I remember there being a lot of threads on "Yes", but I guess they were all cleaned up.

I was curious about Yes' follow-up to "Close to the edge", "Tales of Topographic Oceans". I like the songs 'Siberian Khatru' and and 'And you and me' from CttE a lot, but I don't like the title track, it's too random and structureless. I gave ToTO a quick listen a couple of days ago, and it seemed like this album was more like CttE (song) in terms of structure.

To anyone who has the album: is this correct?

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...you're comparing TFTO to rapmetal. Good god man. I swear, I think, 95% of your posts are negative. Aside from Joy Division and Sonic Youth, I can't remember anything else that you do like.

nah...some of the ELP stuff was way more pretentious than this.

At least Yes could write their own music without having to lift classical pieces note for note.

As much as I disliked TOTO, it doesn't compare to the worst ELP. Nothing Yes did was as bad as almost all of Works, for example or even Love Beach (I still remember that album cover ). But in ELP's defense, there were times when that pretentiousness had a payout - Tarkus and their s/t debut were fine albums, albeit a bit stiff sounding 3 decades later.

As for TOTO, it was the first truly bad Yes album. Certainly it was trying to take the title track from CTTE a step further, but it couldn't get out of its own way most of the time. Some really good individual performances are found here, and Steve Howe has said some of his own favorite work was on this album. However, this is one of those cases where you don't have to drop the egg to know it's going to break. All you need to know is "four songs, four sides", and remind yourself that this is a ROCK album. Unfortunately for me, I paid money to have this verified. I DROPPED that damn egg...

Thanks, guys.
Well your reply helped me decide that I'm not going to buy that album, Seerix. It's too bad though, I liked the idea of an ambitious double-album full of memorable songs like 'Siberian Khatru' or 'And you and I'.

Man, as much as I dislike trying to dissuade people from what they spend their moeny on, I was being as truthful as I could be

But unfortunately, TOTO is not at all up to par with side 2 of CTTE...

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I've never really understood the hostility to "Tales"; yes it doesn't contain any traditional pop songs, yes it's full of extended instrumental explorations and changes in mood and style, but I find that admirable, personally. You have to remember that these are musicians who were consciously trying to adapt the rock/pop format to classical music, and I think they succeeded, particularly on this album. It was Yes at their most uncompromising, and I think, most beautiful, because it's not as if they intentionally made a "difficult" album (( and trust me, given quite a bit of the material that their peers were putting out at the time, this is a very accessible release )). The entire thing is filled with sections that are immediate, melodic, catchy, and rocking, even if they're broken up into short segments padded with more exploratory ones. If you don't care for the works in large chunks, try to digest them as shorter songs spliced together, because there's a lot of great material in there if you care to look.

Honestly, it's one of the best progressive albums of the '70s, easily. Hell, the instrumental arrangements alone would garner that sort of label from me (( the keyboard work, in particular, is perhaps the best use of the instrument in a progressive setting during the '70s )), but the vocal arrangements are Yes at their best, in my opinion. There's more variety, instrumental interplay, and complex, shifting melodies than in previous Yes works, and I think the whole thing succeeds for what it wanted to be, and frankly, I really love this record.

Not that my opinion matters of course. I'm just a lunatic prog-hole anyway, so what would I know.

I guess my tastes just aren't "refined" enough to dislike things so easily, it's all just sound after all. I enjoy anything if it's original.