Yes ? Fragile ? Rare 1972 Atlantic Dennis King Mastered Monarch Press Vinyl LP

$

50

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Fragile Studio album by  Yes Released 26 November 1971 Recorded 11 August - 5 September 1971 Studio Advision, Fitzrovia, London Genre Progressive rock Length 40:52 Label Atlantic Producer

• Yes
• Eddy Offord

1. "Roundabout"/"Long Distance Runaround"
   Released: 4 January 1972 (US)

Fragile is the fourth studio album by the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 26 November 1971 by Atlantic Records. It was the band's first album to feature keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who replaced founding member Tony Kaye after the group had finished touring their breakthrough record, The Yes Album.

The band entered rehearsals in London in August 1971, but Kaye's reluctance to play electronic keyboards led to his departure from the group. He was quickly replaced by Wakeman, whose experience with the electric piano, organ, Mellotron, and Minimoog synthesiser expanded the band's sound. Due to budget and time constraints, four tracks on the album are group compositions; the remaining five are solo pieces written by each band member. The opening track, "Roundabout", became a popular and iconic song. The artwork for the album was the band's first to be designed by Roger Dean, who would design many of their future covers and stage sets.

Fragile received a positive reception upon its release, and was a commercial success, reaching No. 4 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart and No. 7 on the UK Albums Chart. An edited version of "Roundabout" was released as a single in the US in January 1972, which reached No. 13. Fragile has since been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for selling over two million copies in the US. It has been remastered several times since its release, some containing previously unreleased tracks.

Background

On 31 July 1971, Yes performed the final concert of their 1970–71 tour at Crystal Palace Park, London in support of their previous album, The Yes Album (1971). The tour was significant for the band as it included their first set of gigs in the US which helped them gain momentum as The Yes Album and its single "Your Move" reached the US top 40. The line-up during this time consisted of lead vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bill Bruford, keyboardist Tony Kaye, and guitarist Steve Howe. Following the tour, Yes started work on their next studio album that was originally conceived as a double album with a combination of studio and live tracks. The concept could not be realised due to the increased amount of time required to make it. Ideas to record in Miami, Florida with producer Tom Dowd also never came to fruition.

Rehearsals took place in August 1971 in what Squire described as "a little rehearsal studio in Shepherd's Market" in London. As recording began, Kaye was reluctant to expand his sound beyond his Hammond organ and piano and play newer instruments like the Mellotron or Moog synthesizer, causing artistic disagreements with his bandmates, particularly Anderson and Squire. Kaye was soon sacked from Yes, and a replacement was quickly found in Rick Wakeman, a classically-trained pianist with experience playing a wide variety of keyboard instruments who was a member of the folk rock band Strawbs and an in-demand session musician. Wakeman was offered a spot with David Bowie's touring band on the same day that he was asked to join Yes, and he chose to join Yes due to the opportunity for more artistic freedom. He joined the group as they rehearsed "Heart of the Sunrise". Squire spoke about that first session: "That marked the first real appearance of the Mellotron and the Moog—adding the flavour of those instruments to a piece we'd basically already worked out". According to Wakeman, the basic structure of "Roundabout" was also worked out on the same day.

Production

Recording

Recording for the album began in August 1971 at Advision Studios using a 16-track tape machine. Eddy Offord, who served as a recording engineer on Time and a Word (1970), assumed his role while sharing production duties with the band. Rolling Stone reported the album cost $30,000 to produce.

According to Michael Tait, the band's lighting director, the album's title came from their manager Brian Lane who, while on the phone to "some press guy" asking Lane about the new album, "was looking at some photos from that Crystal Palace gig, saw the monitors at the front of the stage and, like all equipment, they had 'Fragile' stamped on the back". Bruford claimed he in fact suggested the title because he thought the band "was breakable" at the time. While the band were recording, Wakeman remembered children being brought into the studio to watch them play.

Songs

Fragile is formed of nine tracks; four are "group arranged and performed" with the remaining five being "the individual ideas, personally arranged and organised" by the five members. Squire reasoned this approach was necessary in part to save time and reduce studio costs, as money was used to purchase keyboard equipment for Wakeman. According to Bruford: "There was this endless discussion about how the band could be used ... I felt we could use all five musicians differently ... So I said—brightly—'Why don't we do some individual things, whereby we all use the group for our own musical fantasy? I'll be the director, conductor, and maestro for the day, then you do your track, and so on.'" Wakeman commented on the album's structure. "Some critics thought this was just being flash. The thinking behind this was that we realised there would be a lot of new listeners coming to the band. They could find out where each individual player's contribution lay."

Side one begins with "Roundabout", a song written by Anderson and Howe that has become one of Yes's best-known songs. Howe recalled the track was originally "a guitar instrumental suite ... I sort of write a song without a song. All the ingredients are there—all that's missing is the song. "Roundabout" was a bit like that; there was a structure, a melody and a few lines." The introduction was made by playing a recorded piano chord backwards. Wakeman later described "Cans and Brahms" as "dreadful", as contractual problems with A&M Records, with whom he was signed as a solo artist, prevented him from writing a composition of his own. Anderson described "We Have Heaven" as a "rolling idea of voices and things", with its two main sets of chants containing the phrases "Tell the Moon dog, tell the March hare" and "He is here, to look around" (cf.). Side one closes with "South Side of the Sky".

Side two of the album opens with Bruford's track, "Five Per Cent for Nothing". With a running time of thirty-five seconds, it is his "first attempt at composition—but we've all got to start somewhere". According to Tait, its original title was "Suddenly It's Wednesday", but it was changed in reference to Yes paying off their former manager Roy Flynn with the deal of five percent of future royalties. "Long Distance Runaround" segues into Squire's solo track, "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)". Tait recalled Anderson called him "at ten o'clock one night from Advision and said, 'I want the name of a prehistoric fish in eight syllables. Call me back in half an hour'". Tait subsequently found Schindleria praematurus, a species of marine fish, in a copy of Guinness Book of Records. Howe performs his solo guitar piece "Mood for a Day" on a Conde flamenco guitar. "Heart of the Sunrise" is a track where Wakeman's classically trained background came into play; he introduced the band to the idea of recapitulation where previous segments in music are revisited.

Sleeve design

The album's sleeve was designed and illustrated by English artist Roger Dean, who would design many of Yes's future album covers, including their "bubble" logo. On reflection of the design, Dean said: "'Fragile' was very literal, really. I think the band has named a number of their albums after their current psychological state, and 'Fragile' described the psyche of the band. And I thought about that very literally, painting a fragile world that would eventually break up." He commented further: "'Fragile' was quite a complicated cover because there was a book inside. It was elaborate although it wasn't one of the most striking of all the Yes covers. I was kind of learning my trade at the time. The main feature on the cover was a little Bonsai world with a wooden space ship flying overhead! It was literally meant to be a fragile world".

The band had wished for an image of a fractured piece of porcelain; to compromise, Dean ended up breaking the planet into two pieces. This idea of a broken world would continue on the band's live album, Yessongs. Bruford thought Dean "brilliantly parlayed that idea [one of Fragile] up to the prescient image of the fragile planet earth, with implications of a delicate and breakable eco-system".

The LP's accompanying promotional booklet contains two additional Dean paintings; the front cover depicts five creatures huddled under a root system; the back cover depicts a person climbing up a rock formation. The inside shows several photographs of the band with an individual page dedicated to each member, with smaller illustrations and photographs of their wives and children. The first page contains art by Dean. The second page contains individual pictures of the band members. The third page is of Anderson with his wife and daughter and contains a short poem. The fourth page contains two photos of Bill Bruford on drums during a show. The fourth page contains a photo of Chris Squire with his daughter and wife, and a photo with him playing bass. The fifth page contains a photo of Steve Howe with his guitar collection with another photo of him playing guitar. The sixth page shows Wakeman and contains a list of acknowledgements, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The White Bear pub in Hounslow, and Brentford F.C..

Release

Fragile was released in the UK in November 1971 followed by its US release on 4 January 1972. It was originally set for release in the latter around the same time, but delays in printing the cover led to its release pushed back. It peaked at number 4 on the U.S. Billboard Top LPs chart and number 7 in the UK. "Roundabout" was released as a single in the US with a duration of 3:27, with "Long Distance Runaround" on the B-side. It peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in April 1972. In April 1972, Fragile was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album is certified double Platinum by the RIAA for over 2 million copies sold. The album has been certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry.

Reception

Fragile received a mostly positive reception upon its release. Billboard magazine selected the album in its "Billboard Pick" feature, describing it as "vibrant, soothing, tumultuous, placid and instrumentally brilliant" and Anderson's vocals "deliciously ingratiating". In his review for Rolling Stone, Richard Cromelin pointed out the album's "gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise and energetic performances" and "cryptic but evocative lyrics", but pointed out that Yes "tend to succumb to the show-off syndrome. Their music (notably "We Have Heaven") often seems designed only to impress and tries too hard to call attention to itself".[2] Kurt White reviewed the album in The Daily Reporter, calling Wakeman a "very talented organist". He named "Roundabout" the album's finest cut, "an eight-minute masterpiece incorporating unusual rhythm and music". He notes that despite its "limitations and faults", Fragile remains "interesting and enjoyable".

Melody Maker gave a mixed review on 20 November 1971. It opened with: "'Fragile' does not seem to go anywhere or have any theme except displaying Yes' technical ability ... It's not until 'Heart of the Sunrise' that they get there. It's all a little too much like exercises, clever and beautifully played". The review praised "Roundabout" for Howe's guitar work and compared its style to "Yours is No Disgrace" from The Yes Album. In the Detroit Free Press, reviewer Jon Weisman deemed it "in a word, extraordinary" with Wakeman's addition to the band the key to them achieving an "ethereal, clear sound" they had been aiming for. His main criticism was the band's tendency to be too esoteric in their style and "other-worldly". Ed Keheller for Circus magazine summarised his review of the album with "Fragile is unquestionably their most cohesive and mettlesome undertaking". In the same issue, Squire responded to the criticism regarding the album's solo tracks, "in a way you've got to appreciate the circumstances. We had to get another album out quickly from a purely financial point of view. We have a lot of mouths to feed. Rick ... had to buy a vast amount of new equipment when he joined, and it all costs much more money than people seem to imagine."

In 2005, Fragile was included in the musical reference publication 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In his review for AllMusic, Bruce Eder gave the album five stars out of five. He writes: "Fragile was Yes' breakthrough album, propelling them in a matter of weeks from a cult act to an international phenomenon; not coincidentally, it also marked the point where all of the elements of the music (and more) that would define their success for more than a decade fell into place fully formed. The science-fiction and fantasy elements that had driven the more successful songs on ... The Yes Album, were pushed much harder here, and not just in the music but in the packaging of the album: the Roger Dean-designed cover was itself a fascinating creation that seemed to relate to the music and drew the purchaser's attention in a manner that few records since the heyday of the psychedelic era could match."

In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the sixth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.

Track listing

Details are taken from the 1971 US Atlantic album (UK release does not list running times); other releases may show different information.