Fragile (Yes album)

Recording for the album began in August 1971 at Advision Studios using a 16-track tape machine.[11] Eddy Offord, who served as a recording engineer on Time and a Word (1970), assumed his role while sharing production duties with the band. Rolling Stone reported that the album cost $30,000 to produce.[12]

According to Michael Tait, the band's lighting director, the album's title came from their manager Brian Lane who, while on the phone to "some press guy" asking Lane about the new album, "was looking at some photos from that Crystal Palace gig, saw the monitors at the front of the stage and, like all equipment, they had 'Fragile' stamped on the back".[13] Bruford claimed he in fact suggested the title because he thought the band "was breakable" at the time.[14] While the band were recording, Wakeman remembered children being brought into the studio to watch them play.[15]

Fragile contains nine tracks; four are "group arranged and performed" with the remaining five being "the individual ideas, personally arranged and organised" by the five members.[nb 1] Squire reasoned that this approach was necessary in part to save time and reduce studio costs,[16] as money was used to purchase keyboard equipment for Wakeman. According to Bruford: "There was this endless discussion about how the band could be used ... I felt we could use all five musicians differently ... So I said—brightly—'Why don't we do some individual things, whereby we all use the group for our own musical fantasy? I'll be the director, conductor, and maestro for the day, then you do your track, and so on.'"[16] Wakeman commented on the album's structure. "Some critics thought this was just being flash. The thinking behind this was that we realised there would be a lot of new listeners coming to the band. They could find out where each individual player's contribution lay."[17]

Side one begins with "Roundabout", a song written by Anderson and Howe that has become one of Yes's best-known songs. Howe recalled that the track was originally "a guitar instrumental suite ... I sort of write a song without a song. All the ingredients are there—all that's missing is the song. "Roundabout" was a bit like that; there was a structure, a melody and a few lines."[18] The introduction was made by playing a recorded piano chord backwards.[19] "Cans and Brahms" is Wakeman's adaptation of the third movement of Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms, with an electric piano used for the string section, grand piano for the woodwinds, organ for the brass, electric harpsichord for reeds, and synthesizer as contrabassoon.[nb 1] Wakeman later described "Cans and Brahms" as "dreadful", as contractual problems with A&M Records, with whom he was signed as a solo artist, prevented him from writing a composition of his own.[20][nb 2] Anderson described "We Have Heaven" as a "rolling idea of voices and things",[21] with its two main sets of chants containing the phrases "Tell the Moon dog, tell the March hare" and "He is here, to look around" (cf.[15]). Side one closes with "South Side of the Sky".[22]

Side two opens with Bruford's track, "Five per Cent for Nothing". With a running time of thirty-five seconds, it is his "first attempt at composition—but we've all got to start somewhere".[23] According to Tait, its original title was "Suddenly It's Wednesday",[16] but it was changed in reference to Yes paying off their former manager Roy Flynn with the deal of five percent of future royalties.[23] "Long Distance Runaround" segues into Squire's solo track, "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)". Tait recalled that Anderson called him "at ten o'clock one night from Advision and said, 'I want the name of a prehistoric fish in eight syllables. Call me back in half an hour'". Tait subsequently found Schindleria praematurus, a species of marine fish, in a copy of Guinness Book of Records.[16] Howe performs his solo guitar piece "Mood for a Day" on a Conde flamenco guitar.[23] "Heart of the Sunrise" originated as a love song that Anderson wrote for his then-wife Jennifer which covered the sunrise and the inability for humans to fully understand it, and the "excitement and friction" of London's streets and one man feeling "lost" in it.[24] The track is where Wakeman's classically-trained background came into play; he introduced the band to recapitulation, a musical concept where previous segments in a piece are revisited.[25] Bruford considers it as the group's breakthrough piece in terms of originality: "It had the drama and the poise and the kind of fey, pastoral English-y lyrics at the beginning where the music all gives way to a slightly feminine vocal."[26]

Fragile was the first Yes album to feature cover art by Roger Dean

Fragile marks the start of the band's long association with English artist Roger Dean, who would design many of their future album covers, their logo, and live stage sets. In 1971 Dean submitted a portfolio to Phil Carson, then European General Manager of Atlantic Records, who said would contact Dean for work when one of his bands needed a cover artist, which became Yes. Prior to starting on the album's cover, Dean had came up with a creation myth narrative about a child who dreamt they were living on a planet that started breaking up, so they built a "space ark" to find another planet to live on while towing the broken pieces with them.[27] Dean was aware that the album's title described "the psyche" of the group at the time, which influenced his "very literal" design of a fragile Bonsai world that was going to break up.[28][29] The band had wished for an image of a fractured piece of porcelain, but Dean ended up breaking the planet into two pieces as a compromise.[14] Dean produced three versions of the cover with the planet in green, red, and blue, in an attempt to "get the right look."[30] Bruford thought Dean "brilliantly parlayed that idea [one of Fragile] up to the prescient image of the fragile planet earth, with implications of a delicate and breakable eco-system."[14] Dean continued the narrative in his artwork for Yes's first live album, Yessongs (1973), but his style had evolved by this time and the planet no longer looked like the Fragile original.[28][30]

The LP's accompanying booklet contains two additional Dean paintings; the front cover depicts five creatures huddled under a root system, and the back depicts a person climbing up a rock formation. The inside features several photographs of the band with a page dedicated to each member, with smaller illustrations and photographs of their wives and children. Anderson's page contains a short poem, and Wakeman's include a list of acknowledgements, including Mozart, The White Bear pub in Hounslow, and Brentford F.C.[nb 1]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[40]
Christgau's Record Guide	B[41]
The Daily Vault	A−[42]
Pitchfork	8.8/10[43]
Rolling Stone (1972)	Favourable[2]
Rolling Stone (2003)	[44]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[45]
The Village Voice	B[46]

Fragile received a mostly positive reception upon its release. Billboard magazine selected the album in its "Billboard Pick" feature, describing it as "vibrant, soothing, tumultuous, placid and instrumentally brilliant" and Anderson's vocals "deliciously ingratiating".[47] In his review for Rolling Stone, Richard Cromelin pointed out the album's "gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise and energetic performances" and "cryptic but evocative lyrics", but pointed out that Yes "tend to succumb to the show-off syndrome. Their music (notably "We Have Heaven") often seems designed only to impress and tries too hard to call attention to itself".[2] Kurt White reviewed the album in The Daily Reporter, calling Wakeman a "very talented organist". He named "Roundabout" the album's finest cut, "an eight-minute masterpiece incorporating unusual rhythm and music". He notes that despite its "limitations and faults", Fragile remains "interesting and enjoyable".[48]

Melody Maker gave a mixed review on 20 November 1971. It opened with: "'Fragile' does not seem to go anywhere or have any theme except displaying Yes' technical ability ... It's not until 'Heart of the Sunrise' that they get there. It's all a little too much like exercises, clever and beautifully played". The review praised "Roundabout" for Howe's guitar work and compared its style to "Yours is No Disgrace" from The Yes Album.[49] In the Detroit Free Press, reviewer Jon Weisman deemed it "in a word, extraordinary" with Wakeman's addition to the band the key to them achieving an "ethereal, clear sound" they had been aiming for. His main criticism was the band's tendency to be too esoteric in their style and "other-worldly".[50] Ed Keheller for Circus magazine summarised his review of the album with "Fragile is unquestionably their most cohesive and mettlesome undertaking".[51] In the same issue, Squire responded to the criticism regarding the album's solo tracks, "in a way you've got to appreciate the circumstances. We had to get another album out quickly from a purely financial point of view. We have a lot of mouths to feed. Rick ... had to buy a vast amount of new equipment when he joined, and it all costs much more money than people seem to imagine."[52]

In 2005, Fragile was included in the musical reference publication 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In his review for AllMusic, Bruce Eder gave the album five stars out of five. He writes: "Fragile was Yes' breakthrough album, propelling them in a matter of weeks from a cult act to an international phenomenon; not coincidentally, it also marked the point where all of the elements of the music (and more) that would define their success for more than a decade fell into place fully formed. The science-fiction and fantasy elements that had driven the more successful songs on ... The Yes Album, were pushed much harder here, and not just in the music but in the packaging of the album: the Roger Dean-designed cover was itself a fascinating creation that seemed to relate to the music and drew the purchaser's attention in a manner that few records since the heyday of the psychedelic era could match."[8]

In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted it the sixth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.[53]

Fragile was first reissued on CD in the United States and Europe in 1990.[nb 3] A remastered edition for CD and cassette by Joe Gastwirt followed in 1994, which includes a reprise of "We Have Heaven" after "Heart of the Sunrise" for a track running time of 11:32.[nb 4] In 2002, Rhino and Elektra Records released Fragile in stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes for the DVD-Audio format. The band's cover of "America" is included, along with other supplemental features.[nb 5] 2003 saw Rhino and Elektra put out a new remastered CD conducted by Dan Hersch, with "America" and an early rough mix of "Roundabout" as bonus tracks.[nb 6]

In 2006, two new "audiophile" remasters were released. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab put out a "24 KT Gold" edition for CD headed by Shawn Britton,[nb 7] and a 200-gram LP from Analogue Productions by Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman.[nb 8] Warner Japan released Fragile in 2011 in a hybrid stereo/multi-channel edition for the Super Audio CD format as part of their Warner Premium Sound series.[nb 9] The 2003 reissue was included in the album box set The Studio Albums, 1969–1987, released in 2013.

Fragile was released in a new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mix on CD, DVD-Audio, and Blu-ray by Steven Wilson, on 30 October 2015. The Blu-ray disc features six previously unreleased tracks.