TNB Night Owl

Much of their music sounds as fresh and timeless today as it did fifty years ago. Yes was one of those pioneer bands who blazed a trail for FM rock radio in the seventies’ transitioning period. At the start of the decade, AM radio Top 40 singles format dominated. By the end of the decade, FM radio album format had secured a permanent place for itself, ultimately forcing AM to switch to news, sports, and talk radio formats.

FM audio quality showcased a more sophisticated class of music than the pop/rock of the fifties and sixties offered. Nuance and texture that didn’t come through on AM broadcasts could be heard clearly in high fidelity through FM stereo.

Bucking the music industry conventions of the early seventies, Yes was more interested in producing high-fidelity albums than singles. As a result, virtually all of their songs were much too long to fit on one side of a 45rpm single.

An extreme example would be, The Gates of Delirium (1974), one of the longest (if not the longest) tracks Yes has ever recorded. At nearly 22 minutes, it takes up an entire side of an LP record album. (Hey, you try telling the story of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in less time.) This track obviously was never a candidate to become a single.

The group did cut some singles versions of their other songs thought to have commercial potential, by drastically editing down some of their album tracks. Your Move was issued as a three-minute single in 1971. In reality, Your Move is only the first part of a seven-minute album track you probably know called I’ve Seen All Good People, the second part of which is called All Good People. The shorter, single edits allow the listener to sample the music without investing a great deal of time listening to a complete album. Thoughtful of them, Yes?

1971
Your Move (2:56)
(Single release for radio airplay)