Onward - Yes (1978)

"Onward" was released in the fall of 1978 on Yes' ninth studio album, Tormato. The song was written by Chris Squire and he considered it one of the best songs he ever wrote...it's hard to argue otherwise as it's truly a beautiful composition and production, with Jon's vocals and the french horn solo as standouts. This is my 3rd video for a track from the Tormato album, after "Don't Kill the Whale" and "Madrigal". The video is 4k (some elements upscaled) and the audio is 192KHz/24bit High Resolution FLAC.

From Wikipedia: The album received a mixed response from critics yet it became a commercial success. It reached No. 8 in the UK and No. 10 in the US, where it became the band's fastest selling album and reached platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America within two months for selling one million copies. "Don't Kill the Whale" was released as a single that reached No. 36 in the UK. The band's 1978–1979 tour was their first with concerts performed in the round on a central revolving stage.

Thinking about my first video after the monster I ended the year with (my update of Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond I-IX") I wanted something shorter and simpler, but something that was somehow fitting of the new year. "Onward" seemed about right. Years ago I'd worked on some particular effects in After Effects which was just the particle stream reacting to the audio for the entire song. After many, many hours experimenting, I was very pleased with the particular effect I'd managed to create, but after a couple renders of very short sections, I was disappointed to learn that it would be almost impossible to do the whole song with that effect since it would end up with a huge file and take days to render. I've since upgraded my processor, graphics card, and memory to the point where the processing would be easier, and also learned alot about how to make the file smaller without losing much quality, so I thought I'd give it another shot. However, I couldn't find my original After Effects files for the old project, so I started another. The new one represented here is not as complex or pretty as my first one, but I decided it would work well enough if I added other things. I'm still bummed that I don't have the original, and maybe if I have time later I'll try again and use it for an update (maybe try the whole thing again) or another vid.

The album was always criticized for its sound and there was no doubt it had issues. However, it's been remastered and now sounds much better.
From Wikipedia: In 2013, engineer and producer Brian Kehew, who has worked on the remastering of other Yes albums, explained that the album sounds "thin, flat and terrible". He said that Offord usually incorporated Dolby A, a type of Dolby noise-reduction system, in his production work. However, upon examination of the original tapes he could not locate any sign that Dolby A was used. But when he applied Dolby A to the tapes, "[...] everything – except from the overdubs – sounded amazing". Kehew then realised that the engineers who replaced Offord during the album's production may not have known that the Dolby reduction had been used.

I remember the artwork causing lots of attention at the time, I always loved it and remember my eyes going right to it the first time I saw it among a bunch of other new releases on a display wall at a record store in Austin...it was unique and intriguing.
From Wikipedia: As with Going for the One, the album's cover was designed by Hipgnosis but retains the band's logo designed by Roger Dean. Howe pitched the album's original title of Yes Tor, referring to Yes Tor, the second highest hill on Dartmoor, an area of moorland in Devon, England. Wakeman claimed to have thrown a tomato at the pictures taken for the album as he recalled the band were disappointed with the initial artwork which had cost a lot of money. The album's title and cover was changed accordingly. Howe said it was someone at Hipgnosis who threw the tomato and they did so on purpose, which insulted him. According to White, the band was unable to decide on a cover: "I think Po ... put a picture of a guy with divining sticks on the front. He took it home one night and decided it wasn't working. So he threw a tomato at it". Yes manager Brian Lane said the band disliked the pictures that Hipgnosis had taken at Yes Tor, "and we threw the tomatoes. [...] It wasn't Rick".

[Lyrics]
Contained in everything I do
There's a love I feel for you
Proclaimed in everything I write
You're the light, burning brightly
Onward through the night
Onward through the night
Onward through the night of my life
Displayed in all the things I see
There's a love you show to me
Portrayed in all the things you say
You're the day leading the way
Onward through the night
Onward through the night
Onward through the night of my life
Onward through the night
Onward through the night
Onward through the night of my life

Видео Onward - Yes (1978) канала MetalGuruMessiah