History
A laborious album to make, Big Generator's sessions dragged on for two years, largely over creative differences. Guitarist Trevor Rabin was aiming to progress beyond 90125, while founding lead vocalist Jon Anderson was beginning to yearn for more traditional Yes music. Trevor Horn, who was a major factor in the success of Yes's previous disc 90125 was part of the early recording sessions, but dropped out after a few months due in major part to his inability to get along with keyboardist Tony Kaye. In a 2011 interview with LineaRock Italy, Anderson stated that Horn had told Anderson to stay away from the rehearsal and recording sessions for three months, presumably so that Horn could develop material with the other band members. The band recorded some material in Italy ("Shoot High Aim Low"), moved to London to produce "Rhythm of Love", and finally to Los Angeles to produce the final tracks for the album. Rabin assumed the production duties after the departure of Horn, and is credited for pulling together the final line-up of music on the disc.
The result was an album that was successful commercially, with two songs reaching the US Top 40: "Love Will Find a Way" (also a #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart) and "Rhythm of Love" (their last US Top 40 hit). The album was not as popular as 90125, and feeling that the band was going in a direction he didn't want to pursue, Jon Anderson began working on other projects at the conclusion of the Big Generator tour in 1988 including a partial reformation with his Yes bandmates from the 1970s as Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe).
It is unclear if the album will ever be reissued by Rhino Records with additional bonus tracks as all previous Atlantic studio releases have been. While new additional material has not been available, unreleased demos may be pulled from the Warner vaults, or live material from 1988 used on the box set, Yesyears.
Missing from the Yes "expanded and remastered" 2003/2004 series by Rhino/Warner (like Yessongs, Yesshows and 9012Live: The Solos), Big Generator was finally remastered (with inverted stereo image) and expanded in 2009 by Isao Kikuchi, the album was published by Warner Music Japan as part of their "Yes SHM-CD Papersleeve" series.
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