Union is the thirteenth studio album by the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 30 April 1991 by Arista Records. The album was conceived following the amalgamation of two separate groups featuring current and former members of Yes: Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH)—comprising Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe—and the remaining members of the band's 1980s lineup, consisting of Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin, Tony Kaye, and Alan White. After ABWH's recorded tracks were rejected by their label as uncommercial, and the alternative Yes line-up continued auditioning replacement lead vocalists following the commercial success of 90125 (1983) and Big Generator (1987), management and record executives brokered a commercial merger to combine their separate, unfinished material into a single unified project.
The album's production was highly problematic and characterised by internal friction. Due to creative differences and scheduling conflicts during the ABWH sessions, co-producer Jonathan Elias and Anderson chose to heavily overdub and replace Wakeman and Howe's parts with contributions from session musicians, a move that drew severe criticism from the affected band members. Concurrently, the Squire and Rabin-led faction contributed four tracks, which were largely developed from solo demos and collaborative material with Billy Sherwood. Marking a return to the band's classic visual identity, the album packaging features a prominent sleeve design by long-time collaborator Roger Dean, which reinstated his classic 1972 "bubble" logo alongside a newly designed square emblem variant.
Union received mixed to negative reviews from music critics upon release, who frequently criticised its disjointed nature and corporate-driven overproduction. The majority of the band members have since openly disowned the project; Bruford described it as the worst album of his career, while Wakeman famously nicknamed it Onion because it made him cry upon listening. The album was nevertheless a commercial success, peaking at number seven on the UK Albums Chart and number 15 on the Billboard 200, eventually achieving a gold certification in the United States. Its lead single, "Lift Me Up", topped the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart for six weeks, and Howe's solo acoustic piece, "Masquerade", earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Following the conclusion of the subsequent 1991–92 world tour, which was unique for featuring all eight members performing together on stage, the band reverted to its 1983–88 line-up of Anderson, Squire, Rabin, White, and Kaye.
Background The origins of Union stem from a deep schism within Yes during the late 1980s, which divided the musicians into two distinct factions. Following a period of major commercial success with the albums 90125 (1983) and Big Generator (1987), frontman Jon Anderson grew dissatisfied with the band's pop-oriented musical direction and departed in 1988. Anderson subsequently reunited with 1970s-era alumni Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe to form the spin-off group Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH), alongside bassist Tony Levin. While ABWH successfully toured their self-titled 1989 debut for Arista Records, the remaining four members of Yes—guitarist Trevor Rabin, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Alan White, and keyboardist Tony Kaye—retained the official band moniker under Atco Records. This alternative faction began writing new material with producer Eddy Offord and auditioned replacement lead vocalists, including Steve Walsh, Roger Hodgson, Robbie Nevil, and Billy Sherwood, before their respective projects ultimately collided.
By 1990, both factions were actively developing separate follow-up albums, with ABWH convening in France alongside producer Jonathan Elias. Elias had recently collaborated with Anderson on the project Requiem for the Americas (1990), and Anderson subsequently invited him to produce the new group tracks. Bruford initially expressed immense optimism for the sophisticated instrumental tracks he, Howe, and Levin were creating. The sessions stalled, however, when Arista executives intervened, declaring the material uncommercial and demanding a radio-friendly single. In search of a solution, Anderson travelled to Los Angeles to record vocals and crossed paths with Rabin, who played him the material the Atco-signed Yes line-up had been writing. Recognising a mutual opportunity, Anderson offered to provide lead vocals for the Yes tracks and asked Rabin for a song that ABWH could use to satisfy Arista. Rabin provided three demos—including "Lift Me Up"—but requested that ABWH select only one. Anderson's enthusiasm to record all three tracks instead triggered management discussions, shifting the goal from a simple song exchange to a full commercial merger of the two separate bands.
This proposed merger met with sharply divided reactions among the musicians. Rabin viewed the arrangement as a practical vehicle to facilitate an immediate tour, whereas Squire more cynically characterised the combined project as a "salvage job." Conversely, Howe and Bruford strongly resisted the decision, arguing that ABWH had already established its own identity and had no need to re-adopt the Yes moniker. Bruford later lamented that ABWH was a promising group in the making before corporate intervention abruptly crushed it. Despite these internal objections, legal negotiations proceeded rapidly; Atco agreed to release the 1980s lineup from their contract, allowing all eight musicians to sign a joint four-album deal with Arista. The resulting project combined the separate tracks recorded by both camps, anchored by Anderson's lead vocals across the entire album. To finalise the deal, Atco retained the lucrative rights to the band's back catalogue, and Squire recalled that a massive, 90-page contract was required to resolve the labyrinth of conflicting interests between the two lineups, their respective labels, and tour promoters. While the hybrid project was being mixed, the press initially announced it under the working title Dialogue as late as February 1991, before it was ultimately renamed Union.
Recording and production
ABWH sessions and personnel changes The ten tracks originating from the ABWH camp—"I Would Have Waited Forever", "Shock to the System", "Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day", "Silent Talking", "Angkor Wat", "Dangerous (Look in the Light of What You're Searching For)", "Holding On", "Evensong", "Take the Water to the Mountain", and "Masquerade"—were tracked across five locations, including Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, SARM West Studios in London, Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, and Vision Sound Studios in New York City. Exceptional tracking arrangements included "Masquerade", a solo acoustic guitar piece recorded by Howe at his home studio in Devon.
When Elias accepted Anderson's invitation to produce the ABWH tracks, he felt uneasy, believing the band's history of volatile internal conflicts would make capturing fresh material exceptionally difficult. Rather than spotlighting purely technical individual prowess, Elias aimed to frame the band's signature "high technical edge" within concise, direct song structures. Anderson, credited as an associate producer, initially resisted this commercial approach, wishing to distance the project from the pop-oriented direction that had defined Yes in the 1980s. According to Elias, the sessions were severely hampered by a total lack of initial musical material and intense interpersonal hostility, particularly between Anderson and Howe. He stated that the two musicians "couldn't string three chords together without fighting about what they were", forcing him to act as a buffer during the writing process. In an attempt to stimulate tracking, Elias brought a Hammond organ into the studio, but Wakeman refused to play it, dismissing the instrument as outdated. Elias later reflected that the musicians appeared totally disengaged from the music, leaving him relieved to finish the tracks at all.
Production grew more complicated once the initial takes were completed. Because Wakeman and Howe had both scheduled solo commitments prior to recording, their respective keyboard and guitar tracks were stored unfinalised on a computer. In their absence, Anderson and Elias decided the original performances lacked modern viability and hired a vast array of session musicians to completely rewrite or overdub the arrangements. Elias explained that they were looking for a more contemporary sound rather than a replication of "early-'70s pyro technique." Elias noted that the session musicians were hired out of physical necessity because the band members' individual tracks were entirely disconnected from one another, reflecting a level of mutual distrust where Wakeman and Howe refused to listen to each other's parts.
Rabin was invited to replace Howe's parts but declined. Elias subsequently recorded sessions with guitarist Scott van Zen, but those tracks were ultimately discarded in favour of recordings by Jimmy Haun. Haun, who was suggested by Steve Porcaro, noted that the final authority on which parts were kept belonged strictly to Anderson, Elias, and one unnamed associate. Despite replacing the majority of Howe's performances, Haun stated that he actively attempted to be sensitive to Howe's historic work, even utilising a Gibson ES-175 to replicate his signature tone. Elias also noted that while Tony Levin was a rational collaborator during the initial sessions, his subsequent absence from the post-production phase required Haun to supplement the bass tracks using Levin's left-behind equipment.
The extensive alterations provoked immediate, severe backlash from the displaced band members. Wakeman openly criticised Elias in Keyboard magazine for executing the unauthorized overdubbing campaign. Elias defended the decision, arguing that Union was an album of concise songs rather than "major opuses" and claiming Wakeman had simply "lost his edge." Howe was not informed that his parts had been replaced until mid-way through the European leg of the tour, when Squire advised him to listen to the final product; Squire later recalled that Howe "got very annoyed". Howe expressed deep resentment toward the production team, describing the systematic alteration of his guitar parts as akin to "having an abortion" and dismissively labelling Haun an "average guitarist." Elias countered that Howe's hostile reaction was merely the "bruised ego" of an otherwise excellent musician. Decades later, Howe included his original, un-overdubbed backing tracks for "Dangerous" and "Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day" on his 2017 compilation Anthology 2: Groups & Collaborations to showcase his intended performances.
Yes sessions Concurrently, the Atco Records-signed faction of the band—consisting of Rabin, Squire, White, and Kaye—was given roughly three months to finalise their four song contributions: "Lift Me Up", "Saving My Heart", "Miracle of Life", and "The More We Live – Let Go". Despite the compressed timeline to complete the material, White stated that this faction maintained complete artistic license to arrange and finish the tracks according to their own preferences.