• AllMyVinyl #132
• Band: Yes
• Album Title: 90125
• Release Date: 7 Nov 1983
• Date purchased: 5 May 2025
• Location purchased: Record label contact
• Color of vinyl: tri-color (red/blue/yellow)
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This album is one of those that dates me – a lot.  During the summer and fall of 1983, I listened to little else besides Pink Floyd’s “The Final Cut“. I adored that album, and when enough time passed and I inevitably moved on to something else, it was this album which came out later in the same year.   Yes’ 90125 album is now coming on 42 years old, and that kind of pains me – it’s one of those albums that remains awesome all these years later, yet at the same time makes me feel f’in old as I was there Day 1 when it was brand new.

This is the 11th overall Yes studio album, but at this time in my life it was my onramp to the band.  I was still 18 when this came out, and with 1983 being the glory days for MTV, anything that came over MTV got my attention in a hurry.  Yes (or this version of it anyway) was all over MTV in late 1983.   I’ve learned over the years there’s a large contingent of Yes fans that segregate the band into parts/eras.  There’s the Steve Howe 70’s stuff, and then the Trevor Rabin 80’s stuff, and then all the later on stuff, and finally when Jon Anderson wasn’t around anymore.  But in 1983 – this was Yes.  This was MY Yes.  I’ve come to appreciate all the other stuff over the years for sure – in fact my single favorite overall Yes song comes from the album before this. I’m speaking of Tempus Fugit off the 1980 Drama album (which itself had a torturous history).

That brings us to the Yes backstory – their history over the decades is a bit tortured with lineup changes, deaths, breakups, etc.  But after the Drama tour in 1980, Yes broke up.  The band at that point was Trevor Horn (vocals), Steve Howe (guitar), Chris Squire (bass), Geoff Downes (keys), & Alan White (drums).  Two of those guys (Squire & White) formed a new band with guitarist Trevor Rabin called “Cinema”.  They started working on an album and brought in original Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye who had been fired from Yes quite a while back.  While working on material (with a much more “pop” edge than the prog roots of Yes), they reached out to Jon Anderson and he agreed to come in and sing vocals on the material.  During this process it was decided that this would be the new lineup of Yes, and the 90125 album and the new era of Yes was born.

It’s no real secret, but the album name was also the catalog number given to the album by Atco (the original label).

This is also my wife’s favorite Yes music – in fact, I think I’d go so far to say that her overall favorite Yes song comes from this album – Changes.  When I told her I was doing this album today, she said the following about it..  “ I tried to memorize the lyrics back in 1984 by copying them down in a notebook.”   We were both teenagers when this came out.  Now we’re knocking on the door of 60.  Yet this album remains as strong now as it did all those years ago. There’s some really great stuff on here, no doubt.

For myself in 1983, I never bought in on vinyl, but I did have it on cassette tape as that was the start of my Walkman era for sure.  Somewhere along the line I bought it on CD as well.  I still have the CD version, but the OG cassette is long gone (as are most of them).  Since 2020, it was always on my list of vinyl to get as it’s a foundational record for both myself and my wife – she and I have different base tastes in music, but this Yes album is one of the places we match.  Anyway, about a month ago I found a picture of the version I have now – was a 35th anniversary pressing of the album done in 2018 in triple color vinyl.  It matches the original cover art for the album.  That art has an oval with three colors in a pie chart – pink, blue, & yellow.  The vinyl is done in the same fashion.  It looks amazing.  But I figured it was long out of print being 7 years back – these anniversary re-releases don’t stay in print.  Here I have to talk about myself just a little – I’ve been running a Black Sabbath fan website since 1995, and due to that connection, I know several people at various record labels.  So I reached out to my guy at Rhino, and asked if this version was still in print.  I didn’t ask for one straight up just wondered if it was still available so I could buy one.  Anyway, the dude looked around and said they found one in their warehouse, and he boxed it up and sent it to me.  It arrived today (5 May 2025), and went into immediate usage in my All My Vinyl series since it’s technically the earliest alphabetical one due to its name – 90125.  So that’s how I have this pretty darned cool looking version of 90125.

I also think at this point in 2025 – there’s NO version of the album in print on vinyl.  There probably should be as it’s still a killer album.  I think that’s enough intro, let’s get to some songs…

Owner of a Lonely Heart – This was the world’s first taste (or so my memory says) of the new Yes.  Owner was a statement song.  While this album had Jon Anderson on vocals  which by itself lends some vocal continuity to Yes’ past – the music was a bit different for sure.  Rabin’s guitar work was never the same as Howe’s, yet this works.  It works well.  Twice in the first minute of the song you get this “accent” which really shows the different sound the band has.  I’m not quite sure how to describe it.  The first time happens at exactly 0:22 of the song, and the second one starts after the vocals get going.  The lead-in to the guitar solo has more of this.  I do love Chris Squire’s bass work in this song.  While Rabin’s guitar is more in your face in this song, Squire’s bass is the rock here – yeah I know people say that about bassists all the time.  But I think the bass and guitar contrast each other nicely here and combine into a very pleasing sound.  Makes for a great album opener.

The video for this is weird. It starts with the band in the studio, then stops, shows them standing around, and the song re-starts and we get this odd conceptual piece which is. uh…  drug influenced?  That was my only ever explanation – involves snakes in a shower, seizures, more snakes, spiders, a brawl in a warehouse, jumping off the top a building and turning into a bird.  It doesn’t sound like something that someone on pure air would come up with.  This song was never high on my wife’s list of favorite Yes songs – I always felt the goofy video had something to do with that.

Hold On – This song features Anderson’s vocals a bit more than most songs on this album.  At least that’s my takeaway.  Of course there’s a full band playing with him, but I always felt this.   There’s a completely different background vocal track going with Jon’s lead.  It doesn’t sound like him singing with himself, but I always loved the dual vocal line on this song. There’s some parts where he’s obviously singing with himself and some where it doesn’t sound like that.  When it gets to the chorus, I ADORE the way they sing “Hold On”.  Jon’s vocal delivery is the major strong point for me here.  Yeah, the music is good, but I REALLY love Anderson’s singing here.

It Can Happen – This song has another good bass riff that repeats a lot which works well.  The vocal delivery it reminds me a bit of old school Yes in places – specifically here: “It can happen to you / It can happen to me / It can happen to everyone eventually”.   When the whole band kicks in, it sounds more like current Yes, but this song is a bit of mash of both major eras of the Yes sound.  Once again, Chris Squire is a good draw here.  A guy who doesn’t get talked about enough when you talk about best bassists overall.

There is a video for It Can Happen as well, but unlike the other two videos from this album (Owner & Leave It), this one isn’t a pile of weirdness.  It’s mostly band footage.  Not from a stage but in a studio.  They also look like this is in the mid 80’s – bit too much makeup, IMO.  ha.  :)

Changes – This song starts with a different sound than most Yes songs do.  Not quite sure how to describe that.  But in the middle of that intro there’s a searing Rabin guitar that just cuts through that and reminds you – this is still Yes.  Vocals don’t start until 1:42, so it’s got a long intro.   This has one of my all time favorite things in a song – the time change.  The chorus has a very different sound than the main part of the song (or the intro).  The chorus is a more harder rock sound. “Change, changing places / Root yourself to the ground / Capitalize on this good fortune / One word can bring you round”.  That’s my favorite part of the song.  Yes is not a hard rock band at all, but they can dance in that sandbox from time to time – this part is one of those moments.  The whole song isn’t like that, it’s got a few different sounds.  The “guitar solo” is very restrained – it really sounds like something Steve Howe would have done.  Rabin’s style is more the searing guitar at the start of the sound and not what was the solo here.  I’ve never quite queried my wife WHY this is her favorite Yes song, but she’s chosen well.  Great stuff here.

Cinema – This is a 2:07 long instrumental track that starts off side 2 of the album.  There’s not a lot to say about this.  It’s nice enough to listen to, but kind of feels like the intro to something else.  And oddly not the song that actually flows this on the album.  It feels like the intro to another song that got put in the wrong place on the album.  It does end with a bit of that searing Rabin guitar sound.

Leave It – Everyone except Tony Kaye sings on this one.  It’s not quite a cappella, but it kind of sounds like it for a lot of the song, especially the intro.  There’s bass and violin and some drum flourishes, but the vast majority of this song is vocals.  It’s also stupidly singable – for decades whenever I hear it I’m singing some part of this with them.  Not even the same thing – I’ll sing with the lead sometimes, another time the background vocal flourishes, or just specific words.  It’s always been an ear worm for me, and remains so.  It’s probably my favorite song off the album.

And then there’s the video for it.  You have to remember reading this in 2025, when this video came out in early 1984, the song was the second single from the album.  Music videos were the hot thing then, but what was even newer were video effects – and this video is all about that.  Video effects like cropping things out and moving them around have been old hat for a few decades now, but in 1983/84, this was groundbreaking tech.  The base video is just the five guys from Yes standing there miming the song.  The video is presented upside down, and then they do goofy things like make their heads spin, turn the bodies around on the Z axis, stretch them out to weird dimensions, make them go flat, turn ’em backwards..  At the time it was “HOLY CRAP – did you see this on MTV?”  Nobody had done shit like this.  Now 40+ years later it looks super basic, but if you didn’t live through it when this was new, you can’t appreciate how big a deal this video was.  I always stopped what I was doing and watched it when it came own the mid 80’s – even after it had been out a few years.   My research shows that there was a total of 18 different versions of this video.  The one we now know as the “official video” was apparently the 11th variant.  Some of the others were things like no movement at all, one with just Jon Anderson, and various other effects.   As far as I know, there was no home video release of all 18 them collated together.  But I do remember a marathon on MTV with all of them played back to back.  :)

I don’t know if I can hear this song – like EVER without seeing the guys spinning around on a white screen in black suits.  This video has totally dominated the song for me.

Our Song – This song has a keyboard sound that feels like the main driver.  In some ways it reminds me a bit of the Dio song “Rainbow in the Dark”.  That was metal and this was not, but they both have a keyboard sound that is the overall hook of the song in a way that kind of remind me of each other.  Most probably won’t make that connection, but when I listened today that thought occurred, so I thought I’d throw it out there.  Chris Squire is also more noticeable here – always a good thing.  This song has a more restrained guitar sound by Rabin.  He’s there of course, but his guitar doesn’t dominate the song like it does in a few places.   When the song peaks towards the end, Jon’s vocals are a bit higher register.  In fact, a lot of this song has a lighter sound.  Vocals, keys, they all seem to be ai in a higher register than usual.  The entire thing has a “lighter” feel – kind of reminds me of Van Halen’s “Dreams” in that when you hear it, you think of the sky, flying, “airy” – that make any sense?

City of Love – This starts off with the bass.  That’s definitely different.  The bass riff continues for a bit until the guitar kicks and takes the same thing and continues to play it.  Random: Has the words “Streetcorner wanderlust” in it – which I think have a very pleasing phonetic sound in and of themselves.  I don’t mean Jon’s delivery – just how the two words sound next to each other.  Say it yourself, you’ll see what I mean.   The guitar sound once the full band kicks in changes gears.  It’s more a guitar dominated sound.  I really love this but am struggling to find the right words.  It’s by no means hard rock, but it’s got a heavier vibe then most Yes songs.   Quite like this – I should listen to it more, I really enjoyed it today when spinning the disc.

Hearts – The album closes out with the longest song on the album (at 7:36).  This is actually my least favorite song on the album.  It’s not one I actively dislike, but I think it plods on a bit too much.  I suspect those who were fans of the 70’s Yes would probably like this song, but I find it hard to get into it.  What would sound like the end of the song (to my ears) stats at 2:35, and then there’s five more minutes.  As I said, it’s not BAD, I just can’t get going from this song.  I find it a bit too slow.  Except for the bit from 4:39 through 5:31 – that part has a hard rock edge, it’s an odd placement.  While I prefer harder stuff, it feels odd combined with the generally slow pace of the song until this point.  Even with that I have a hard time getting into this song.

That’s 7 of 9 songs I consider to be bangers, and the ninth isn’t that bad at all and the other is a short intro piece.  That’s a very high “banger ratio” for a single album.  I will never forget how much I loved this album when it was new, and I’m super glad to pick this up on vinyl.  Not just cuz it looks cool, but it’s great album that I’m fairly sire is out of print on vinyl, so getting it without paying an arm and a leg is a great deal.

Live I’ve only ever seen Yes twice.  Once was in 1991 on the Union tour.  If there ever was a time to see Yes live it was that one because it had everyone who had been in Yes over the years on tour all at once.  They didn’t have eight guys on stage together for most of that our, but they were all up there for a few songs.  They were mostly segregated into the two camps that came together for the “Union” album.  That was basically what was Yes at that pint, as well as the “Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe” project.   The story of all THAT would be its own multi thousand word blog post.  Maybe some day if I ever get ABWH on vinyl.   The only other time I saw Yes was in 2019 with the current incarnation of Yes.  That was less memorable, but I did have a good time there too.

Finally, I just realized that Chris Squire has been gone nearly a decade now.  That’s a shame as he was always the rock that held Yes together – and almost never got credit for it.  Chris deserved more than that, so get this album out and enjoy his bass work.  It’s some good stuff on an album full of good stuff.

One last memory.  When I was chatting with my wife earlier while listening to this I told her I really enjoyed the album.  We didn’t meet until about four years after this album came out, so it wasn’t something we experienced new together.  I said this to her..  “Wish we were together when this came out, but we both loved this.  Would have loved having some of this foundational music that we both share in our past be a shared experience.”  This album always reminds me of my wife now because I know it’s something we had a shared love of.  Great album – great memories.