IV- The Worlds of Roger Dean

Born in 1944, English artist Roger Dean is undoubtedly the best-known artist in the world of progressive rock illustration, thanks to the numerous logos and album covers he has conceived since 1971, especially for the groups YES and ASIA. Mr. Dean is also the editor of two famous books devoted to album cover art: the first, 'Views' (1975), is devoted to pictorial work, and the second, The Album Cover Album, is dedicated to the history of album cover art. The uniquely stylized drawings of Roger Dean use weird landscapes to evoke strange worlds inspired by fantasy literature and science fiction. The imposing universes - with glittering lights (often in tones of blue cobalt), and sometimes populated by mythical creatures – have been imitated a thousand times, but never equaled. Chosen by Rolling Stone Magazine in its list of The Top 50 Album Covers of the Century, the album cover for YES’ ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’ illustrates both wonderfully and with wonder the music and ‘cosmic’ texts of YES. With its blocks of desert rocks, its sunrise, its Maya temple, its fish swimming in an azure atmosphere, and its overall magical feeling, it is the prototype of the Roger Dean style.

And yet Mr. Dean’s album covers for YES’ ‘Fragile,’ ‘Relayer,’ ‘Drama,’ ‘Yesterdays,’ ‘Keys To Ascension’ and ‘The Ladder’ are equally compelling. Images and music have never coincided and supplemented each other more perfectly than on YES’ collaborations with Roger Dean - to such a degree that one cannot listen to YES or look at Mr. Dean’s covers without thinking of the other.