Yes: Fragile (BLURAY AUDIO)

While the first three Yes albums come highly recommended, it's fair to say that "Fragile" is the album that launched the band to superstardom in America. It may or may not be a coincidence that it was the band's first album with Rick Wakeman on keyboards, but it almost certainly has something to do with the fact that "Fragile" contained two songs that would later become some of the band's most iconic: "Roundabout" and "Long Distance Runaround". "Fragile" was recorded at Advision Studios in London, England, and was originally intended to be a double album mixing studio and live tracks, but this plan never materialized, nor did the plan to record the album with producer Tom Dowd in Miami. Instead, the band produced the LP with Eddy Offord. But you're probably wondering how Wakeman ended up in the lineup for this LP, so let's get right to it. When Yes first started rehearsing for the Fragile sessions, their keyboardist was still Tony Kaye, but when he repeatedly resisted going beyond his usual piano and Hammond organ to incorporate Mellotron or Moog sounds, he was shown the door. After his departure, the band invited Wakeman to join the band, and they were lucky that he did, because coincidentally, he was also offered another interesting opportunity: to play a part in David Bowie's touring band. Wakeman chose to join Yes because it offered him more artistic freedom. The late Chris Squire told the A.V. Club in 2012, "When Rick Wakeman joined the band, he brought the Moog synthesizer and the Mellotron and everything else, so those instruments were part of our arsenal even then and we used them for quasi-orchestral pieces. It worked very well for us." Indeed, given Wakeman's influential presence and the fact that so many iconic Yes songs are included, it's no wonder that "Fragile" can be found in the pages of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Previously only available in earlier super-deluxe editions, this Blu-ray Audio is now being released as a standalone. It includes Atmos and 5.1 remixes (2024) by Steven Wilson, instrumental versions and 2024 stereo remasters by Bernie Grundman.