Product Description

Music of Yes examines the work of one of the most creative groups from the progressive rock period, Yes.

Unlike most books on rock music, Music of Yes does not focus on personalities, but instead on musical structures, lyrical vision, and cultural and historical context. The author situates Yes within the utopian ideals of the sixties and the experimental trend in rock music initiated by the Beatles and also taken up by groups such as King Crimson. Martin demonstrates the power of Yes's romantic, utopian, "Blakean", ecological, multicultural, and feminist perspective, showing how this vision is developed through

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1024798 in Books
• Published on: 1996-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

From Library Journal
"Long-winded" and "pompous" are derisions routinely leveled against Yes, the kings of "avant-rock," and they often apply to this examination of the band's music by social theorist Martin (philosophy, DePaul Univ.). The author fulfills the dream of any Yes-fanatic by waxing philosophic about the group's entire recorded output, focusing on their "main sequence" of albums from The Yes Album (1971) through Going for the One (1977). Martin goes to great pains to explain the importance of Yes's "vision" and argues his own interpretations of their music and lyrics in excruciating detail. Unfortunately, he offers little external evidence to support his musings; nor is the coverage broad enough to be a useful work on the progressive rock movement as a whole. Having little appeal to those not Yes-obsessed, this book is unnecessary for all but the largest popular music collections. General readers may be more tempted by Yesstories: Yes in Their Own Words (St. Martin's, 1996).?Lloyd Jansen, Stockton-San Joaquin Cty. P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Yes fans (Yes-persons?) will flock to this paean to the world of 1960s "art rock." Yes always engendered extreme reactions: either devotion because of the group's lofty aesthetic standards or dismissal as a band of musically flatulent poseurs. Philosopher and semiotician Martin displays an affinity for Yes and tends to overanalyze pop-cultural minutiae but valuably assesses a time when capital-R Rock music was thought to matter deeply in the ultimate scheme of the universe. This makes for some tedium, but Martin's points about the artistic aspirations of '60s and '70s "progressive" music are thought-provoking. Perhaps Martin fails to adequately factor in that "what it was about Yes that allowed it to be such a force for the people who experienced the music" may have been simply the fact that its fans were teenagers when that music was new. After all, to some, the music of Little Richard ("A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom") is deeply moving and fraught with metaphysical portent. For serious rockers only. Mike Tribby

Review
Rock music historians and enthusiasts will relish this in-depth survey of the 60s group Yes, which moved from a classic rock to a visionary band in the 1970s. This differs from most music books in that it focuses upon musical structures and history rather than biographical sketches of music personalities, benefiting from an author who is both a social theorist and musician, who's been following the career of Yes for over 25 years. -- Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

Martin promises much, delivers little.
I have hardly been more disappointed with a book than I was with Bill Martin's "Music of Yes". The promise was there: that this book - written by an academic, musician, and long-time Yes fan - would fill the gap so sorely felt by the average Yes fan. Up until the publication of "Music of Yes", there had been only one book written about Yes in its then 25-year history - Dan Hedges' excellent "Yes" - and this book was only published in Britain in 1979, and long out of print.

So one could hope to understand the veritable desert that existed when Martin's book hit the scene. This would - I think - explain the rather puzzling praise "Music of Yes" has garnered in certain circles: finally, Yes fans had something - anything - to read about their favorite band. Fans somehow were able to forgive the obvious flaws of this book.

Those flaws are glaring, and have succeeded in making "Music of Yes" practically unreadable.

Let's start with the prose. Martin is a cloistered academic, vehemently pro-Marxist, and his writing style is more suited to the stuffy papers with which like-minded folks regale themselves in the name of "research". Unless one is familiar with this style of writing - pedantic, halting, self-indulgent - it is very difficult to figure out where Martin is heading in his work; even within the confines of a single paragraph! One comes away with the impression that Martin himself doesn't know his path, and often founders for something coherent to say.

Reading is therefore a chore: you have to force yourself through the book with a will. As you do so, you notice three things: 1. "Music of Yes" is entirely subjective and offers no new information about Yes - only Martin's opinion, 2. Martin has very little knowledge of music theory on which to pin his conclusions (he talks a great deal about counterpoint, but very little about anything else), and 3. His pro-Marxist leanings often get in the way and color his conclusions.

This book seems to be more a polemic about Marxism than about Yes. Martin takes every opportunity he can to not only trash capitalism, but to equate Yes' ideology with his dogma in the process (he desperately wants Yes to be about Marxism, but no matter how hard he tries to wedge them into that box, they just don't fit). Talking about the "jaded, cynical world of post-modern capitalism," he often digresses wildly from the topic at hand to deliver a whining broadside to western culture; a broadside that usually misses its mark.

He even manages to drag the Gulf War into the book! I had a difficult time figuring out what that had to do with Yes, but Martin never expostulates: his political ideals, which litter the book like cast-off socks, often hang without any visible means of support.

One comes away from this book with the impression that Martin is out of his depth in writing about music. It's too bad this attempt had to be made in the name of Yes.

FOR ONCE -- SERIOUS CRITICISM!
A book that dares to analyze the music of a major modern band against the history of music and composers may be somewhat challeging, but it certainly is a breath of fresh air next to the utter nonsense that passes for criticism. This job is in the capable hands of Bill Martin, philosopher and musician, who traces the development of Yes music through a study in theory, structure, and culture. Yes, of all bands, is most deserving of this given its aesthetic ambitions and triumphs particularly in the 70's, the decade the bulk of this book is devoted to. Many non-musician Yes fans have often wondered how this golden period fares next to Tchaikovsky's, Stravinsky's, and Sibelius' works, to name a few. Martin makes the comparisons studying the merits of Yes vis a vis notable classical composers and delivers the results. This is definately one of the most rewarding aspects of the book, since it gives readers at once an understanding of classical standards and rates Yes next to these. Fans have often felt that Yes was a cut above all rock bands in their musical vision and achievement, yet found it difficult to justify or explain this in the context of rock, where analysis is usually discouraged and fashions rule. I, for one, am not partial to the idea that explaining something good takes the excitement out of it. If you are someone who can handle emotion and thought at the same time without falling off your seat, you'll find this book a rare treat!

Yes, Squire, and "Das Kapital"
After buying the Rhino Yes re-issues, I was pleased by more than their superior sound quality -- I found myself charmed by the liner notes, written by one Bill Martin. It didn't take long until I ordered a copy of his book.

In "Music of Yes," Bill Martin makes a valuable contribution to the growing field of "serious" prog rock criticism. An analyses of their music from "Yes" to "Talk," the book focuses on "the main sequence," the series of remarkable albums from "The Yes Album" to "Going for the One." Martin's song-by-song look at these works forms the heart of the book, and his comments are generally both enlightening and enjoyable.

However, sad to say, his book as a whole suffers under several burdens. The first and foremost is Martin's political agenda. A committed Marxist, Martin can't help but see the music of Yes -- and the entire recording industry as well -- through a Marxist viewpoint. His constant tirades against capitalism, while certainly containing some thought-provoking critique, begin to grow tiresome very quickly. For the most part, the reader may just chuckle at Martin's tendentious attempts to shoehorn Yes into a Marxist mold; but when he begins to quote Mao and Lenin -- without irony! -- it's more difficult to indulge his polemical approach. Secondly, Martin feels the need to bring his topic under the full battery of modern academia. While I feel that the music of Yes is clearly worthy of critical discussion, Martin's attempt to drag Derrida, Benjamin and Kant into the analyses is often labored to the point of ridiculousness. (Though his comments regarding Blake and the English Romantics seem more on-target.) Finally, all too often, Martin comes across like yet another nostalgic and cranky Boomer, pining for the glory days of rock and roll while viewing the modern world with a school-marm's scorn. Endlessly lamenting the death of vinyl, Martin seems blissfully unaware of how silly he sounds at times, especially when he admonishes rappers with a sentence like "You can't change the world by dissin' the sisters."

If one is willing to overlook the many flaws and idiosyncrasies of the work, however, Martin does have some useful things to say, and his passion for his subject is beyond question. While I don't always agree to his interpretations of Anderson's lyrics, it's refreshing to hear them treated like something other than "nonsense." Being a bassist himself, Martin grants Chris Squire the lion's share of attention -- but then again, he makes a good case for the unique genius of Squire. While his apologies for Trevor Rabin left me baffled, I think Martin has a pretty good overall grasp on what works -- and what doesn't work -- in the important music of Yes.