Yes

At a time when almost every song lasted three minutes, Yes made twenty-minute pieces. Where others went for the easy hook, they assembled enormous structures, with movements, time changes, cosmic lyrics and solos that seemed never to end. They were among the great masters of progressive rock, the current that decided rock could also be as ambitious and monumental as a symphony. And yet the only number one that bears their name was recorded, strictly speaking, by another band.

A sound like a spaceship

Yes was born in London in 1968, with Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, Tony Kaye and Peter Banks, and with a clear idea: to take rock to another level of sophistication. Anderson's high, almost angelic voice floated above everything. Squire's bass — the only man present in every line-up, from the first day until his death — did not accompany: it led, with a bright, melodic sound that made him one of the most imitated bass players in the genre. And through their ranks passed Rick Wakeman, who came and went four times in thirty years and played surrounded by synthesizers like a man operating a space console, cape included.

Their seventies records — Fragile, from 1971, and Close to the Edge, from 1972 — are monuments of the genre. "Roundabout" showed everything they could do and even slipped into number thirteen on the American chart, which for a band of ten-minute songs is no small matter. Even the wrapping was part of the trip: Roger Dean not only painted those fantastical floating landscapes on the covers, he also designed the bubble-lettering logo the band has used since 1972 and the sets for the tours. Listening to Yes was entering another world, and the door was drawn.

The borrowed name

Over the years progressive rock went out of fashion; punk arrived and then electronic pop, and twenty-minute songs began to sound dinosaurian. Yes did not reinvent itself: it broke up, in 1981.

What came afterwards is one of the strangest stories in rock, and it is almost never told properly. Chris Squire and the drummer Alan White put together a new project with the South African guitarist Trevor Rabin and with Tony Kaye, and they called it Cinema. There, Rabin brought in the song that would change everything: "Owner of a Lonely Heart", short, sharp, modern, with a catchy riff and cutting-edge production by Trevor Horn. Jon Anderson joined at the end of the process, when the record was already well under way. And then, in June 1983, the Atlantic executives suggested what was obvious from a commercial point of view: that Cinema be called Yes.

The record came out as 90125 and the song reached number one in the United States in January 1984, the only one in their entire history. In the United Kingdom, where audiences knew them better, it barely reached number twenty-eight. So the line that gets repeated — that the kings of complexity proved they could also write a radio hit — is a pretty one and it is not accurate. What happened was something else: a new band, with a new guitarist and a song of his own, took the name of an old band because the name sold. That the result is superb does not change how it came about.

The two bands called Yes

The confusion reached its extreme at the end of the eighties, when Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe got together to record on their own. The problem was a legal one: the legal owner of the name "Yes" was Squire, so they had to go out as Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe and tour under the banner "An Evening of Yes Music Plus". Squire's faction sued, alleging trademark confusion.

There was no verdict: there was a merger. The two halves came together on a record, Union, in 1991, and on an eight-member tour. It is the most Yes ending possible for a lawsuit: instead of a court deciding who the band was, the band became both things at once.

The foundations

Chris Squire died on 27 June 2015 in Phoenix, aged 67, of an acute erythroid leukaemia he had been diagnosed with barely six weeks earlier and that he himself announced publicly. He had been the backbone, the only one present in every stage, and his departure genuinely marked a before and an after. Alan White, the band's longest-serving drummer — almost fifty years, and before that he had played with John Lennon — died on 26 May 2022. The band goes on; the foundations do not.

What to remember

Yes proved to the world that rock could be as ambitious as classical music, that a song could be an entire journey and that technique, well used, also moves people. They built cathedrals of sound while others made huts, they entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 and they left a handful of records that are still studied.

And they also left a less epic and more interesting lesson about how this business works: that a name can outlive the band that carried it, and be placed again over different people, with different songs, because on a record sleeve a name is also an asset. Between "Roundabout" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" almost the whole history of rock will fit. What will not fit is the idea that exactly the same group made them both.

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Sources

Yes is a British progressive rock band formed in London in 1968 by Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Bill Bruford (drums), Tony Kaye (keyboards) and Peter Banks (guitar). Chris Squire was the only musician present in every line-up and on every studio album until his death. Rick Wakeman joined in 1971 and had four spells in the group. "Fragile" was released on 12 November 1971 and "Close to the Edge" in September 1972; "Roundabout" reached number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100. Roger Dean produced the covers from "Fragile" onwards, designed the group's logo in 1972 and tour sets. The band broke up in 1981; Chris Squire and Alan White then formed the project Cinema alongside the guitarist Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was written mainly by Trevor Rabin, with shared credits for Jon Anderson, Chris Squire and Trevor Horn, who also produced the album; Anderson joined the project at an advanced stage. In June 1983, at the suggestion of Atlantic Records executives, Cinema adopted the name Yes. The album "90125" was released in November 1983 and the single reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on 21 January 1984, remaining there two weeks; in the United Kingdom it reached number twenty-eight. It is the group's only American number one. At the end of the nineteen-eighties, Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe recorded together under the name Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, as they did not hold the rights to the name "Yes", owned by Chris Squire; the trademark confusion litigation was settled with the reunion of both factions on the album "Union" (1991) and an eight-member tour. Chris Squire died on 27 June 2015 in Phoenix, Arizona, aged 67, of an acute erythroid leukaemia diagnosed in May of that year. Alan White, the group's drummer between 1972 and 2022, died on 26 May 2022 at the age of 72. Yes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Variety, The Washington Post, Ultimate Classic Rock and other coverage.