Conspiracy

Artist: Billy Sherwood , and Chris Squire
Label: Eagle Rock/Eagle
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1
EAN: 5034504112629
ASIN: B00004NHGC

Release Date: 2000-02-24

Conspiracy

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Tracks:

Days of Wonder
Light in My Life
Violet Purple Rose
No Rhyme
Lonesome Trail
More We Live
Love Conquers All
You're the Reason
Watching the World
Red Light Ahead

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Album Description

2000 release from Chris Squire & Billy Sherwood who worked together in Yes & World Trade. Featuring Yes drummer Alan White. 13 tracks including three hidden tracks at the end of the album.

Album Details

Side Project from the Members of Yes.

Customer Reviews:

3 SUPERB songs and some so-so's.......2006-05-02

Billy and Chris are a great performing team. They do just OK at songwriting together. So, what do you say? Hmmm. Get Chris Squire's "Fish Out Of Water", Billy's "The Big Peace", and YES's "The Ladder" to see what I mean. Great individual songwriters and great performers together in YES.

But this album is just alright. They have written some great stuff together, but it's mostly been with other members of YES and ended up on YES albums. The first 3 songs on this album, though, are SUPERB:
1. Days Of Wonder - powerhouse
2. Light In My Life - just a cool, funky love song. Great vocals
3. Violet Purple Rose - Billy's lyrics here are probably in the top 5 best ever lyrics by anyone in any era. (Oh, and Chris's bass line is one of the best bass riffs you'll ever hear, too)

So, I would recommend this album just for those 3 songs and then you might find your own favorites amongst the others.

Sounds more like a Chris Squire solo album.......2005-05-02

I meant that as a compliment...I love Chris' "Fish Out of Water" album. This album has Chris handling lead vox on 6 out of the 10 tracks..Billy also does excellent vocal work. Their vocals work together well.

There are only 2 tracks featuring Alan White on drums...I was under the impression he was on all the tracks...a bit misleading.

I prefer this album over the "The Unknown" album they did together.

I would strongly recommend this to any YES fan.

Very Bland.......2004-01-05

I like Squire's work. I like Sherwood's work. I don't like their collaberation. One word describes this extremely mediocre effort: BLAND. It's like chewing gum that's lost its flavor. It's like the stench of milk right before it goes bad. I don't even use this album for "filler" music when I entertain friends. It sounds much like both Sherwood & Squire were really tired during their recording sessions.

Almost every song is dull, mid-tempo mod rock. Squire's bass is completely inaudible. Sherwood's guitar work is stale and hollow sounding. The keyboards sound a little corny and I think they are overused at times. For you hardcore Yes/prog fans, there is NO technically challenging or thought provoking music on here. It lacks creativity and innovation.

The worst part about these songs is that after you listen to any of them, you immediately forget their melodies. They are almost all forgettable. I've listened to this album straight through at least four times, and I can't hum a single line from any song.

There is a single redeemable song on this album: "Violet Purple Rose". It drips with challenging but catchy melodies and the harmonies shared between Sherwood and Squire are real ear candy. It's also the only upbeat tempo piece on the entire album. If every song had the same qualities as "Violet Purple Rose", this album would be an excellent listen. As it is, this album is even worse than Yes's 90's pop work, of which I'm a fan.

Be warned, even if you are a Yes fan...

Last point: I borrowed Squire and Sherwood's second album, "The Unknown", from a friend and it is amazing. I will be picking that one up soon. A complete about-face from this drudgery.

God, this is awful........2003-07-16

One of the worst side/solo projects from anyone from the Yes camp. I'm a big Yes fan; I love all aspects of Yes from its entire history. But I could not listen to this. It gave me a headache quickly.

Most of these songs are turgid mid-tempo pop-rock numbers, with the less-than-stellar vocal harmonizing of Squire and Sherwood being the acid frosting on the tasteless cake. "The More We Live-Let Go" was heard to better effect on "Union", largely because Jon Anderson is simply a better singer than Billy Sherwood. If these were the songs Chris and Billy were working on before the Union project became a reality, it's no wonder the entire band felt adrift. "Red Light Ahead" is the other good song on here, and even as such, Chris has written far better songs than this.

For all Yes fans, try to imagine "Open Your Eyes" without Jon Anderson's vocals or Steve Howe's guitar flourishes and you'll have this album. It's THAT bad.

There is hope; on an Inside Out music sampler, I've heard a Conspiracy song from their next album, and it sounds MUCH better than this.

Yes? No, but not bad at all.......2003-04-16

"Conspiracy" was the album Yes bassist Chris Squire and his talented pal Billy Sherwood were working on when some of the songs (along with Sherwood himself) were detoured to Yes's "Open Your Eyes" album in 1997. "OYE" wasn't particularly well received by Yes fans, maybe in part because the Squire/Sherwood songwriting didn't seem to mesh well with the more traditional progressive rock tendencies of Jon Anderson and Steve Howe.

"Conspiracy" is in a lot of ways a more listenable album than "OYE", though, because Chris and Billy don't have to force the songs to fit into the Yes mold -- not progressive rock, but hard rock/pop influenced by prog. Sort of like a harder rocking version of the Alan Parsons Project. Prog fans will be most enchanted by longer, melodic songs such as "Violet Purple Rose", "Lonesome Trail", and "Red Light Ahead", while more commercially oriented listeners might like "Light of My Life" or "No Rhyme".

While Yes fans will indeed lament that Chris doesn't engage in much of his amazing basswork here, the musicianship is solid. Fans who have enjoyed Chris' occasional vocals with Yes will like this record, with his lead vocals all over the place. Sherwood has an nice voice, as well (but unsuited for lead vocalist with Yes, which was considered briefly at one point).

Besides the new songs, three new versions of songs that eventually were recorded by Yes are included. Most of these are as good or better than the Yes tracks: "Love Conquers All" is more upbeat and better sung by Sherwood than the Trevor Rabin- sung outtake from the "Union" album; nothing can save Squire's lyrics from the most despised "OYE" song "Man in the Moon", but the vocals are good. And the best song is the original version of "Open Your Eyes", the one place where both Chris "lead bass" and lead vocals shine.

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