Music Monday (Magnification, Side 1)

Magnification is Yes' first album of the new century and their second using a live orchestra (the first being Time and a Word from 1970 covered here). It marked the band's last studio album to date with vocalist Jon Anderson (spoiler alert!).

Following the departures of guitarist Billy Sherwood and keyboardist Igor Khoroshev, along with Rick Wakeman's decision not to rejoin the band, Magnification became the only album in the band's history not to feature any keyboardist. It is also the only one involving only four Yes members. Remaining members Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe and Alan White decided to fill the keyboard role with an orchestra, and hired film composer Larry Groupé to compose and conduct original orchestrations and musical bridges.

First of all, this album sounds terrific. The whole thing has a great sound. As awesome as The Ladder was, hearing that the next album was back to using an orchestra with no keyboards had me severely pessimistic. I thought they were just grabbing at straws at this point and were basically jumping the shark. I was wrong. It turned out great and should have been a very popular album. Except...

It happened to be released on 9/10/01. Exactly one day before the world changed. Yeah. Sucks.

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The Music

1) Magnification - The title track, obviously, and a very solid song.

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2) Spirit of Survival - This is a song about drunk driving. However, it is very hard not to connect it with the events of that day. Whoever made this video obviously felt the same way.

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3) Don't Go - Once again, it never fails. A song I don't really care for is the single that they release. It even had an official video. Supposed to be about Jon's relationship with his daughter. Meh.

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4) Give Love Each Day - At least they are still writing the positive songs. This one is fantastic too. I think the first part of the video came from the interactive DVD. The orchestration is amazing.

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5) Can You Imagine -  The main vocals here are sung by Chris Squire with Jon Anderson on backing vocals. This Squire-penned song was originally recorded in 1981 as a demo entitled "Can You See" for his aborted XYZ project. So once again an older demo song resurfaces. Wait until you see the next album...

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