Yes - Relayer

Relayer for me has always been the pinnacle of excessive, pretentious 70's prog rock. Long-winded songs, complicated arrangements and epic solos were the food of the gods at the time and Yes always served up the perfect three-course meal. When it was released, Relayer was a hot discussion item for many stuffy long haired musical elitists. Now, instead of blowing minds, it probably gets most of its plays from fat guys in sweat pants playing WOW in their mom's basement and eating cheese from a tube. The modern musical ideas of what's "cool" might have shifted over the years, but that doesn't make Alan White any less of a great drummer. The fact that he can follow what's going on during most Yes songs is proof enough.

I could of put any of Yes' early prog albums here and basically achieved the same objective. They all had 20+ minute songs (hell, Tales from Topographic Oceans has FOUR of them) and they all had a ridiculous amount of parts and loads of awesome drumming. However, Relayer has Sound Chaser, which is not only my favorite Yes song, it's quite possibly the best thing Alan White has ever done.

Sound Chaser is one of the best examples of Jazz Fusion in existence, its got rock patterns blazing by at be-bop speed and its the only song I'm going to talk about because the other two are pretty much everything you would expect from Yes.

From the start Alan White follows the keyboards with quick tom rolls and accents the hits with fast cymbal smashes. By the time the main part comes in everyone seems to be going crazy. Chris Squire can play the bass faster than anyone, and White is right there with him catching every note. I don't think his hands stop playing sixteenth notes for the first two minutes. This song is like a guitar solo sandwich, everyone backs off in the middle to let Steve Howe do his thing and then comes back to slap some rock bread on that shit. They close it off with a more solid rock base, but it starts to gain momentum again and soon enough they're off again and things just get weirder.

If you were to record Sound Chaser in your basement and send it off to record labels as a demo you would get it back three weeks later with a letter saying "I have no idea what this is, it's kinda good, but it's fucking weird". You might have some luck with Mike Patton's label but that's it. The fact that someone gave Yes thousands of dollars to make this makes me happy. The fact that it sold well commercially and went to #5 on the Billboard charts makes me even happier, because that would NEVER happen today.

Those were different times, but I can't figure out if they were better or not.