You Make Polling Fun: FLEETWOOD MAC POLL RESULTS, ILM Artist Poll #22

If you're going to go nuts in a Hall Of Fame band, make sure it's Pink Floyd and not Fleetwood Mac...

This is as good a time as any to point out that Mick Fleetwood's autobio is MANDATORY READING. So fucking good.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, July 24, 2012 3:23 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Really good to know...

― Clarke B., Tuesday, July 24, 2012 2:28 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I started reading this last year, and he's been sitting there, staring at me with his big crazy eyes, waiting for me to get around to finishing ever since. This poll has been nagging me towards picking it up again. He had just met John McVie when I stopped reading, though, so I'm yet to get to the interesting stuff (early chapters of bios are always a chore for me). The poem his dad wrote about him is worth reading, though.

w.r.t. "Sentimental Lady":

This song appears in the movie Grown Ups, and Maya Rudolph describes this as the "whitest song ever".[citation needed]

I read it either when I was still in high school or shortly thereafter, so...about 20 years ago. I just bought a copy on ebay to read it again.

voted for both 'spare me a little of your love' (my #4) and 'blue letter' (my #12) out of todays jamz

going to make a p sweet playlist i think

i freaking love spare me a little. would made my top 5 and it coulda/shoulda been a smash

So sad about Kirwan... From Wikipedia: 'Kirwan shouldered much of the songwriting responsibility during this troubled and uncertain period for the band, through the changes in both the line-up and in musical style. The pressure showed in his health and he suffered problems with alcoholism; stories abound of Kirwan not eating for several days at a time, subsisting largely on beer. He gradually became estranged from the other band members, and things came to a head during the autumn of 1972. Before a concert on that year's US tour, Kirwan and Welch rowed over tuning and Kirwan flew into a rage, smashing his guitar and refusing to go onstage. Instead he watched while the rest of the band struggled through without him, and offered unwelcome criticism afterwards. Kirwan had to be sacked by Fleetwood, who had hitherto been the only other member still speaking to him. Fleetwood later said: "It was a torment for him, really, to be up there, and it reduced him to someone who you just looked at and thought 'My God'. It was more a thing of, although he was asked to leave, the way I was looking at it was, I hoped, it was almost putting him out of his agony."'

This is as good a time as any to point out that Mick Fleetwood's autobio is MANDATORY READING. So fucking good. - i've heard otherwise!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6IXCBWlh4c

It's a pretty good work of fiction.

i enjoyed mick's book quite a lot, but then i am equally excited about reading ken caillat's book too

yeah! that's on my list. has anyone here read it?

I read a good chunk at a bookstore a few weeks ago: good stories about Buck at the mixing desk.

Speaking of Buck at the mixing desk, this clip is amusing to me because I didn't really expect Lindsey to sound so dweeby. Tho it helped make sense of a lot of things, really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TElW2xIEfFI

Also makes me sad that Mark Ruffalo is already too old to play Lindsey in a should-have-been HBO docudrama about the making of Rumors.

The Caillat book is quite good.
The impression is of a really odd bunch of ppl, working quite hard, and getting to grips with increasing success.

Lindsey, in particular, seems a piece of work.

Also makes me sad that Mark Ruffalo is already too old to play Lindsey in a should-have-been HBO docudrama about the making of Rumors.

OMG

Y'all ready for this?

COMMENCE TOP 40...

#40: "I Don't Want to Know" (Nicks, 1977)

http://www.virginmedia.com/images/spinal-tap-fleetwood-mac-431x300.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/Og7msZ0wuZ8

Let me complete that thought... (I'm still undercaffeinated.)

#40: "I Don't Want to Know" (Nicks, 1977) - 124 points, 6 votes

God, Mick is the freakiest looking fucker!

apparently these guys didn't believe in bathing more than once a week

xp: although Christine is giving him a run for his money in this pic. wow.

"I Don't Want to Know" sounds like it could have come straight off of Buckingham/Nicks (except for the superior rhythm section)...

Found this
interview with Danny Kirwan from 1997.

The interviewer had this to say in 2000:

Good news: I met Danny's ex-wife Clare recently who kindly helped me with liner notes for a Kirwan compilation called 'Ram Jam City' which Mooncrest recently released. Danny turned 50 this May and Clare showed me photos taken of him on his birthday.
I was really pleased to notice him looking a lot fitter than was the case five years ago when I interviewed him. His hair is now short and he looks stronger and more together. Best news of all, perhaps, is that he keeps a guitar in his room and plays quite often for his own pleasure.

He remains a very private person who keeps himself to himself and is nicely settled in the care centre where he's been for some time now.

I know that some of his many well-wishers took to the idea of Danny possibly moving to Eric Clapton's Crossroads centre in Antigua for treatment: whilst this may be a poignant notion as a modern story of the blues, in reality his family feel that he is far better off staying where he is. Obviously they know what's best and isn't it great to know that music still is there in Danny's day-to-day life.

Is that the lowest Rumours cut?

'Don' t Stop appeared earlier.

#39: "Songbird" (McVie, 1977) - 133 points, 8 votes

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/30542393/Christine+McVie.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/C_JdKJQPS9I

How did Christine keep her voice so luscious and pure when it seems that every pic I find of her online includes a cig?

Also, this is one of my least favorite Mac songs... This is the kind of song I immediately think of when I read this quote from yesterday:

I think "Don't Stop" is just kind of treacly and simpleminded in sentiment and lyric, and was surprised to find myself thinking that about most of Christine's songs as I went through the catalogue. Coming into this poll, I would have ranked LB >> CM >> SN, but now I'd put Stevie ahead of Christine because her songs don't reduce down to swoony Moon-June-Spoon platitudes and cliches -- at least not as often. #stonetheheretic

― Neil Jung (WmC), Tuesday, July 24, 2012 2:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's one of the songs I had in mind when I wrote that.

The "like they know the score" line has always induced mega-cringe with me.

Seriously? I love that line. Songbird didn't quite make my top ten, but I really like this mode that Christine goes into. Songs like this and Warm Ways really glow.

I've been trying to figure out why I like some of Christine's songs and dislike others that are ostensibly similar in tone... "Glow" is a good word. I think "Warm Ways" does really glow, but "Songbird" feels turgid to me. I'm not a big piano fan in general (in rock music, at least), so that's probably a stumbling block.

I love Songbird; that was a def a late cut from my ballot.

Don't Stop is the only song that wd give me momentary pause before declaring the first side of Rumours flawless

"Songbird" accrues more significance as you age, I think, which is why I prefer her performance on The Dance. Her voice huskier and sadder, it makes lines like "I wish you all the love in the world" that much more rueful.

Don't Stop is the only song that wd give me momentary pause before declaring the first side of Rumours flawless

― seapluspluspunk (loves laboured breathing), Wednesday, July 25, 2012 10:10 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

See, the drag accrued by DS and SB is what notches Rumours below the s/t in my ranking...

"I wish you all the love in the world/but most of all I wish it from myself" I think is another great line in this son.

song

#38: "Honey Hi" (Christine McVie, 1979) - 143 points, 7 votes

http://img1.bdbphotos.com/images/orig/6/b/6bbdhc2p9j8cb6dj.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/LBJNkauHcpI

That is a good line there, how's life.

^^ one of Tusk's few duds imo

"Honey Hi" is a gem, and I love it. I love how all the instruments just sound like they're pulling each other along lazily, bouncing off each other, while the amazing harmonies float over top of it all. Thinking about it more, I think Christine's voice is poorly matched with a piano because it's too similar in "perfection", mellifluosness, even timbre, so in a song like "Songbird" it becomes smooth overload, whereas in "Honey Hi" it can really shine as a counterpoint to what else is going on in the song. This is kind of a revelation for me, that I like Christine's really sparse stuff. (See also "Brown Eyes"...)

that's a good explanation

That makes sense. This is the first song to crack my top 10 (at #9)

A little Christine Tusk double-dose!

#37: "Never Forget" (Christine McVie, 1979) - 145 points, 8 votes

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oOUSmnU7nbQ/TS0LPgMLSQI/AAAAAAAAA_4/aulk6hIwQco/s1600/tumblr_l2j0edfpem1qbvg22o1_500.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/q2p6OnSTN28

^^^ this one took years to sink its claws into me. Hot Chip are particular fans.

Um, that was my #6. I hope not to see to many more of mine today!

I like the way it closes Tusk after the bizarre carnival of the title track... I've always loved that that record is bookended by two amazing Christine songs.

Today feels like the Christine day in the same way that yesterday felt like the Kirwan day.