218. Yes - Fragile (1971)
















Track Listing

1. Roundabout
2. Cans And Brahms
3. We Have Heaven
4. South Side Of The Sky
5. Five Per Cent Of Nothing
6. Long Distance Runaround
7. Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)
8. Mood For A Day
9. Heart Of The Sunrise

Review

More Yes, more prog loveliness and now they have Rick "The Wizard" Wakeman on the team! Yay... it all sounds slightly more pretentious and slightly more spacy. I found something pretty funny while researching this album... it was done on a shoestring budget because of all the stupid money they had to spend on Wakeman's synths.

Well, it was worth it. It is a better album than The Yes Album, it is also more fun. Roundabout is one of the great tracks of Prog, and for that alone the album is worth listening to. There are some nice Wakeman solos in the middle of the electric and acoustic guitars. Wakeman's Mad Skillz do come across as uneccesary and pretentious and the second track is a good example. Come on, Brahms!? I like it too, but how much more middle-brow can you get? And if you like Brahms so much could you get a tune that not everyone knows? Something you haven't lifted from Best Classical Music for Children and Housewives CD1?

The problem comes across again in the fact that Yes try to be the dog's bollocks while actually being just plain bollocks. They want to be all artsy and shit, failling miserably. They hit the mark on a few tracks, those which are just good music, like Roundabout or Heart Of The Sunrise... when they start playing Brahms on the synth they fail miserably. Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Higlights

1. Roundabout
2. Heart Of The Sunrise
3. Long distance Runaround
4. Mood For A Day

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In the film School of Rock, Fragile is given to the keyboardist Lawrence as he is told to listen to "Roundabout". In the movie, Jack Black tells Lawrence to listen to Rick Wakeman's piano solo on Roundabout and it would "blow the classical music right out your butt".

Roundabout: