Yes went really close to the edge with their fifth album. A seventeen minute long song, incomprehensible lyrics, a totally green cover, overblown egos, silly clothes etc etc. It just went to prove that if you give a bunch of hippies too much licence they'll just go really weird on you. What we didn't know at the time was that they'd go way-out weird with their next two studio albums, 'Tales from Topographic Oceans' and Relayer', and it wasn't really until the recruiting of Trevor Rabin and the album '90125' that they returned to planet Earth. 'Close to the Edge' is real airy-fairy stuff and is rightly everyone's Progressive nightmare.
On paper it looks like a turkey but in actuality it is a mighty eagle, soaring and majestic, a thing of wonder. Let's face it, the competition at the time was fierce. With the likes of Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd around you had to be good. If you could just accept the music and the lyrics for what they were rather than what you thought they ought to be, then it became a jewel to be treasured. Jon Anderson, the lead vocalist, explained the odd lyrics saying that they were meant to evoke ideas and associations of ideas rather than make logical sense. Yes, um…right. So what about the long-haired geezer in the silver cape with the heart condition? It is this album where Rick Wakeman seems most at ease with Yes and contributing fully to the music. Squire and Howe play the stringed things with deftness and agility and Bill Bruford does some strange percussive work before letting Alan White onto the drummer's throne. This is rightly everyone's Progressive dream.