The description box provides the context:
After Yes disbanded in 1981 following the Drama tour, bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White formed a new group with singer-songwriter/guitarist Trevor Rabin and former Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye. This new group was known as "Cinema." Demos were recorded and a debut album began to take shape... That album was never completed. As the album was being mixed, Jon Anderson returned to helm the vocals and the band name "Cinema" was jettisoned. Yes had returned! But what would that album have sounded like without Jon Anderson? Through the years, bits and pieces of the Cinema-era songs have surfaced. This video represents a "best guess," using the songs that were either completely recorded or contained elements and riffs that would later result in the official 90125 release. Some of these songs are complete, others a bit rough, but you will get the picture...
First of all, that album was completed. If it wasn't, we wouldn't have had "Make It Easy" and "It's Over." According to Jon Dee (who was one of the only two fans who witnessed the Cinema lineup in action) there are extant copies of the Cinema album in the hands of at least a few people. I would well imagine each of the Trevors has one, for example. And likely Alan White as well. Also, designer Garry Mouat has stated that the album packaging was originally created for a Cinema release, and was subsequently altered to reflect the new/old identity. So there is a fundamental flaw in this particular assertion. However, I can wholly understand desiring to speculate regarding what a Cinema album would contain and what it would sound like. As his tracklisting illustrates, we have some basis to imagine a group led vocally by Trevor and Chris.
The playlist contains selections which are complete finished songs as well as demo recordings.
Presenting the album that almost was... "Yes: Cinematic"
1) Make it Easy 2) Owner of a Lonely Heart 3) Moving In 4) It Can Happen 5) Changes 6) Cinema 7) It's Over 8) Fools 9) Hold On 10) Promenade
My points of critique/response are offered thus:
-1- Everything on 90125 existed in some form before Jon's rejoining.
A Cinema album would have absolutely included "Leave It" and "City of Love." If you listen to "Leave It," for example, the vocals which are truly dominant are Chris and the two Trevors; it's definitely an example of how Jon was "flown in" (in audio engineering parlance) to flesh it out.
-2- It doesn't make any sense to include more than one version of a song.
As example, you wouldn't include both "Don't Give In" and "Make It Easy" - you would probably only have the latter. So why would you include both "Hold On" and "Moving In" - if it's simply for the purposes of illustration then the obvious choice is "Moving In."
-3- "Promenade" is not era-appropriate.
If we take Trevor at his word. he worked up a version of this composition for inclusion on Big Generator, not 90125 - even though, yes, there was an prior version of it (as we have the evidence of a demo from the early '80s).
-4- The appropriate date is still 1983.
Recording of the album was not actually completed until mid-1983, so even if it had been released as a Cinema album, it would have occurred in 1983, not 1982.
So in terms of my best guess, the Cinema album would have probably been more like the following if we consider comparisons for what made the final running order:
Owner of a Lonely Heart
Moving In
It Can Happen
Changes
Cinema
Leave It
Make It Easy
City of Love
Fools
...but you can certainly create a version which omits "Leave It" and "City of Love" and substitute with "It's Over" and "You Know Something I Don't Know," or "I'm With You" for example. Or even - though I shudder to think - "Would You Feel My Love." But that's just in terms of what we are aware of - the majority of fans don't know all of the songs which were recorded for the album, and we might never know.
Granted, Jon's contributions to 90125 are fairly significant even considering that he was only involved for about three weeks in the final recording process. Without Jon you would not have "Our Song" or "Hearts" but you would have a version of those songs. There are versions of all of the songs, but Jon did make a fair amount of changes/additions to the majority of the lyrics.
After my deep-dive examination of 90124 and what that album should have been if it was truly going to be a precursor to 90125, it strikes me that we could also consider the Cinema record as a version of 90124, since supposedly that was the original catalog number assigned (and thus the title). Naturally we are left with a certain amount of speculation, but my contention is that the game of What If is always better played when you know as much history as is out there to discover.
