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What If…Keystudio had been released as an official Yes album in place of Keys To Ascension & Keys To Ascension 2? 471

Produced by Jeffrey Crecelius, Wayne Hall and Preston Frazier

After a suggestion by Dave Watkinson and a twitter chat between him and Henry Potts, Mark and I have been listening to the compilation album Keystudio and thinning about what could have happened if it had been released in place of Keys to Ascension and Keys to Ascension 2. Please take a listen to our thoughts and then get involved yourself by sending in your thoughts via any of the ways on yesmusicpodcast.com.

  • What could have happened in 1996-7?
  • What if Rick Wakeman had stayed?
  • What would we be listening to now?

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Producers:

  • Jeffrey Crecelius
  • Preston Frazier and
  • Wayne Hall

Patrons:

Aaron Steelman

Dave Owen

Mark James Lang

Paul Tomei

Joost Maglev

David Heyden

Martin Kjellberg

Paul Wilson

Bob Martilotta

Lind

Michael O’Connor

William Hayes
Brian Sullivan

David Pannell

Miguel Falcão

Lobate Scarp

Chris Bandini

David Watkinson

Neal Kaforey

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Craig Estenes

Dem

Paul Hailes

Mark ‘Zarkol’ Baggs

Doug Curran

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Ken Fuller

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Tim Stannard

Jim

Todd Dudley

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John Holden

Joseph Cottrell

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Barry Gorsky

Alan Begg



Robert and David

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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

4 replies on “What If…Keystudio had been released as an official Yes album in place of Keys To Ascension & Keys To Ascension 2? 471”

I’d have bought the live album and not the Keys new material and saved a few quid. This is the point at which I realised that Yes had given up trying to be creative and just wanted money for nothing.

No doubt there is good music on Keystudio. But it is a lesser album. I don’t think it is money for nothing; I think they were just not as coherent and focused a creative force as they were in the early and mid 70s. Lots of water under the bridge; lot’s of branching out and growing apart. By contrast to Keystudio, I think Magnification shows what happens when they were able to work well together after all (or at least 4 of them), and The Ladder shows what happens when a third party is able to guide them.
I’m sure glad to have the material as a separate album. I enjoy it quite a bit. (But it is no Tormato!) And, honestly, it’s better to keep the studio pieces separate from the live performances. I can’t be the only one who thinks that the studio pieces suffer a bit in the original releases from being put next to the live performances? Especially the first volume. Be the One and That That Is are perfectly nice songs, with lots of lovely parts, but they are just not in the same league as the live material on that album.

The other thing I need to say is regarding Mark’s comment regarding it being a double LP. As far as I remember, it was never issued on vinyl at that time. It would have been a CD.

It would have been incredible. The “Keys to Ascension” studio tracks are some of Yes’ ultimate compositions, in my opinion. I first heard them through the Keystudio compilation and they are sequenced very well there. Each track is a gem. It deserved to be the epic mid-late ’90s Yes album that Keystudio displayed it as. “Keys to Ascension” would have been the perfect album title for those songs…and they could have still released the great live Keys tracks under a different name.

“If we don’t give them the keys,
How are they supposed to be ready?
If we don’t give them the keys,
How are they to survive?” – from “Bring Me To The Power”

“Just as long as you bring the power
From the inside
Just as long as you hold the key
From the inside
Ascend and create
Ascend and create
Ascend and create
Ascension!” – from “Mind Drive”

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