Music Blog

I’ve often been critical in the past of The Guardian’s lack of coverage or rock and metal in their music section, especially when it comes to progressive rock. So after some conversations on Twitter I ended up writing something myself, which they published today. It’s part of their “10 of the best” series, about Yes.

There were something like 250 comments in the first few hours. Yes, there are one or two the yet again demonstrate that middle-aged former punks are not only the worst bores in music fandom, but the worst in any fandom. But the vast majority of comments are overwhelmingly positive, which seems to suggest there are a lot more prog fans reading The Guardian’s music coverage that previously thought.

A few words on the choices I made. For starters, it’s ten of the best, not the ten best. I could have picked an entire list taken from “The Yes Album“, “Close To The Edge” and “Going For The One“. But that would have been boring; instead I chose a cross-section from right across their career, going beyond the obvious standards to include less well-known and sometimes overlooked classics. I was aware that “Don’t Kill The Whale” in particular might raise a few eyebrows, but it’s a good example of their shorter, more commercial work.