Following its release, Tales from Topographic Oceans received a mixed critical reception and became a symbol of progressive rock excess with its detailed concept and lengthy songs. However it was a commercial success, becoming the first UK album to qualify for Gold certification based on pre-orders alone. It topped the UK Album Chart for two weeks and reached number 6 in the US, where it reached Gold certification for over 500,000 copies sold. Yes toured the album from November 1973 to April 1974 with a set that featured the album performed in its entirety. The album was reissued in 1994 and 2003; the latter with bonus tracks. An edition with new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes by Steven Wilson was released in October 2016.
In March 1973, Yes were on the Japanese leg of their 1972–73 world tour to promote their fifth studio album, Close to the Edge (1972). By this time, the band's line-up had stabilised around singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, guitarist Steve Howe, keyboardist Rick Wakeman, and drummer Alan White, who had replaced original drummer Bill Bruford the year before. During their stop in Tokyo, Anderson was in his hotel room seeking a theme for the next Yes album. One of his ideas involved a "large-scale composition", which came to his mind when he found himself "caught up in a lengthy footnote on page 83" of Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), the autobiography of Indian yogi and guru Paramahansa Yogananda. This footnote described four bodies of Hindu text, collectively named the shastras, that Yogananda described as "comprehensive treatises" that cover "every aspect of religious and social life, and the fields of law, medicine, architecture, art, etc." that "convey profound truths under a veil of detailed symbolism". Anderson soon "became engrossed" with the idea of a "four-part epic" album based on the four shastras, though he later admitted that he did not fully understand what the scriptures were about. He was introduced to Yogananda's book by Jamie Muir, then the percussionist for King Crimson, at Bruford's wedding reception on 2 March 1973. Anderson spoke about his meeting with Muir: "I felt I had to learn from him. We started talking about meditation in music—not the guru type but some really heavy stuff." During the album's production, Anderson talked to Vera Stanley Alder, a painter and author of several books on spirituality that had a profound influence on Anderson, for clarifications on his interpretations of the scriptures.
As the tour progressed to Australia and the United States in March and April 1973, Anderson pitched his idea to Howe, a prolific songwriter and arranger in the group who took an interest in the concept. In their spare time between performances on the tour, the two proceeded to hold "candlelight writing sessions" in their hotel rooms, sharing musical ideas and motifs that suited the album's themes. Howe recalled: "Jon would say to me, 'What have you got that's a bit like that...?' so I'd play him something and he'd go: 'that's great. Have you got anything else?' and I'd play him another tune". One riff that Howe played for Anderson was rejected at first, but it was later incorporated into "The Ancient" as by then, the two sought for a different theme that would suit the track. In one marathon session in Savannah, Georgia, Anderson and Howe completed the outline of the vocals, lyrics, and instrumentation in six hours that ended at 7:00 a.m; by which time, the album took shape in the form of a double concept album of four, side long tracks. Anderson described the night as "magical" that "left both of us exhilarated for days". When the album was announced to the rest of the group, Howe recalled an agreement to a double album, but one with just four tracks was met with some resistance. "But Jon and I did manage to sell the idea ... sometimes [we] really had to spur the guys on".
When the tour ended in April 1973, Yes took a short break and regrouped in London and proceeded to rehearse and develop Anderson and Howe's material at Manticore Studios in Fulham, then owned by fellow progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Wakeman thought the musical direction the band had begun to take ventured into "avant-garde jazz rock, and I had nothing to offer there". Squire recognised "a lot of substance" to the four tracks, but at times there was not as much which made the album become "too varied and too scattered". Despite their opinions, Anderson wrote in the liner notes that Squire, Wakeman and White made "important contributions of their own" to the music. He believed the entire group were "on the same page" and supported the concept and material at the time, but realised Wakeman's criticisms ended a period of "elusive harmony" that had existed within the band for their successful albums Fragile (1971) and Close to the Edge. Howe recalled that despite the lengthy arrangements, no one "bottled it" and thought a single album would be more appropriate. White contributed some lengthy sections of music that bridged between the main sections of tracks, but did not receive a writing credit which bothered him at first, but later allowed it as the album was mostly Anderson and Howe's idea.
Phil Carson, then the London Senior Vice President of Atlantic Records, remembered that, during a dinner with Anderson and Nesuhi Ertegun, Anderson was originally going to name the album Tales from Tobographic Oceans and claimed he invented the word "tobographic", a word that summarised one of Fred Hoyle's theories of space. Ertegun informed Anderson that "tobographic" sounded like "topographic", so Anderson changed the title accordingly.
The album was packaged as a gatefold sleeve designed and illustrated by Roger Dean, who had also designed the art for Fragile, Close to the Edge (1972), and the band's first live album, Yessongs (1973). Each of them carried a loose narrative thread that Dean did not continue for Tales from Topographic Oceans. The album's design was discussed during an in-depth conversation Dean and Anderson had in 1973 during the band's flight from London to Tokyo via Anchorage, Alaska, during the Close to the Edge tour. Prior to the flight, Dean had completed the front cover to The View Over Atlantis (1969) by John Mitchell, and "the wives and girlfriends made a cake ... and we all had some. I have no idea what was in it but from London to Anchorage, I was stoned ... But from Anchorage to Tokyo, I couldn't stop talking. And I was telling Jon all about this book, about patterns in the landscape and dragon lines, and we were flying hour after hour after hour over the most amazing landscapes ... So the idea of ... a sort of magical landscape and an alternative landscape ... that informed everything: the album cover, the merchandising, the stage."
Dean, who primarily describes himself as a landscape painter, wished to convey his enthusiasm for landscapes within the album's artwork. He stressed that nothing depicted in the design is made up, and that everything is of a particular thing. Painted using watercolour and ink, the front depicts fish circling a waterfall under several constellations of stars. In his 1975 book Views, Dean wrote: "The final collection of landmarks was more complex than ... intended because it seemed appropriate to the nature of the project that everyone who wanted to contribute should do so. The landscape comprised amongst other things, some famous English rocks taken from Dominy Hamilton's postcard collection. These are, specifically: Brimham Rocks, the last rocks at Land's End, the Logan Rock at Treen and single stones from Avebury and Stonehenge. Jon Anderson wanted the Mayan temple at Chichen Itza with the sun behind it, and Alan White suggested using markings from the plains of Nazca. The result is a somewhat incongruous mixture, but effective nonetheless." In 2002, readers of Rolling Stone magazine voted the album's cover as the best cover art of all time.
On 8 November 1973, Tales from Topographic Oceans was set to be played on Radio Luxembourg by host David Jensen, but according to Anderson, the radio station somehow received blank tapes, resulting in dead air after the album was introduced. Two more radio broadcasts of the album aired on Your Mother Wouldn't Like It with Nicky Horne on 9 November, and Rock on Radio One with Pete Drummond on 10 November.
The album was released in the UK on 7 December 1973, followed by its North American release on 9 January 1974. It was a commercial success for the group; following a change in industry regulations by the British Phonographic Industry for albums to qualify for a Gold disc in April 1973, the album became the first UK record reach Gold certification based on pre-orders alone after 75,000 orders were made. It reached number 1 on the UK Album Chart for two weeks and peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard Top LPs chart. The album was certified Gold in the UK on 1 March 1974 and in the US on 8 February 1974, the latter for 500,000 copies sold.
Yes toured the album across Europe and North America between November 1973 and April 1974, with a two-hour set of Close to the Edge (1972) and Tales from Topographic Oceans performed in their entirety plus encores. The set was altered as it progressed, with "The Revealing Science of God" dropped for some early shows in 1974 and "The Remembering" removed completely from March. The band brought four times as much stage equipment than their previous tours which included an elaborate stage designed by Roger Dean and his brother Martyn with fibreglass structures, dry ice effects, a rotating drum platform, and a tunnel that the band emerged from. During one show, the structure around White that opened and closed failed to operate which left him trapped inside. White claimed the incident was behind a scene depicted in This Is Spinal Tap (1984). The UK leg included five consecutive sell out nights at the Rainbow Theatre in London which marked the first time a rock band achieved the feat.[42] During the North American leg, Yes played two sell out shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City that grossed $200,000. The band spent £5,000 on a hot air balloon, decorated with the album's artwork, which was tethered in each city they performed in the US.
During the tour, Wakeman announced his intention to leave the group at its conclusion. His boredom and frustration from playing the whole of Tales from Topographic Oceans culminated during a show in Manchester where he proceeded to eat a curry on stage. Anderson felt he "pushed" Wakeman too far as he was unsatisfied with a keyboard solo in the set, and constantly asked him to get it right. Wakeman confirmed his exit to Lane over the phone on 18 May 1974, his twenty-fifth birthday, declining to attend rehearsals for the next album, Relayer (1974), stressing he could no longer contribute to the material the band were developing for it. Later that day, Wakeman found out his solo album Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1974) had entered the UK chart at number one. Wakeman called it "a day I will never forget for as long as I live".
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