In 1971, the national voting age in America was lowered to 18, President Nixon visited Communist China, Jim Morris of The Doors was found dead in his home, and the British Prog Rock band Yes was coming down from their third and first successful studio Album, “The Yes Album.”
After a successful live tour of the album, they were basically out of money and had to start recording the next album fast. During this high-stress time, their keyboardist Tony Kaye was replaced by Rick Wakeman after a disagreement about the type of keyboard to use. Tony wanted to stick to organ, and guitarist Steve Howe wanted to expand their sound with synthesizers. After just three months of recording, the album Fragile was released on November 12th, 1971 in the UK and January 4th, 1972 everywhere else. The album reached 4th on the Billboard Top LPs and 7th on the UK Album Charts.
We open the album with one of Yes’s most popular songs and one of the best off the album. You may know the first minute of the song from the “to be continued…” meme from like 2018 but trust me, there is so much more to the song than just that first minute. The whole song is hard to describe. There are about five different distinct parts to the song, ranging from fuzz bass and percussion-heavy, to slow acoustic guitar. During all of those parts, despite being full of instruments, it feels like every note played has a designated purpose and a place to be. Every member of the group has a chance to show off their abilities as a player: Chris Squire’s monster yet tasteful bass playing, new guy Rick Wakeman’s beautiful organ solo at 5:50 and arpeggios through the song, Bill Bruford’s steady beat and tastefully impactful fills, Steve Howe’s guitar playing capable of being both in the background and the front, and Jon Anderson’s great voice. It gives each player the space to show off what makes them unique and brilliant.
Rating: 18/20
Immediately after the excellent opener of “Roundabout,” we hit a brick wall with the first of 3 “solo instrumental” songs “Cans and Brahms.” This track is just a reinterpretation of “Symphony No. 4” by Johannes Brahms, played on various electric keyboards. Rick Wakeman said later to the St Martin’s Press that the track was dreadful, and I honestly share the same opinion. The keyboards are poorly mixed and constantly peak the mics, making this one not worth anyone’s time, let alone your own.
If you’re dead set on trying to enjoy this song, either pull up a fan-made recreation or get some sheet music and learn the piano.
Rating: 8/20
“We Have Heaven” is a short, lopping track in which vocalist Jon Anderson repeats the nonsensical lyrics “You tell the moon dog, you tell the march hare” over a steady rhythm guitar. The song is fun, and the rhythmic chanting of the nonsensical lyrics makes for a song that’s hard not to bob your head to; it could be a bit longer, but that’s really just a nitpick.
Rating: 14/20
“South Side of the Sky” is another long, multipart song like “Roundabout,” but is seemingly not up to the same standard set by “Roundabout.” The main riff that plays is all right, if only a bit uninteresting. The real highlight of the song is bassist Chris Squire’s always excellent bass lines. After they stop playing the main riff, it does give way to a really nice vocal harmony and piano part, but after that’s done. It’s right back to the main riff for the last three minutes, and then the song kind of starts to drag.
Rating: 11/20
What.
This is, in my opinion, THE worst track of the whole album. Another “Solo Instrumental,” this song is basically everyone playing random notes at different tempos while an organ occasionally plays a chord or two. I’m really glad this is the shortest track on the album because if it was longer than 38 seconds I don’t know what I’d do.
Rating: 4/20
“Long distance Runaround” is a much-needed pallet cleanse from the last track. With its almost Hawaiian or tropical-sounding opening, it washes the bad taste of the dreadful “Five per Cent for Nothing” right out your mouth. This is another song that really highlights Chris Squire’s tasteful and great bass playing, with his inventive counter-melody under the main riff and his synced playing with the guitar during the vocal parts just work phenomenally. The only player who might not be on full display in this song is Rick Wakeman who is just kind of playing with the guitar and chords.
Rating: 15/20
Now this track could technically be counted as an “instrumental” but it’s different enough and transitions smoothly from “Long Distance Runaround” that I won’t associate it with those other tracks. This song has a very nice laid-back funk kind of groove to it which gives it a nice contrast to the previous track and gives the occasional solos a lot of space in the song to fit.
This track is also technically the first song on the album to both have vocals and not say the title of the song in the lyrics. Granted they do say “Schindleria Praemeturus” but the real title of the song is “The Fish” so it doesn’t count in my eyes.
Rating: 13/20
“Mood for a Day” is the only good solo instrumental. The track is just a really calming and laid-back Spanish-style guitar instrumental. The song has a very Flamenco-like quality, which is explained by the type of guitar Steve Howe used for the recording, a Jose Ramirez 1A Flamenco guitar. The main melody has a very classical/baroque period feeling, while the chord progression and playing style have a very Spanish/lFamenco feel to them, causing a very interesting but far from unpleasant mixture of the two styles.
Rating: 15/20
Ok. Best song on the album time.
A searing hot simultaneous guitar, bass, and drum lines start the song before being interrupted by the organ for a brief moment and then picking back up just gets the blood rushing. Shortly after it gets your blood above 130, it goes right into a combined bass and drums solo that just keeps building and building until it eventually explodes back into the synced guitar, bass, and drum parts creating an amazing feeling of adrenaline. After about three constantly building repeats of the synced parts, it calms down to a reverb-heavy guitar melody as the vocals start. Everything up to this point was great but what’s about to follow is masterful. Instruments keep getting added to the melody, with tasteful bass and drums, and light organ soloing before it quickly does a “Five per Cent for Nothing” thing with conflicting random notes, but they actually do it well this time. They go back to the guitar melody, more electric keyboards get added, and right at 5 minutes 39 seconds, one of my favorite moments in music history happens.
‘SHARP, DISTANCE!’
If you’re not expecting it, the sudden dropping of everything except the vocals before an explosive boom of sound sends literal chills down the spine. Despite the lyrics being nonsense, you still get an intense feeling from them that’s only experienceable, and not re-countable. It continues with the guitar melody with little organ deviations for a while before going back to the initial synced bass and guitar riffs. Those two parts trade for a bit before eventually cooling down and going back to that kinda “Five per Cent for Nothing” thing while doing a fake fade out before going into a very rhythmic piano and bass part that also builds up the instruments while also resetting every once and again with a repeat of a riff or line from the previous section. It once again returns to the guitar melody, this time played on piano, and does another two ‘SHARP, DISTANCE!’ for good measure. After this, it goes right back into the opening riff for a while before doing another fake-out ending. After about eight seconds of silence, another version of “We Have Heaven” starts to play while fading out actually to end the song.
I don’t know if you could feel my love and admiration for this song dripping from the body of text, but I think I made my point clear enough.
Rating: 19/20
As a whole package, Yes’ Fragile is not my favorite album of all time. but if you chop it up into its individual parts, it contains some of the best-recorded music of the last 50 years. Despite how young each member of the band was at the time, there was an absolute talent on display from every player on every track, even in the solo instrumentals. If they had only released the first and last track, I don’t think it would be the same though, the out-of-place and bad solo instrumentals kind of elevate the great tracks into being excellent tracks by being so bad.
