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Episode 20 – ‘Magnification’

CDs purchased 2001 (Click to enlarge)

The twentieth episode of the Yes Music Podcast featuring the nineteenth studio album, ‘Magnification’.

  • Does replacing the keyboard player with an entire orchestra work?
  • Is the album progressive rock or cinematic rock?
  • Are there any classic Yes moments?

Listen and see if you agree with me then let me know by leaving a comment or contacting me via the different routes on the right hand side!

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Show links

Larry Groupé:
Cor Anglais:
Contrapuntal

Theme music

The music I use is the last movement of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. This has been used as introduction music at many Yes concerts. My theme music is not take from a live concert – I put it together from the following two creative commons sources:

thanvannispen and archive.org

Yes Music PodcastHomework for next time:

Listen to the final (at the moment) studio album, Fly From Here from 2011:

Fly From Here on Spotify

Fly From Here on iTunes

Fly From Here on Amazon (UK)

Fly From Here on Last.fm

Buy Yes music, don’t steal it. Take a look at this but then go out and buy the album:

Fly From Here on YouTube (Start here with Overture with Bass cover)

4 replies on “Episode 20 – ‘Magnification’”

Hello Kevin another masterpiece well done A Gilded Lilly…perfect.
when I went to see this show which I believe was the last time I seen yes they had a very young and ambitious keyboard player that when they were playing Close to the edge and some of there older stuff can’t remember the exact set list but I was fairly impressed now he was no Rick Wakeman of course there is only one Rick.But I really enjoyed the live show of this album which I use to listen to when I walked that was back in the day before I-tunes so I just had one of those cd player which only held the on disk I would listen to that CD more then I would hate to say to anybody and I was pretty happy with it I think prog rock for yes was moving in a lot of different direction at the time I mean ten years before the next project.This project to me was a very good piece of music and to me it just goes to show how much work and personalities it takes to make Yes music is just incredible. Can’t wait for next week you bet I will be listing take care Paul

Thanks once again, Paul. It’s lovely to hear you are still enjoying the episodes.

I also saw the Magnification tour in Birmingham, UK, which I really enjoyed. As your say, it’s fantastic to have so many versions of Yes to appreciate – so many facets in the different line-ups and albums!

I look forward to what you think of the last studio album episode next week!

Hi Kevin. Well I think you were a little harsh about Magnification in parts, but there you go 🙂 I felt it was a bold move for the band to try a project like this, which made it truly progressive! Give Love Each Day and Dreamtime are standout tracks for me.

I really enjoyed Larry Groupe’s orchestrations – big powerful stuff that not only obliterated the need for keyboards, but also made a lot of the guitar obsolete (eg. Spirit of Survival). In fact the competition between guitar and orchestra reminds me a bit of the Steve-Rick niggly thing on Tormato..

Not to take anything away from Larry Groupe’s work, but it always puzzled me why Yes didn’t reach out to two crazily-talented orchestral arrangers already within their own ranks, ie. Trevor Rabin or Rick Wakeman!

Thanks for the comment, Ben. I agree it was a bold move! As for the orchestra making the guitar obsolete, I’m not sure I’m happy with that – on a Yes album!

I would also have loved to hear what Rabin or Wakeman could have done with the orchestrations but I think it came down, as usual, to politics/timing!

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