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Close to the Edge is 50

Fuller

pfm Member
Close to the Edge by Yes released this day in 1972.
My vinyl copy from back in the day getting a rare spin now and enjoying it very much.
Anyone on here purchasers back in the ‘70 s and still loving the album?
 
Good lord, was it really that long ago? I was at the first live performance at Crystal Palace Bowl (which I have found out was on Sept 2nd.) A gloriously warm, sunny day.

I still quite like the album, although I have to admit it’s a little overblown and overstretched. But there’s some great Mellotron on it, which is of course the main thing.
 
Yes indeed Rick Wakeman played some memorable keyboards on the album.
Four very talented musicians plus Jon Anderson’s distinctive vocals and lyrics made for a heady mix.
 
I bought this shortly after it came out and it remains to this day my favourite Yes album - closely followed by Fragile & Relayer.
Haven't played any vinyl for years but very recently picked up the CD 2nd hand for peanuts - still sounds great.:cool:
 
It’s the best Yes album in my view. I only bought a vinyl version a couple of years ago but had the original Yessongs triple vinyl from 1973 which contains all of this album plus a number of their early best tracks. As a school kid it seemed the best value way of getting the Yes best of…

I also got the Steven Wilson remix - which I enjoyed but I prefer the original.

There is a re engineered best of that era’s live shows which mirrors Yessongs - Highlights from Seventy-two released in 2014 on cd - which is really good.

Bruford’s last album with Yes was CttE as the late Alan White joined just before their US tour and had to learn their somewhat tricksy rhythms on the plane…
 
The popular YouTube 'reaction' genre has a very good one for Close to the Edge. He decides it is the best song ever.

 
I have an early issue on LP that I picked up in immaculate condition a very long time ago.

It's one of the few that I recorded to CDR and usually play that.
It's my favourite by Yes, in all its wonderful, proggy excess. Second for me is Fragile.
 
I'm a second-generation Yes fan, becoming aware of them as when still at school in the early '90s.

For me the music was awe-inspiring, unlike the (perceived) dross my contemporaries were listening to (Deacon Blue? For me that was old people's music).

Close To The Edge was the first Yes album I bought. Unfortunately, it was not to be the first one I heard.

Upon returning from the local branch of Our Price with the prized cassette, I opened the case.....and found a copy of Iron Maiden's Killers inside.

I had nothing against Maiden, but this wouldn't do. Upon my return to the shop, they could not find the CTTE tape. Bugger.

The Yes Album ended up being my first one, then Fragile (I can still remember where I was and what I thought when Roundabout kicked in for the first time in my life).

Then came Close To The Edge.

Just wonderful, superlative music. I still think so today. It has stood the test of time very well.
Something so positive, a means of ascension to a better place.

It is (as Chris Squire wrote in another song) "An ever-opening flower."


Fast forward about 10 years.
In 2001, I saw Yes perform with a small orchestra. They opened with Close To The Edge.
My tears started to fall towards the end. All the meaning was still there to me, this was the zenith.

After the show I met Jon Anderson and Chris Squire, both of whom were really nice and chatty, Jon particularly so.

I haven't the time or present inclination to describe (with justice) the music as I see it, the lyrics, the playing.

If you haven't heard this (or seen it), this is very much worth listening to (they will play, just not on the page):

The Symphonic Tour version of Close To The Edge.




 
One of my top ten albums.

Back in time when I was a teenager a friend borrowed my copy ,a first pressing, which I never got back.

I do have a rather nice Japanese pressing though.
 
Close to the Edge by Yes released this day in 1972.
My vinyl copy from back in the day getting a rare spin now and enjoying it very much.
Anyone on here purchasers back in the ‘70 s and still loving the album?

Bought the LP on the day of release, and have it to this day (it actually got a spin a couple of weeks ago).

Subsequently bought the 2003 expanded and remastered CD, and the later Steve Wilson mix.

Counting the individual tracks from both official and, er, non-official "live" offerings, I have:

Close to the Edge - 9 versions
And You And I - 15 versions
Siberian Khatru - 10 versions

I saw the current incarnation perform the whole album in Birmingham on my 68th birthday in June (2022).

I suppose that makes me something of a fan……

… or maybe just a boring old fart!
 
Close to the Edge is one my all time favourite rekuds. I wore out the vinyl in the '70's and so found listening to it frustrating, thusly I forwent the pleasure for (too many) years. Why didn't I buy another copy? I hear you cry. Dunno; should have.

It was nevertheless one of the first CD's I bought in the early '90's, and proved an utter waste of time. Dynamically compressed to shit; flat and listless. And as for fidelity. . . Pah!

When I eventually return to a decent hi-fi system (hope springs eternal :)) this will once again be one of the first rekuds I'll be buying.

John
 
I liked it a lot as a school kid in the ‘70s. I was quite the Yes fan for a while and still have a few albums. With this one I really can’t handle Wakeman’s church organ towards the end of the title track. The whole thing just crashes into a wall and dies at that point for me. He did it again on Going For The One; great title track, terrible rest of album!

PS If going for CD avoid the bog-standard ‘90s/2000s remasters at all costs, the ones with the bonus tracks. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking but they sound horrific IMHO. Barely recognisable. Getting very hard to find nice original UK vinyl. I’d quite like a mint UK 1st press of this one as it was part of my early teens despite the bloody church organ, but no way would I pay the going rate.
 
Some of the '80s cd pressings are meant to be good. The Barry Diament mastering of Close To The Edge from that time period.

Generally Steven Wilson did a good job, but he ****ed about with the levels of Chris Squire's bass parts- unforgiveable in my opinion. The bass mixed up in the tracks is a core of the Yes sound. Often it seems that they have been reined in.

In Siberian Khatru during the harpsichord breakdown, even the tone of the bass is not as on the original record.

I will go out on a limb and say that his stereo mix of Tales From Topographic Oceans is the best realisation of that music...
 
Some of the '80s cd pressings are meant to be good.

Yes, the first Atlantic issues with the silver-face and red/black outer ring sound very good to my ears and seem favoured by the Hoffmans. I’d still take UK original vinyl every time, but they sound like the same albums. The remasters don’t. I’ve never heard the Wilson stuff and it doesn’t interest me. I really don’t believe in altering history.
 
I liked it a lot as a school kid in the ‘70s. I was quite the Yes fan for a while and still have a few albums. With this one I really can’t handle Wakeman’s church organ towards the end of the title track. The whole thing just crashes into a wall and dies at that point for me. He did it again on Going For The One; great title track, terrible rest of album!

PS If going for CD avoid the bog-standard ‘90s/2000s remasters at all costs, the ones with the bonus tracks. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking but they sound horrific IMHO. Barely recognisable. Getting very hard to find nice original UK vinyl. I’d quite like a mint UK 1st press of this one as it was part of my early teens despite the bloody church organ, but no way would I pay the going rate.

Bloody church organ?
How dare you sir! ;) I love that; so damned majestic.

Just checked the CD I have; mastered by Barry Diament at Atlantic Studios, manufactured in Germany [0 7567-81532-2 8]
Reading the blurb inside - 'CD . . . offers the best possible sound reproduction. . .' On the back of the case - '. . . because of the high resolution - snip - can reveal limitations of the source.'

Ya gotta larf.

John
 
Just checked the CD I have; mastered by Barry Diament at Atlantic Studios, manufactured in Germany [0 7567-81532-2 8]

That’s the good one. Bare in mind these early CDs aren’t brickwalled/hyped, so if it sounds small or thin it is likely down to your listening to it 10db or so quieter than the last CD you played!
 
Good lord, was it really that long ago? I was at the first live performance at Crystal Palace Bowl (which I have found out was on Sept 2nd.) A gloriously warm, sunny day.

I still quite like the album, although I have to admit it’s a little overblown and overstretched. But there’s some great Mellotron on it, which is of course the main thing.
That was a great day out
 
Some of the '80s cd pressings are meant to be good. The Barry Diament mastering of Close To The Edge from that time period.

Yes, the first Atlantic issues with the silver-face and red/black outer ring sound very good to my ears and seem favoured by the Hoffmans. I’d still take UK original vinyl every time, but they sound like the same albums. The remasters don’t. I’ve never heard the Wilson stuff and it doesn’t interest me. I really don’t believe in altering history.

Just as I was writing. . . As mentioned, the CD I have is the one of which you speak. Maybe Mr Diament re-re-mastered from another source for a re-re-issue, because the CD I have when played via different CD players into a decent NAIM rig - CDS3 (with XPS? I think), 252 with supercap, 300's, SBL's - sure sounded flat and lifeless to me. (And that would be with the volume cranked :D).

John
 


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