Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Yes
Label: Atlantic Records
Release: 1972
Running time: 41:13
Rating: 5/5
One of the pioneering bands in rock history shocked everyone with the follow-up to ‘The Yes Album’ (1971), since many expected an equally hard or even harder record, because all the bands were competing back then over who would invent the heavier sound, as the hunt for a heavy rock sound was the trend of the day. ‘Fragile’, as the album’s very name tells you, is the exact opposite of the trends of the time, and just by being born it became the new trend everyone chased. So where did yet another revolution in rock music come from?
The first thing that jabs your ears in the sonic picture of the new Yes is Squire’s rattling, classic ‘Rickenbecker’ bass tone, which Squire himself dreamed up. A brand-new, supersonic bass sound, one nobody had surely ever heard before. With the production of ‘Fragile’, this sound becomes the band’s real trademark, and it stays that way to this day. The bass line, wound up almost without any ‘distortion’, crackles and cuts through the concrete of every single song. In them it creates extraordinary dynamic contrasts between the instruments and the moods. On ‘Fragile’, Yes served up a specially forged hit called Roundabout, which finally brought them the commercial breakthrough they’d been craving on US soil! At heart, Roundabout is a rock’n’roll song that Yes deliberately stretched out in a progressive way. Its compact core is gorgeously interwoven with jazzy leaps and neoclassical flourishes from Steve Howe and the band’s newcomer Rick Wakeman. This masterpiece is a textbook example of fusing the charm of free exploration through musical improvisation with a basic, adrenaline-fueled rocker form. The latter gives the song, despite all the experimenting, the dose of listenability and compactness that every hit demands. The band’s second remarkable gain is the integration of keyboardist Rick Wakeman. If ‘The Yes Album’, given the central role of its outstanding guitar work, is really a Steve Howe album, then on ‘Fragile’ the quintet finally works, for the first time in its existence, with every individual on equal footing in expression. So Wakeman on ‘Fragile’ is finally an equal counterweight to Howe, since Wakeman’s predecessor, Tony Kaye, simply couldn’t keep up with Howe. Both Wakeman and Howe are musical oddballs and total one-offs! They’re perfectly compatible with each other and so conjure up a singular magic in the conversation between keyboards and guitar, which was a real revolution and a model for the bands that came after. Intricately chosen lines weave together and glide effortlessly into one another, totally unpredictable, sometimes even deliberately goofy (the song America, an outstanding take on P. Simon’s original, or Long Distance Runaround). With Wakeman the band gained in virtuosity, and Rick paved the way for an ever-unpredictable guitar and bass. With Wakeman, the band was thus offering even more music.
In Heart of the Sunrise, Squire, Wakeman and Howe build a tense, dramatic atmosphere right from the start, which Anderson’s distinctive high vocal then catapults straight into the sky with a chosen motif as the song goes on. Joining it on ‘Fragile’, equal in form and expression, is the song South Side of the Sky. Both songs are fragmented and fragile at their core. The motifs in them simply can’t settle in your ears, and that’s exactly what’s so thrillingly attractive for all the true music gourmets. That leaves five more songs. Each of them introduces one of the members of Yes, who is also its author. The tracks are varied, and in each of them one of the instruments in the Yes lineup plays an integral role. If we single out just one of them for sheer expressive power, Mood for a Day, an outstanding instrumental by Steve Howe on acoustic guitar, it’s played so delicately that you can get the feeling the guitar wants to break free from Steve’s physical body at that very moment and simply fly away. With ‘Fragile’, the band was now radiating even more creative energy and freedom in its expression than ever before. So fragile, witty, goofy, unpredictable, in places charged with energy, in places extremely sophisticated. The instruments are played precisely, under total control, yet with a touch of pure spontaneity.
‘Fragile’, in all its experimental unrestraint, really does bring fragility to the songs (and to the record as a whole), because the varied motifs in them are positively boiling over. They aren’t slotted into boxes by formula, either; instead they capture a full measure of improvising and constant exploration. It’s hard to find two identical transitions. It’s incredible how harmoniously the five of them breathe together. For 1972, a collection of wildly unrestrained sequences of tonal lines. Literally jaw-dropping and unhinged, yet at the same time so different and shamelessly good. ‘Fragile’, a classic monument of progressive rock, is thus the first of the great Yes records. With it, Yes entered the most fruitful period of their creative life.
Lineup
Jon Anderson – vocals
Chris Squire – bass guitar and backing vocals
Rick Wakeman – keyboards
Bill Bruford – drums
Steve Howe – guitar and backing vocals
Production
Eddie Oford
Tracklist
1. Roundabout (8:29)
2. Cans And Brahms (1:35)
3. We Have Heaven (1:30)
4. South Side Of The Sky (8:04)
5. Five Percent For Nothing (0:35)
6. Long Distance Runaround (3:33)
7. The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus) (2:35)
8. Mood For A Day (3:57)
9. Heart Of The Sunrise (10:34)
