Yes (band) rearranged covers of rock, pop, blues and jazz songs, as evident on their first two albums. A change of direction in 1970 led to a series of successful progressive rock albums until their disbanding in 1981, their most successful being "The Yes Album" (1971), "Fragile" (1971) and "Close to the Edge" (1972). Yes toured as a major rock act that earned the band a reputation for their elaborate stage sets, light displays, and album covers designed by Roger Dean. The success of "Roundabout", the single from "Fragile", cemented their popularity across the decade and beyond. In 1983, Yes reformed with
The Fragile (Nine Inch Nails album) and writes that "The Fragile" uses funk bass lines, North African minor-key modalities, and the treatment of tonality by Symbolist composers like Debussy. The album also features several distorted guitar parts which Powers suggests that fans can enjoy. Rob Sheffield observes a "prog-rock vibe" akin to Pink Floyd's 1979 album "The Wall" and feels that "The Fragile" is similarly "a double album that vents ... alienation and misery into paranoid studio hallucinations, each track crammed with overdubs until there's no breathing room". Described by Reznor as a sequel to "The Downward Spiral"—an album with a plot detailing the destruction of