90125

I was very excited about this album when it first came out. This was a brand new Yes for the eighties. The songs are great, Jon Anderson sounds fantastic. This made me feel proud to be a Yes fan. All that being said, I don’t think this album has stood the test of time that well. It is a very 80’s sounding album. While I still love the songs, I find that there is not too much below the surface. There seems less to go back to and rediscover. Still, this is a great album and was a very important album for Yes.

A very fine pop album.

90125 won't make fans of Tales from Topographic Oceans happy, but it does mark the highwater mark of Yes' post Close to the Edge albums. Sure, it still sounds of its time with the Trevor Horn production and 80's guitars Trevor Rabin brought with him, but the songwriting is very strong--there's no bad songs to be found. There's Owner of a Lonely Heart, of course, but the rest (Leave It, Cinema, City of Love, Hearts) are all quite good and even quite heavy compared to Yes' earlier material. The only drawback is the lack of subtlety in the music, as everything is cranked up to 11, but they pull it off for this album. And the resulting tour proved that this lineup could play both the old and many of the new songs as well as Wakeman and Howe. This definitely alienated fans of Tales from Topographic Oceans, but it also brought in a second generation of fans to Yes' music that saved them from becoming another 70's rock dinosaur band, at least for a few years.

In 1982, Yes members Chris Squire and Alan White wanted to come back together to start a new band. They heard about a great guitarist named Trevor Rabin from South Africa and wanted to start this band together. Rabin had an album he wanted to release, but needed the right members to do it. It would be suggested that Jon Anderson sing on the record. He returned excited for this album and he brought with him Tony Kaye, who was an original member of the band. It's interesting that 3 of the 5 members who played on this record were on the first 3 records of Yes' discography. With the band being mostly Yes now, they all agreed to go under that name and they produced 90125, which has sold up to 10 million copies today. With Trevor Horn as the producer and the massive hit, "Owner of a Lonely Heart", it propelled Yes into success they never experienced before. This album brought Yes to a commercial audience and made a more straight rock band! This album is the best of the best, with not one bad song on here!