When Yes ran into problems recording their tenth album in Paris at the
end of 1979, it was almost the end. Yet in the 80s the band rallied,
firstly as part of an unlikely collaboration with a new wave duo, then
with 90125, the most successful album of their career, which spawned a
number one hit in the USA with 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart'. The band
failed to capitalise on this success, however, lingering too long over
its successor Big Generator and by the end of the decade, Yes had
effectively split into two versions of the same band. With most authors
concentrating on the group's 1970s career, Yes in the 1980s looks in
forensic detail at this relatively underexamined era of the band's
history, featuring rarely-seen photos researched by author David
Watkinson. The book follows the careers of all nine significant members
of the group during a turbulent decade which saw huge highs but also
many lows. Not only does it consider the three albums the band itself
made across the decade, but also the solo careers and other groups -
including Asia, XYZ, The Buggles, Jon and Vangelis and GTR - formed by
those musicians as the decade wound towards a reunion of sorts in the
early 1990s.