Looking Back - On The Ocean

I practised quite a bit of the old teeth gritting whilst in England and restricted my purchases of CDs to what any reasonable person would regard as the bare minimum. Evidence of this is the fact I didn’t buy a single John Martyn CD despite there being plenty on offer, including the wonderful Live at Leeds, and despite the provocation of having listened to the great man at length whilst dining with Simon and Judy.

But I wasn’t able to resist shelling out for Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes. This isn’t because it ranks as one of my favourite pieces, however. In fact, I hardly know it all. When it came out I was a fairly big fan of the band, though I never rated Close To The Edge quite so highly as others did much preferring Fragile and The Yes Album. Also Tales was way too expensive for my pocket. I heard it, or a fair bit of it, once at a friend’s house, didn’t find it terribly stirring, read a number of tepid reviews and decided it was not for me. After that my musical interests drifted away from prog rock generally. In recent years I have found myself thinking over why I felt out of love with groups like Yes and became particularly intrigued by what Tales was actually like, especially since it has, if anything, accumulated more critical flak than anything else by the band over the years, becoming a bit of a by-word for prog excess.

I’ve listened to it a couple of times now and really don’t know what all the fuss was about. Musically it’s unexceptional. It sounds like fairly good though not brilliant Yes of the period. (There’s nothing as exciting as Roundabout, for example.) Pleasant to listen to if you enjoy listening to musicians who can genuinely play, and not much of the aimless noodling and filler I was half expecting.

So why has it attracted such opprobrium over the years, and, indeed, when it was released? My guess is that the audience expected too much. An album full of Roundabouts. And the group didn’t help matters by being so ambitious in terms of the sheer scope of the thing. It’s curious just how often musicians are drawn towards the expansive epic when their talents really lie in shorter, crisper forms. But I don’t see much wrong with ambition if it results in something that can be listened to and enjoyed – and I have enjoyed the voyage, now that I can afford to go on it. Will sail again, soon.