90125’s fantastic performance in the US in 1983 is likely what kicked the War on Drugs into high gear in the 80’s as Nancy Reagan could only conclude that most Americans were snorting lines of coke off a stripper’s tit and heading to their local record shop to buy Yes’ latest album while their minds were still completely obliterated.
Artist: Yes {Jon ‘Are You Fucking Kidding Me?’ Anderson – vocals; Tony ‘Keep Piling That Shit On’ Kaye – keyboards; Trevor ‘I am So Sorry’ Rabin – guitars, vocals, additional keyboards; Chris ‘I’m Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today’ Squire – bass, vocals; Alan ‘This Wasn’t My Fault’ White – drums, percussion, backing vocals}
Album: 90125
Year: 1983
Genre: Regressive Shit Pop
Rating: a screwdriver in the eye/5
Worth Your Time? Avoid it like gonorrhea. After a week long infection, I’m considering setting my crotch on fire in hopes of stopping the burning.
Twitter Review: Most people if they had a time machine would stop Lincoln’s assassination or try to kill Hitler. Well not me. Not me, god damn it. I’d get in my time machine and devote every fucking ounce of energy to make sure this album NEVER happens.
Fuck These 3 Tracks:
Why It Sucks (abridged):
- The Lyrics. The forms of ‘to be’ are not an optional part of the English language. When writing the lyrics for Hearts, Yes decided they knew better. The song verbally assaults my ears and intelligence for what purpose I cannot comprehend. It’s not right. It Can Happen feels lyrically inspiring as the Hokey Pokey. Then the ridiculous and over-the-top corniness of the lyrics in Our Song makes me think it better belongs in the 1978 mother of all movie blunders, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, rather than on any album.
- Who Do I want to be Today? I’d like to make it perfectly clear that I’m not saying to stay away from Yes completely. Not at all. This unholy alliance of Yes is known as West Yes or as I like to call them Shitty Shit Yes. It’s a complicated story, but basically they moved from the UK to LA as they regrouped with new members and fucked it all up. My biggest problem is these guys don’t know if they want to be a pop band or a progressive rock band on this album and this weird horrific Frankenstein’s monster of a creation makes me contemplate pulling a double Van Gogh and shutting down Lt. Morning permanently. I think my best example of this confusion is Changes which has an Indian inspired instrumental intro lasting a whopping minute and forty seconds. Epic, right? Too bad the rest of the song is 80’s pop ballad as they get. It makes no fucking sense. There are countless instances of bullshit like this.
- Make It Stop. The keyboards on this album are piled on so thick with 80’s cheesiness that you won’t be shitting for weeks. The same thing with the vocal effects. It feels more like a bad sci-fi movie or an art film project turn disaster as the vocals are layered on top of each other to the point of absurdity while moving back and forth between the left and right channels doing their damnedest to instigate the world’s first case of audio-induced epilepsy. I wish the studio engineer would have bitch slapped them back into reality instead of letting them finish making Leave It.
Why This is a Review and not a Suicide Note: The best track on this album hands-down is the dance remix of Owner of a Lonely Heart. Why? Well somebody had the brains to create a remix that was in fact shorter than the original and cut out the third verse completely. Fucking genius! Of course, the remix wasn’t part of the original release but it’s the only reason I didn’t drive my car head on into a wall to finally end my own personal hell once and for all before the week was up. For that three minutes and thirty-one seconds I had a break before the wretched loop that is 90125 starting all over again.
Anything Else: I know this album is loved by many people. It has tons of 5-star reviews all over the internet. I’m not judging you if you like this album. Oh fuck it. I am. What the shit-fuck is wrong with you people? Did the titty coke break your brains and permanently destroy any sense of good taste you had?
Sorry members of Shitty Shit Yes and producer Trevor Horn. I’m sure you worked very hard on this album. But maybe if you listen to it for a week straight, you’ll see where I’m coming from and understand why I finally reached my breaking point. Hopefully, next week will go much better because I won’t survive another week like this.
Please note this entire review was written purely for comedic purposes. I don’t actually hate the album that much. I thought this would be more fun to read than another ‘it was okay’ review.
Additional Links:
PS Aaron Lewis still writes way shittier lyrics than anybody.
Project Lt. Morning 
Sorry you hated it. I grew up on this album since my dad is a big fan of this band… I do have to agree many of their songs suck, and are 11+ minutes for no reason. I love Owner of a Lonely Heart, and it is their One hit wonder song (if it was a hit at all) Big Generator is a good song too, bit on another album.
Fyi, my dad is going to their meet and greet at the Hard Rock Casino near Cleveland. Maybe you can express your grief to them and go there. 🙂
I don’t hate the album. I don’t love it either. This review wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I tried to be over the top as possible. If I was doing a real review it would probably be a 2.5/5. And Owner of a Lonely Heart is a fantastic pop song. I’m actually really looking forward to reviewing their early 70s era albums later on. Those will be serious reviews.
HA! I loved it! My biggest memory of Yes is the music video for Owner of a Lonely Heart. I was a latch-key kid who grew up on hours of unsupervised MTV back when they used to play videos and in that video there are maggots and spiders (I think) crawling on peoples hands and faces. Ugh! I still remember it and it still creeps me out.
That video is a perfect metaphor for the album. At times, you have hope that something special is going on here. Occasionally though, it disgusts you. And ultimately, when it’s all over, you have no idea what just happened.