Review Summary: Probably the most controversial and underrated album of the 70's.
“Tales From Topographic Oceans” is the sixth studio album by Yes and was released in 1973. The line up on the album is Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Alan White.
This is their first work recorded with White on board after Bill Bruford left the band in 1972 to join King Crimson. It was also their last studio album, during four years, with Wakeman in the group until their eight studio album “Going For The One”, was released in 1977.
Many pages were written about this album. This is probably the most widely criticized musical work, rock or otherwise, of the 70’s. Even Yes fans are divided as to whether it’s a good album or not. Often, it’s considered as an example of everything that was wrong with progressive rock in the 70’s. It was generally regarded by the punk movement as one of the main reasons why the rise of punk rock was necessary. Released about 40 years ago, it was a work of pretence. Even who became a prog rock legend, Wakeman, was forced to leave the band soon after he criticized the album too.
Yes’ inspiration for the album was Paramahansa Yogananda’s book, “Autobiography Of A Yogi” that discusses four “shastric scriptures”. Anderson had been looking for a theme for a grand scale rock symphony for quite some time, and one night during the “Close To The Edge” tour, when the band was in Tokyo, he was flipping through Yogananda’s book. The book describes texts which not only care about religion and social life, but also about medicine, art, music and architecture. Surely a normal occidental man would have put down the book, forgotten about it, and just made simply his show. However, remember that we are talking about Anderson. So, this new work is an 80 minute double album around a set of themes which certainly very few, in the Western world, have heard about before.
“Tales From Topographic Oceans” became a four movement album and Anderson and Howe were the main architects of it, reportedly outlining the album in one all night session. In the end, all band members including their new drummer White, made stellar and quite identifiable contributions on it. Each movement is an ambitious, multi-faceted endeavor characterized by distinct and impactful themes, both musical and lyrical. Yet, the differences among the four movements serve to create an even grander and uniform work as a whole.
The first movement, “The Revealing Science Of God”, represents the creation and beginning of all the good things which bring happiness to our lives, like love. It seems lamentable that these wonderful forces seem to have been lost by the human race through their own negligence, resulting in all sorts of unwanted calamities. The music is simply gorgeous, filled to the brim with ecstatic melodies.
The second movement, “The Remembering”, alternates between Anderson’s singing touching on various memories we all had somehow, and Wakeman carrying us away from these images and thoughts of our past to others, on a trip through the peaceful recesses of our mind via his keyboards.
The third movement, “The Ancient”, is a reference to other civilizations from a distant past, and so, near the beginning, Anderson quite cleverly chants the word for sun in several different languages. I think this movement is trying to say that all of these people from the past have probably all the answers to our important and not so important existential questions that trouble our society even today. It’s a very experimental and introspective movement.
The fourth movement, “Ritual”, basically says that when we love, we can return to the state of goodness in which we were in the dawn of creation. It’s less experimental and introspective than its predecessor but it’s still grandiloquent. This is conveyed excellently from the beginning to the end of the track, with the reprisal of some of the musical themes which appeared in the first movement. And now, the journey of “Tales From Topographic Oceans” has ended.
Conclusion: Considered obscure in lyrics, music and arrangements, “Tales From Topographic Oceans” is an extremely accurate snapshot of where the band was spiritually and musically in 1973. If the CD format had been present then, it certainly had been one continuous piece of music, rather than four separate movements befitting the space constraints of vinyl. The effectiveness of “Tales From Topographic Oceans” has been debated many times over since it was originally released. Even today, it stands as an important turning point in progressive rock music and Yes’ history. Their subsequent album “Relayer” probably wouldn’t have been the album it was if not for “Tales From Topographic Oceans”. It may be a little harder to listen to then “Close To The Edge” and a little more down beat then “Relayer”. However, love or hate it, it still remains an inevitable and unavoidable work in the history of progressive rock music.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
