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Fragile by Released26 November 1971RecordedSeptember 1971Studio, London, EnglandLength41:10,  chronology
(1971)Fragile
(1971)
(1972) from Fragile ""/""
Released: 4 January 1972 (U.S.)

Fragile is the fourth studio album from the English  band , released in November 1971 on . It is their first album recorded with keyboardist  in the band's line-up after  was fired for having a lack of interest in learning more electronic keyboards. Formed of nine tracks, four are group performances while the remaining five are solo features written by each member. Its cover was designed by , who would design their future band logo, stage sets, and many of their future album covers.

Fragile received a positive reception upon its release and was a commercial and critical success, reaching No. 4 on the US   chart and No. 7 on the . "" was released as a single in the US which reached No. 13 and is one of the band's best known songs. The album is certified  by the  for selling over 2 million copies.

Background Rick Wakeman, pictured in 2012.

On 31 July 1971, Yes performed the final concert of their  at  to support  (1971). The line-up during this time consisted of singer , bassist , drummer , keyboardist , and guitarist . Following the tour, Yes started work on their next studio record that was originally conceived as a  with a combination of studio and live tracks. The concept could not be realised due to the time required to make it. Ideas to have the album recorded in , with producer  also never came to fruition.

Rehearsals took place in August 1971 in what Squire described as "a little rehearsal studio in " in London. Working with Kaye became unsuccessful; he was reluctant to expand his sound beyond his usual  and piano and play newer instruments like the  or . Anderson and Squire asked Kaye to leave Yes and found a replacement in , a classically trained player from the folk rock group . Wakeman joined the group as they rehearsed "". Squire spoke about that first session: "That marked the first real appearance of the Mellotron and the Moog—adding the flavour of those instruments to a piece we'd basically already worked out". According to Wakeman, the basis of "" was also put down on the same day.

Production Recording

Recording for the album took place in September 1971 at  using a . , who served as a recording engineer on  (1970), assumed his role while sharing production duties with the band.  reported the album cost $30,000 to produce.

According to Michael Tait, the band's lighting director, the album's title came from their manager Brian Lane who, while on the phone to "some press guy" asking Lane about the new album, "was looking at some photos from that Crystal Palace gig, saw the monitors at the front of the stage and, like all equipment, they had 'Fragile' stamped on the back". Bruford claimed he in fact suggested the title because he thought the band "was breakable" at the time. While the band were recording, Wakeman remembered children being brought into the studio to watch them play.

Composition

Fragile is formed of nine tracks; four are "group arranged and performed" with the remaining five being "the individual ideas, personally arranged and organised" by the five members. Squire reasoned this approach was necessary in part to save time and reduce studio costs, as money was used to purchase keyboard equipment for Wakeman. According to Bruford: "There was this endless discussion about how the band could be used ... I felt we could use all five musicians differently ... So I said—brightly—'Why don't we do some individual things, whereby we all use the group for our own musical fantasy? I'll be the director, conductor, and maestro for the day, then you do your track, and so on.'" Wakeman commented on the album's structure. "Some critics thought this was just being flash. The thinking behind this was that we realised there would be a lot of new listeners coming to the band. They could find out where each individual player's contribution lay."

Side one begins with "Roundabout", a song written by Anderson and Howe that has become one of Yes's best-known songs. Howe recalled the track was originally "a guitar instrumental suite ... I sort of write a song without a song. All the ingredients are there—all that's missing is the song. 'Roundabout' was a bit like that; there was a structure, a melody and a few lines." The introduction was made by recording a piano note played backwards. "Cans and Brahms" is Wakeman's adaptation of the third movement of  by , with an electric piano used for the string section, an electric harpsichord used for the reeds, and a synthesiser used for the . Wakeman later described the track as "dreadful", as contractual problems with , whom he was with as a solo artist, prevented him from writing a composition of his own. Anderson described "We Have Heaven" as a "rolling idea of voices and things", with its two main sets of chants containing the phrases "Tell the Moon dog, tell the March hare" and "He is here, to look around". Side one closes with "".

Side two of the album opens with Bruford's track, "Five Per Cent for Nothing". With a running time of thirty-five seconds, it is his "first attempt composition—but we've all got to start somewhere". According to Tait, its original title was "Suddenly It's Wednesday", but it was changed in reference to Yes paying off their former manager Roy Flynn with the deal of five percent of future royalties. "" segues into Squire's solo track, "The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)". Tait recalled Anderson called him "at ten o'clock one night from Advision and said, 'I want the name of prehistoric fish in eight syllables. Call me back in half an hour'". Tait subsequently found  praematurus, a  of marine fish, in a copy of . Howe performs his solo guitar piece "Mood for a Day" on a  flamenco guitar. "" is a track where Wakeman's classically trained background came into play; he introduced the band to the idea of  where previous segments in music are revisited.

Sleeve design Roger Dean, pictured in 2008.

The album's sleeve was designed and illustrated by English artist , who would design many of Yes's future album covers, including their "bubble" logo. On reflection of the design, Dean said: "'Fragile' was very literal, really. I think the band has named a number of their albums after their current psychological state, and 'Fragile' described the psyche of the band. And I thought about that very literally, painting a fragile world that would eventually break up." He commented further: "'Fragile' was quite a complicated cover because there was a book inside. It was elaborate although it wasn't one of the most striking of all the Yes covers. I was kind of learning my trade at the time. The main feature on the cover was a little  world with a wooden space ship flying overhead! It was literally meant to be a fragile world".

The band had wished for an image of a fractured piece of ; to compromise, Dean ended up breaking the planet into two pieces. This idea of a broken world would continue on the band's live album, . Bruford thought Dean "brilliantly parlayed that idea [one of Fragile] up to the prescient image of the fragile planet earth, with implications of a delicate and breakable eco-system".

The LP's accompanying promotional booklet contains two additional Dean paintings; the front cover depict five creatures huddled under a  system; the back cover depicts a person climbing up a rock formation. The inside shows several photographs of the band with an individual page dedicated to each member, with smaller illustrations and photographs of their wives and children. Anderson's page contains a short poem, while Wakeman contains a list of acknowledgements, including , The White Bear pub in , and .

Release

Fragile was released in the UK on 26 November 1971 followed by its US release on 4 January 1972. It peaked at number 4 on the U.S.   chart and number 7 in the UK. "Roundabout" was released as a single in the US with a duration of 3:27, with "Long Distance Runaround" on the . It peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard  chart in April 1972. In April 1972, Fragile was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album is certified double Platinum by the RIAA for over 2 million copies sold. The album has been certified Silver by the .

Reception Professional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingB8.8/10 (1972)FavourableRolling Stone (2003)

Fragile received a mostly positive reception upon its release. Billboard magazine selected the album in its "Billboard Pick" feature, describing it as "vibrant, soothing, tumultuous, placid and instrumentally brilliant" and Anderson's vocals "deliciously ingratiating". In his review for Rolling Stone, Richard Cromelin pointed out the album's "gorgeous melodies, intelligent, carefully crafted, constantly surprising arrangements, concise and energetic performances" and "cryptic but evocative lyrics", but pointed out that Yes "tend to succumb to the show-off syndrome. Their music (notably "Cans and Brahms" and "We Have Heaven") often seems designed only to impress and tries too hard to call attention to itself".

Ed Keheller for  magazine summarised his review of the album with "Fragile is unquestionably their most cohesive and mettlesome undertaking". In the same issue, Squire responded to the criticism regarding the album's solo tracks, "in a way you've got to appreciate the circumstances. We had to get another album out quickly from a purely financial point of view. We have a lot of mouths to feed. Rick ... had to buy a vast amount of new equipment when he joined, and it all costs much more money than people seem to imagine."

In 2005, Fragile was included in the musical reference publication . In his review for , Bruce Eder gave the album five stars out of five. He writes: "Fragile was Yes' breakthrough album, propelling them in a matter of weeks from a cult act to an international phenomenon; not coincidentally, it also marked the point where all of the elements of the music (and more) that would define their success for more than a decade fell into place fully formed. The science-fiction and fantasy elements that had driven the more successful songs on ... The Yes Album, were pushed much harder here, and not just in the music but in the packaging of the album: the Roger Dean-designed cover was itself a fascinating creation that seemed to relate to the music and drew the purchaser's attention in a manner that few records since the heyday of the psychedelic era could match."

In 2014, readers of  voted it the sixth greatest drumming album in the history of progressive rock.

Track listing Side oneNo.TitleWriter(s)Length1.""  , 8:302."Cans and Brahms"  , arranged by 1:383."We Have Heaven"  Anderson1:404.""  Anderson, 8:02Side twoNo.TitleWriter(s)Length1."Five Per Cent for Nothing"  0:352.""  Anderson3:303."The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)"  Squire2:394."Mood for a Day"  Howe3:005.""  Anderson, Squire, Bruford11:27