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2020 is likely the advent of many things good and bad, but one arresting aspect for those of us who are fans of Trevor's work and of YesWest in particular is this: now is the year in which Talk is the only Yes studio album not available for digital distribution.
"Lost" albums in the Yes continuum has been a discussion point of late in online fandom realms, prompted by news of the upcoming release of Changes and discussion of those songs recorded but never released from the Cinema era, and it led me to ponder this particular inequity. At the heart of it, this all has to do with licensing and distribution. So let's first examine that aspect.
As we know, Talk was recently licensed for archival reissue on vinyl by Music On Vinyl so the rights are held by some entity, but one which is either unwilling or has not been requested to license this recording for streaming/download. The CD version has only ever been reissued twice, once on its' own in 2002, and then as part of the '90s-era Essentially Yes boxset in 2006.
But the only other Yes album which had been missing from the online discography was Talk's follow-up (chronologically, of course, because it was written and recorded by a different lineup and I don't count either Keys To Ascension release strictly as a studio album) Open Your Eyes. Yes did not have a major label relationship at the time, and that album was distributed through two different entities. One of them, Eagle Records, still exists as a subsidiary of Eagle Rock Entertainment, which is the current label affiliation for Open Your Eyes.
Talk, on the other hand, was released by Victory Music, which was distributed by a couple of EMI subsidiaries at the time: Parlophone (in the US) and London (overseas). Phil Carson headed the label for a number of years beginning in the late 1980s, but it folded not long after the release of Talk, as I understand it. It appears, from examining the copyrights associated with the latest reissue, that Eagle Rock currently holds the rights to Talk.
So now the question is: why one and not the other?
Neither album was particularly successful in its' time and that was at least one reason, as far as I can discern, why both albums had been absent from the online realm once we began to see the rest of Yes' catalog being licensed for digital distribution. Fans have been relying on YouTube or online trading circles if they hadn't ripped a copy of their own disc(s), provided they owned either one. And both releases have been out of print on CD for over a decade now though you can still buy each of them on the secondary market easily enough (and in the case of Talk, either with or without the Japanese release bonus track).
An argument which I imagine has been proffered in regards to this discussion involves artist compensation and it's certainly a fair one; it's been going on since Steve Jobs first proposed the platform for iTunes back in 2001 with his 0.99 per track pricing model. But when one considers secondary sales/trading/unlicensed streaming, there is already revenue loss occurring. And some artists held off on licensing their back catalogs for decades, until that particular consideration became moot (and they understood that it was). Because in the 21st Century, it's not so much about your continuing legacy as it is about your continuing relevancy.
A good example of this phenomena is the progressive metal band Tool. Tool professionally debuted with the release of their EP Opiate in 1992 and gradually built a following as one of the world's biggest cult bands - an ensemble which has fans in both the industry and the general populace - wholly devoted to going their own way, doing their own thing. And that philosophy served them well for over twenty years. However, last year leading up to the release of their latest album Fear Inoculum they announced they were finally releasing their entire back catalog (with the exception of the limited edition audio/video box set Salival) for digital distribution, and thus at least one entire generation was now able to discover the band for themselves via Spotify and/or whatever other platform they utilize for listening to music.
And the results were astounding not only for a legacy band, but especially a legacy rock band.
If an artist/band cares about continuing relevancy then making one's back catalog available for digital distribution is crucial. And so I can't help but think that there is something - someone - else holding Talk back from further discovery. There are thousands of views racked up on each of the uploads I see on YouTube. And perhaps the revenue isn't substantial or even compensatory, but it is there to be exploited. Thus I can conceive of no reason, no excuse, why the licensing of Talk didn't occur concurrent with the licensing of Open Your Eyes through Eagle Rock Entertainment.
The legacy of YesWest cannot merely lie with 90125, there is so much more to that lineup as both a recording and performance entity and it is entirely shocking and sad that we are not privy to more cultivation in this regard. Long-time and current fans deserve it, and future fans need it if they are to become devotees.
ALL of it.
