Alternate Universes of Yes and No
I don't think there is any other band whose first 10 studio albums surpasses the depth and creativity of Yes. And yet, we all know that the personnel that made up Yes across those albums gradually changed, resulting in new flavors and variations giving distinctive qualities to each album. Eventually, the "ship of Theseus" replacement of parts (and the changing of the times, instrumentally and stylistically) created an ensemble with little resemblance to the "classic" Yes. Which got me wondering... what if there were Star Trek style "alternate universes" with different realities where earlier Yes line-ups stayed together?
What if Banks stayed with the band to record Album #3 and Steve Howe went off to another project without ever joining musical forces with Anderson and Squire? I love TaaW but could not imagine a world without TYA, Fragile, or CttE. I vote "NO" to that timeline.
What if Kaye was more willing to experiment sonically and stayed with the band for Album #4 and Rick Wakeman went on doing his own thing? The Yes Album is really where I start hearing the musical genius and exploration of Yes' iconic long form composition. Would it be great to hear how Anderson, Howe, Squire, Kaye, and Bruford followed up TYA? Absolutely. But would the band have ever given us CttE? Maybe not. In that case, I would reluctantly have to vote "no" to that timeline as well.
The lineup for Fragile and CttE is probably the most iconic "Yes" for me: Anderson, Howe, Squire, Wakeman, and Bruford. Given the manifested genius of CttE, it's fascinating to read the descriptions of the recording environment and some of the disagreements that came out of it, especially between Squire and Bruford. What if those two could have mended things and continued for Album #4? Given the direction Anderson and Howe were taking, I suspect Tales (or something like it) was inevitable. What would Bruford's touch have added? As much as I love some of the later albums, I'm sort of ambivalent to the timeline in which Yes continued with the CttE line-up for a while.
Now it gets really interesting. Fans who don't particularly like Tales might agree with Wakeman's take, and they probably would have preferred for a different shake-up after CttE. I actually don't mind that Wakeman left after Tales due to creative differences. Otherwise, what would Relayer have been like? I personally think Moraz added a huge amount to the sound and texture that makes Relayer sublime, and it probably revived the band to some extent after the creative exhaustion of putting together Tales. The 2-year gap after Relayer feels like a huge loss to me. It's hard to know how long the chemistry would have lasted with Anderson, Howe, Squire, Moraz, and White (if it could have at all) but the time apart certainly didn't help. That being said, I would vote "YES" to hearing what could have been if the Relayer version of Yes continued to produce albums in 1975 and 1976. It might be my favorite of all the line-ups, and in that timeline we would still have all of the albums before it. I suppose that the solo albums probably wouldn't have been made, but if that's the cost of more Relayer, so be it.
Instead, Wakeman returned for GftO and Tormato. Ok, there's some good stuff in both of those albums but A) they ditched Roger Dean and B) the quality really is a mixed bag. I didn't vote for that timeline. I will listen to it from time to time in my rotation, but definitely would vote "NO" for more of it.
And then there's Drama. I don't know if it can really be called "Yes" without Anderson. But damn is it awesome. A complete anomaly. Perhaps Horn, Howe, Squire, Downes, and White should just have rebranded as something Bugglesque and gone in that direction for a while. I would vote "yes" to that timeline, even if that meant 90125 never happened.
By the 1980s, the line-up had already changed 6 times, and maybe the drastic shift of Drama made the concept of Yes so fluid that grafting its remains together with Trevor Rabin made sense. Still, they problably should have just stuck with calling it "Cinema" and committed to it. The only downside of that timeline is that the generation of Yes fans who first found the band because of Owner of a Lonely Heart might never have reached back into the catalog to discover the classics. Cinema could have still made Big Generator. But maybe the subsequent amalgamations (ABWH, Union, Talk, etc.) would have gone differently. By the time we get to Keys, Open Your Eyes and the Ladder it's just a shadow of Yes despite the cover art. Give Squire credit for holding things together, but sometimes the creative juice runs dry. Magnification is kind of the last hurrah for me. Post 2001 it just becomes unrecognizable.
So, which alternate Yes universe are you voting for?
CttE lineup (possibly Tales but no Relayer)
Relayer lineup (no solo albums, no GftO or Tormato)
Drama lineup (no 90125 etc.)
Something else