90125 is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band Yes, released on 7 August 1983 by Atco Records. After the group disbanded in 1981 following their tour in support of their previous album Drama (1980), bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White formed the band Cinema with new guitarist and singer Trevor Rabin and former Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. The group adopted a more commercial and pop-oriented direction as the result of their new material, with much of it derived from Rabin's demos with former Yes singer Trevor Horn as their producer. During the album's mixing stage, former Yes singer Jon Anderson returned to record the lead vocals, which led to Cinema continuing as a reformed Yes.
Named after its catalogue serial number, 90125 was released to a generally positive reception and helped introduce the band to a new generation of fans. It reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart and remains their best selling album with over 3 million copies sold in the US. Of the album's four singles, "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was the most successful, topping the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart; this track is, to date, the only song of theirs to top the Billboard Hot 100. "Cinema" earned the group a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance and 90125 received a nomination for an award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Yes toured the album between 1984 and 1985 which included two headline shows at the inaugural Rock in Rio festival. The album was remastered in 2004 with previously unreleased bonus tracks.
A music video was made for the song, directed by Godley and Creme. It was shot upside-down and was one of the first music videos to utilize computer-generated imagery. Eighteen different variations of the video were made (the first one, for instance, simply had the band upside-down, but motionless for the whole song), with the eleventh one chosen as the "standard" version, and has remained the "official" video. A half-hour documentary on the making of the video was broadcast on MTV in 1984. Also, a marathon showing all eighteen videos one after the other was also shown on MTV.
Huh, didn't know they reformed. Another one I missed... sigh
ReplyDeleteGreat album! By the way what is MTV? lol.. that channel died a loooong time ago.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching the first aired video by the Buggles..
https://youtu.be/Iwuy4hHO3YQ
Aug of 1981 I was headed to college....