I bought two CDs the other day, both based on nostalgia: HighLights: The Very Best Of Yes by Yes, and One Take Radio Sessions by Mark Knopfler.

I bought the Yes album because I realized I had absolutely no Yes in my music collection and I liked a few of their songs in the 70’s, like Roundabout, and Long Distance Runaround, and … uh … Roundabout. And some other ones I couldn’t remember but I knew they were out there. So I bought it because I knew it would have the other old songs I couldn’t think of and I’d like them and it was a greatest hits album so the rest was bound to be good stuff too and besides what dino rock music collection is complete without some Yes?

Well.

I’m here to tell you that Yes sucked. There are exactly two songs on this CD that I like (I’ll bet you can guess which ones) and the rest of them are unlistenable rambling arrangements of crap. Listening to it now, I am completely baffled as to why Yes was ever popular. Musta been some goooood acid going around back then…

As for the Mark Knopfler CD… Eh, not bad. It’s “live” studio versions of songs from last year’s Shangri La album. I don’t love it but I do like it — pretty much the way I feel about most of Knopfler’s stuff. I just love his voice, so if he’s singing I probably like it. My favorite track off this one is Boom, Like That, a song about Ray Kroc (“that’s kroc with a ‘k’ like ‘crocodile’ but not spelled that way, yeah”) starting McDonald’s. Go figure.

So the verdicts are:

Mark Knopfler: Yes.
Yes: No.