Friday 5 June 2015

Poll: Best Yes-related album of 2014, part 2

We got 65 votes in total for the best Yes-related album of the latter half of 2014:

1) King Crimson: Starless (w/ Bruford): 15 (23%)
2) Mystery: Tales from the Netherlands (w/ David): 14 (22%)
3) Todmobile: Úlfur (w/ Anderson): 12 (18%)
4) United Progressive Fraternity: Fall in Love with the World (w/ Anderson): 9 (14%)
5) Dave Kerzner: New World (w/ Sherwood): 4 (6%)
6) Empire: The Mars Tapes (w/ Banks): 3 (5%)
7) Billy Idol: Kings & Queens of the Underground (w/ Horn, Downes): 2 (3%)
8=) Jerusalem: Black Horses (w/ Downes) 1 (2%)
8=) DuskMachine: DuskMachine (w/ Downes) 1 (2%)

There were no votes for Spandau Ballet's The Story: The Very Best of Spandau Ballet (with new tracks produced by Trevor Horn) or two further releases involving Billy Sherwood, Queensrÿche feat. Geoff Tate's Frequency Unknown Deluxe Edition and Spiders & Snakes' Year of the Snake. There were 4 'other' votes, but they were blank or for ineligible entries... which was partly my fault as I mislabelled the poll the begin with!

A very close result, with the latest King Crimson mega-boxset just winning out over the live Mystery album, and then two releases with Jon Anderson guesting, Todmobile's Úlfur (my personal choice) and United Progressive Fraternity's Fall in Love with the World (another good album, but with a more fleeting appearing by Anderson). I wonder whether Úlfur would have done better if it had had some more significant promotion behind it; I don't think Anderson himself ever mentioned it!

Given David's retirement from music, Tales from the Netherlands may be the last release we ever get with him performing, so nice to see it was well received.