Good luck finding a band of any renown that hasn’t endured some type of turmoil at some point during their career. But Yes has to rank right up there when it comes to squabbles and spats between members. That they continually overcame it all to produce groundbreaking music says something about their talent and resilience. In fact, their last US hit, “Rhythm Of Love” came during some of their darkest days.
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Back from the Brink
If, at the beginning of the 80s, you had made a list of all the 70s hit rock bands that might thrive in the new decade, Yes probably would have been stranded somewhere near the bottom. The ornate prog rock that the band favored had gone out of style in the early 80s.
On top of that, the core members of the classic lineup were scattered to the winds in different bands. But then along came Trevor Rabin, a South African multi-instrumentalist-composer. Rabin started working with several members of Yes in a new outfit called Cinema. And he brought a demo that contained a hooky guitar riff.
That riff became “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”. Trevor Horn, who had briefly been a Yes member, produced the track and helped coax it into shape. Former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson was coaxed back into the fold to add lyrics and vocals. Marketing concerns made it wise for Cinema to coalesce back into Yes. “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” turned into a No. 1 single, and the 90125 album, released in 1983, put the reconfigured group back in the ballgame.
The Journey of ‘Generator’
90125 had been an unplanned success. But the record execs wanted more of the same. They tasked Yes with coming through again. The pressure helped bring all the old tensions back to the surface as the band made the album Big Generator, which would be released in 1987.
Anderson pushed for a return to more freewheeling, proggy music, which producer Horn resisted. Horn couldn’t abide the keyboard work of Tony Kaye, preferring Rabin to do those parts. The band jetted around the world to several different studios in an effort to make the magic happen. But they only found rancor at every destination.
Horn bailed on the project in 1986, with Paul DeVilliers pinch-hitting as co-producer for the rest of the way. Rabin largely mixed the album on his own in Los Angeles under severe time constraints. Big Generator should have been an unmitigated disaster based on all of that. Instead, it offered a couple of US hit singles.
Disjointed “Rhythm”
First came “Love Will Find A Way”, which made it to No. 30. That was followed by a song mostly composed by Rabin, albeit with assists from Anderson, Kaye, and bassist Chris Squire. Rabin, wanting the band to focus on something universal rather than get caught up in the old flights of fancy, essentially created “Rhythm Of Love” as an ode to sex.
The song featured some Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies, a bit of a departure for the band. Other than that, it returned to the punchy guitar-driven sound of 90125. It managed to hit No. 40 for just a single week on the pop charts in 1987.
The next time the Yes brand surfaced, it was with an unwieldy eight-man lineup taken from various incarnations of the group from over the years, resulting in the 1991 album Union. That record produced no Top 40 hits, nor would any subsequent LP. “Rhythm Of Love”, an ode to passion created by a band that could hardly be in the same room together, would have to suffice.
Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns
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