ANTHONY Barnes

Wonderful! Kate Summerscale does something that previous writers on this case like Ludovic Kennedy failed to do; she tells us about the lives of the unfortunate women who fell victim to this monster. Not just true crime, also social history.

I have always been a fan of the brilliant John Mayall. Seen him live many times; the first time in 1967 with Peter Green. But this album is awful. John never had the greatest voice and here it sounds pretty ropey. And the lyrics of most of the songs....cringeworthy. Should have been titled Cheese From Laurel Canyon.

Tedious, dull, boring, cheesy, mundane, overrated adolescent rubbish. Couldn't have been recorded without session musicians. For instance Dennis Wilson wasn't exactly Ginger Baker. The guy in Def Leppard with one arm was a better drummer than Dennis. I'm sure there are probably drummers with no arms better than Dennis. Can you imagine members of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd needing to employ session musicians to play their instrumental parts. Putting this garbage in the list of top ten albums of all time is the equivalent of giving Vlad the Impaler the Nobel peace prize . Its a concept album. The concept is mediocrity. Even the album cover is cheesy. How overrated is this album? God Only Knows. It's musical valium for the delusional of hearing.

I would put this album alongside such classics as The Best of Wink Martindale, Robert Mitchum Sings Calypso, and Pet Sounds. Yes it is experimental, but so was the work of Doctor Josef Mengele. That was awful too.

I think this is a wonderful album. I'm a massive fan of Yes, probably the best line of musicians in any band ever. But after Close to the Edge I thought that they began to take themselves a little too seriously. The music began to flirt with pretentiousness. Drama brought things back down to earth. This album has two or three tracks which would definitely deserve a place on a best of album. For me the outstanding track is Into the Lens, and Chris Squire's bass playing throughout the album is incredible. Later works never really reached the excellence of the earlier albums. I think Drama is probably the last of the really great Yes albums.