an era of releases that are more CD length and padded accordingly. I've noticed shorter albums returning in the last few years and that is a welcome trend to me.

Yeah, my opinion is if you are going to make an album longer than an hour every single minute better be pure gold. Very few bands have pulled this off for me. I really do prefer 30-40 minutes of awesome music to 75 minutes of average crap.

I had a magic moment one day ....... I was playing the title track to my daughter and when it came to the quiet bit in the middle we both said ......

'It sounds like water dripping off a leaf in a rainforest'!

This is indeed such an amazing album.

Close to the Edge has always been one of those albums that I just knew was brilliant. To shed some light on that, I got this album along with an Aerosmith Greatest Hits album and Tool's 10,000 Days for my XXth birthday, and I immediately was in love with all three. Then I ditched Aerosmith. And soon after I considered Tool's Lateralus to be much more profound on every level, and I swayed away from 10,000 Days too. But it didn't matter how many other Yes albums I checked out, or even contemporary artists of Yes -- Close to the Edge always sounded bloody brilliant. Objectively now, sure, I can find a few faults that 'bug' me, but it's nothing that could ever jepoardize its position in my eyes. Its structure (both as a whole and in its 3 smaller parts) is mindbogglingly air-tight. The way that "Close to the Edge" juggles such intensities and such calms, constantly pushing back and forth is honestly not that easy.

It truly is written with the intent and grace of a symphony; The recurring themes, the different sections (allegros, andantes, etc.), the dynamics/subtleties, and the overall feeling of a massive statement. The ambitiousness of this album can not be overstated, and the fact that it follows through on those ambitions is surprising enough...

edit: When it comes to prioritizing quality, make sure to get this one in at least 320 kbps. Yes, you can appreciate it if it were at a lower bitrate and some people find audiophiles like myself a bit overbearing... But some of the nuances here just won't be found otherwise.

^^flac or nothing. i try to get them for all of my faves.

Exactly! I'll admit for some albums it defeats the purpose (Disintegration Loops) but consider me a nitpicker.