Yes - 90125
On November 7, 1983, "90125", the eleventh studio album by the band "Yes", was released.
In early 1981, it seemed that the story of "Yes", one of the pioneers and giants of progressive rock of the 1970s, had come to an end. After the tour that accompanied the 1980 album "Drama," in which the duo of "The Buggles," singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes, replaced founding vocalist Jon Anderson and virtuoso keyboardist Rick Wakeman, the band members scattered in all directions. Guitarist Steve Howe and Downes teamed up to form the successful arena-rock supergroup "Asia," Horn turned to a promising music production career, while the band's veteran rhythm section, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White, remained in London in search of a new musical direction to suit the new decade. In the spring of 1981, the two attempted to form an intriguing supergroup called "XYZ" with legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, but after several rehearsals and studio recordings, the project was shelved because singer Robert Plant was not yet ready to return to the stage after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham.
The fateful turning point came when Atlantic Records CEO Phil Carson introduced Squire White to Trevor Rabin, a talented young South African guitarist, singer, keyboardist, and composer. Rabin, who had already achieved stardom in his homeland with the band Rabbitt, moved to London and then to Los Angeles, where he recorded a series of impressive demo tapes that combined catchy, tight songwriting with modern guitar virtuosity. Although RCA rejected his sketches on the grounds that they lacked hits, Squire White immediately recognized the enormous potential inherent in Rabin's material. The three decided to form an entirely new band under the name Cinema, and were joined by the original keyboardist for "Yes" from its early years, Tony Kaye, who brought with him the warm, familiar sound of the Hammond organ. The quartet's stated goal was not to revive the long prog journeys of the previous decade, but to create modern, sharper, more energetic, and more accessible rock, in which Rabin and Squire share the lead vocal duties.
When Cinema entered London's SARM East Studios in November 1982, owned by Trevor Horn, the band's former lead singer took the producer's chair. Horn, who had become one of the world's most innovative and sought-after producers, arrived at the studio armed with cutting-edge recording technology, led by the revolutionary Fairlight CMI sampling computer, alongside his brilliant team of sound engineers including Gary Langan and Julian Mendelsohn. During the recording sessions, intense creative tension developed in the studio between Horn, who pushed for extensive use of programmed synthesizers and digital effects, and Tony Kaye, who preferred live, direct playing, which led to Kaye's temporary departure and Rabin and Horn recording a significant portion of the album's keyboards. However, the real drama occurred in the spring of 1983, when the recordings were nearing completion. Squire played early mixes of the album to Jon Anderson during a chance meeting in his car in Los Angeles. Anderson was deeply impressed by the new energy of the songs, and within days he was invited into the studio to re-record the lead vocals and rewrite some of the lyrics. With the return of the band's most recognizable angelic voice, and the legal disputes surrounding the name "Cinema" resolved, the obvious decision was made to release the album under the new name of "Yes", with Kay also officially returning to the band.
The album opens with one of the most famous and influential sound signatures of the 1980s, the lead single **"Owner of a Lonely Heart". The song was born from a sharp, rhythmic guitar riff that Rabin composed while in the bathroom, and Horn immediately recognized that it was a huge hit despite Rabin's initial objections, who feared that the song was too commercial and simple. Horn and engineer Gary Langan spent weeks shaping Alan White's explosive drum sound, sampling into the Fairlight CMI system a dramatic brass riff from the 1971 funk band "Kool Is Back", which became the song's iconic signature. The combination of the dense guitar riff in the spirit of "The Police", Anderson's soaring vocals, and Rabin's dizzying guitar solo wrapped in the harmonizer effect, made the song a global phenomenon and the first and only single in the band's history to reach number one on the American Billboard Hot 100 chart.
The album immediately continues with "Hold On", a sweeping stadium rock track in which the voices of Anderson, Rabin and Squire merge into a massive multi-layered harmony over a heavy drum beat and wailing guitars. On the third track, "It Can Happen", the band manages to masterfully bridge their psychedelic and progressive roots of the late sixties with the modern production of the eighties. The song, which began as an idea of Squire, opens with Rabin's mesmerizing electric sitar playing and builds around a melodic and dominant bass line, with Anderson and Squire creating a fascinating vocal dialogue in the verses that opens into a dramatic and expansive chorus.
One of the album's musical highlights comes on the fourth track that seals the first side, "Changes". The piece opens with a complex instrumental introduction in varying scales, combining marimba, percussion and a synchronized guitar and bass riff that reminds veteran listeners of the band's supreme technical ability. After the brilliant progressive opening, Rabin enters with a powerful lead vocal in the first verses before Anderson takes the lead in the moving chorus, in a vocal dynamic that has become one of the most beautiful hallmarks of the entire record.
The album's second side opens with the short, compact instrumental "Cinema," named after the band's original incarnation. The two-minute piece is a condensed excerpt from a twenty-minute studio jam recorded by Rabin, Squire, White and Kay, and earned the band their first ever Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. It's followed by one of the decade's greatest production and vocal brilliances, the single "Leave It." Built around a complex bass-vocal pattern by Squire and Rabin, the song features breathtaking harmonic a cappella singing that was sampled, overdubbed and polished in the studio with surgical precision by Horn. The song's success was accompanied by an iconic series of eighteen different versions of music videos directed by the artist duo Godley & Creme, in which the band members were seen standing in a line and tumbling in pioneering visual effects that captured the screens of the MTV network.
The latter part of the album showcases the full creative range of the revamped lineup. "Our Song" offers a light, upbeat rock melody with rich keyboard work and a ringing guitar that evokes the spirit of a road trip, while "City of Love" dives into much heavier, darker, and more aggressive territory. The song was written by Rabin after a tense visit to New York's Harlem neighborhood, and features White's heavy, crushing drum beat, a creaky, dramatic guitar riff, and Anderson's theatrical vocals. The album closes with the magnificent epic "Hearts", the longest piece on the record, clocking in at over seven minutes. Here the band unfolds a broad tapestry of dreamy keyboards, heavenly vocal harmonies, and a moving duet between Anderson and Rabin, which develops into a wonderfully lyrical and melodic guitar solo that seals the piece with a sense of spiritual transcendence reminiscent of the band's golden age.
The radical musical change was accompanied by a complete visual change in the cover design. Instead of the surreal and detailed fantasy illustrations by artist Roger Dean that accompanied the band's albums in the 1970s, the band turned to designer Garry Mouat of Assorted iMaGes studio, who created a minimalist, silver, and futuristic cover on an Apple IIe graphics computer, considered one of the first commercial covers in history to be designed entirely digitally. The album's title itself, "90125"," was also chosen in the same modern, paper-free spirit, and was derived directly from the official catalog number assigned to the record by Atco Records in the United States, 7 90125-1.
Upon its release on November 7, 1983, "90125" became a commercial sensation on a scale the band had never known. The album soared to number five on the US Billboard 200, stayed on the chart for over a year, reached triple platinum status in the United States and sold over eight million copies worldwide, making it "Yes" best-selling album of all time. While some long-time progressive rock fans missed the twenty-minute works of the 1970s, "90125" reinvented the band for a whole generation of younger listeners, demonstrating how a bold combination of fresh songwriting talent, supreme virtuosity of playing and uncompromising technological production can transform a veteran band into the cutting edge of contemporary music.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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