It was never meant to be a Yes album. It was meant to be the debut of a new band called Cinema, built around a South African guitarist nobody had heard of, playing songs he had written for himself. Then Chris Squire ran into Jon Anderson at a party in Los Angeles, played him the tapes, and the record company did the rest. The guitarist objected. He was overruled. The album went on to become the best-selling record Yes ever made and gave them the only American number one of their career.

The short version

90125 is Yes’s eleventh studio album, released in November 1983 on Atco — the title is simply the catalogue number, not a Beverly Hills postcode. It was produced by Trevor Horn, formerly of the Buggles and, briefly, the singer of Yes on Drama. The line-up is Jon Anderson on vocals, Chris Squire on bass, Trevor Rabin on guitars, keyboards and vocals, Tony Kaye on keyboards, Alan White on drums. Nine tracks. Owner of a Lonely Heart went to number one in America, the only Yes single ever to do so; the instrumental Cinema won the 1984 Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. It reached number 5 in the States, number 16 in Britain, and is certified triple platinum in the US.

It was supposed to be called Cinema

Yes fell apart in 1981. Steve Howe and Geoff Downes went off to form Asia with John Wetton and Carl Palmer; Horn moved into the production booth; Squire and White were left holding the pieces, briefly entertained a project with Jimmy Page under the name XYZ, and got nowhere. Then Trevor Rabin appeared — a young South African from a classical family with a folder of finished songs and no band to play them. Add Tony Kaye, the original Yes keyboard player who had been out since 1971, and you have Cinema, whose recordings began in November 1982. Then Squire met Anderson at a party, Atlantic’s Phil Carson encouraged him to play the tapes, and Anderson joined in April 1983 for the last few weeks of sessions. Carson was blunt about why the name changed: a new band is difficult to sell. Rabin was against it, not wanting to be heard as Steve Howe’s replacement. He came round when he heard what Anderson did with the material.

The sound

Nothing like any Yes record before it, and that is entirely the point. Rabin is the heart of this album and Horn is its brain: arena-sized guitar chords, gated drums, synthesiser layers, hooks where the suites used to be. Where the seventies band conjured everything themselves in the room, this is studio craft — sampling, a Synclavier, and a producer who had just made hits for ABC and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, deciding what the record would be. Kaye contributes textures but Rabin plays most of the keyboards, which caused exactly the trouble you would expect. Anderson’s voice is the one thing carried over intact, and it does more work than it looks: put that voice on top and pop-rock becomes recognisably Yes. Songs are four to five minutes. Nobody goes anywhere near a topographic ocean.

Reading up on British prog? The books go deeper →

The songs

Owner of a Lonely Heart began as a ballad on a solo demo Rabin cut at home in London in 1980. The band were unconvinced; Horn insisted they needed a hit, replaced Rabin’s keyboards with a Synclavier, overrode Alan White to get a sample onto it, and built the whole thing around that stuttering guitar riff over a reggae lilt. It is very probably the first rock song ever to use sampling. Hold On is the big rock track. It Can Happen sweeps. Changes runs six minutes and is the closest thing here to the old band, with Rabin singing several of the parts. Cinema opens side two: two minutes, cut down from a twenty-minute piece with the working title Time, driven by White’s drumming and Squire’s fretless bass, and it took the Grammy. Leave It is quirky, funky and stacked with voices. Our Song and City of Love do their jobs. Hearts closes at seven and a half minutes, the one place they let it breathe.

Reception and legacy

The comeback of the decade, and a betrayal, depending on where you were standing. It sold like nothing this band had ever sold, brought in a generation who had never heard Close to the Edge, and won a Grammy. It also used the Yes name and the Yes talent to launch one man’s songs, which struck some listeners as effrontery on the scale of Asia — while the same listeners generally concede the production is superb and the songs work. The visual break was as sharp as the musical one: a computer-generated cover instead of Roger Dean. Kaye actually walked out mid-sessions after clashing with Horn, though some of his playing stayed on the record and he was back before it shipped, and Rabin praises his work on the tour. And a footnote worth savouring: Owner of a Lonely Heart only reached 28 in Britain, and a 2004 remix of it charted higher.

The verdict

Essential, whether or not you like it, and a genuinely good pop-rock record. Owner of a Lonely Heart first, obviously, and listen past the riff to what Horn built underneath it. Then Cinema, all two minutes, which is the band reminding you they can still play. Then Changes, which is where the old and new Yes shake hands. Then Hearts. If you came for Close to the Edge this is not that and was never trying to be. But if you have written it off unheard because of what it represents, it is worth the forty minutes — the reinvention here is one of the strangest and most complete in rock, and it very nearly happened under a different name.

Browse the bookshelf in the footer →