Fleetwood Mac: Classic or Dud

i don't have data to back this up, but fleetwood mac must be the second most ubiquitous band next to the beatles these days. i hear them everywhere i go. more ubiquitous than pizza.

And it's all from three or four records, right? And even then mostly S/T and "Rumours."

Anyway, depends what station you listen to, I guess. Fleetwood Mac is a deep well from which to draw, but stuff from the first Boston and Cars records, in terms of sheer density, I hear even more than the Mac. I actually don't hear that much Beatles on the radio these days. I hear the Aerosmith cover of "Come Together" as much as the real thing. Hey, look, three bands from Boston, dominating classic rock radio.

Formally reunited with Christine. Tour dates announced for this fall 33 cities. They're calling it the "On With The Show" tour.
https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1.0-9/59578_10152304274679138_521480061_n.jpg

goota say, this is one of the first time LB seems to start showing his age

oh sheeeit

So I guess John McVie came through the cancer okay then?

omg they're playing in Sac

psyched! man i might shell out for this

mick lookin fly as hell

John looks sad. Glad he's well enough to tour though.

John always looks sad. Ever seen the Fleetwood Mac episode of Rock Family Trees? He's like a glum sealion wearing UGGs.

Working on a new album:

"This has kind of been a project in slow motion, that's the only way I can put it," Buckingham tells Billboard. "We got in the studio not knowing what to expect, and the chemistry was just unbelievable... We got eight tracks very far along, like, 75 percent done. It just played out really organically in a way that seemed appropriate." Buckingham says the new songs came from ideas McVie brought into the band, and coupled with material he worked on previously with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the group has "about 14 or 15 things, and some other things we want to get to down the line" even before Nicks begins making contributions.

"We're all very excited about it. Knowing me, I'm going to be pushing for a double album," Buckingham says with a laugh.

Describing the new songs -- which include "Carnival Begin," "Red Sun" and "Too Far Gone" -- McVie says, "There's a wide variety, starting from sort of blues-based songs to very commercial songs. It's very, very exciting. We get chills when we hear them. They sound really fresh. There's an element, I guess, that hasn't really existed so much in the past although it has been there in the fact Lindsey and I have been collaborating more. We've been working very closely together, so there is a freshness and obviously there are parts for Stevie to sing on all of these songs, which she will do eventually."

I do hope someone (Stevie?) steps in and challenges Lindsey's desire for a double lp. Say You Will is too long (and Tusk is too, tbh).

SYW felt long because it lacked McVie's connective tissue, but there are few duds; it's got some of Buck and Nicks' very best material.

i can't think of any songs on tusk i would cut

i mean being big and sprawling and overblown is kind of the whole thing of tusk

at the risk of losing my FM fan card, I agree Tusk is too long. Fleetwood Mac tend to succumb to the White Album syndrome really hard, with each member just doing their own thing and using the others as a back-up band.

I'd cut:

Buckingham: That's Enough For Me
McVie: Honey Hi
Nicks: Angel

But the band itself was at the peak of its powers, so it's hard to fault them as songs. Plus, Haim's "Honey and I" has warmed me to "Honey Hi."

Wouldn't cut a sneeze from "Tusk." Alfred OTM re: Say You Will, it just feels long - well, I mean, it is long - without McVie, but the material is pretty great.

FM should just release two albums, several months apart.

McVie: Honey Hi

blasphemy

"Honey Hi" is beyond essential.

i understand the feeling behind "this album is too long" but yeah, damn, i can't think of a single song i'd get rid of.

"Honey Hi" is beyond essential.

― Tim F, Wednesday, May 7, 2014

totally.

i don't think i'd particularly cut anything from say you will either. in fact i'd make it a third longer (mcvie songs natch)

being big and sprawling and overblown is kind of the whole thing of tusk

otm.

i don't particularly like "that's enough for me" either. and yet i think the album would be worse, not better, without it.

maybe tusk is like the white album in that lots of people think it could stand to lose a bunch of songs, but no one can agree on what those songs are.

and "Think About Me" is its "Savoy Truffle."

at the risk of losing my FM fan card, I agree Tusk is too long. Fleetwood Mac tend to succumb to the White Album syndrome really hard, with each member just doing their own thing and using the others as a back-up band.

― Dominique, Wednesday, May 7, 2014 4:18 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't usually stan for late Beatles, but the White Album is good enough that I don't really think it makes sense to ascribe to it a "syndrome," unless the primary symptom of that syndrome is "makes a pretty damn good double album in which even some of the filler engages"

Being big and sprawling and overblown in kind of the whole thing of double albums in general IMO. The sprawl, the oddball bits and pieces and curios that would never make the cut on a single album. Stuff that would ordinarily be relegated to outtakes that emerge 15 years later on a bootleg.

"not that funny" and the title track are the only ones I sometimes skip but they're also both p good and funny and I'm glad they're on there

and I've spent afternoons listening to only "honey hi"!

here this willl change your mind:

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

flamingcrystal
5 years ago

Very sexual song. Gotta love it!

btw whatever else about Mirage the tour looks amazing: the older material was professionalized enough to be flawless yet allow the flourishes seen in that clip.

It's...er, amusing how "Not That Funny" became such a jamming vehicle for them live (the '80 live album version is of similar length).

Haha that is one of the most ridiculous live clips I've seen (meant as a compliment)

Just....everything...the hat/vest combo is nuts

I don't think of Tusk as big and sprawling at all. I think of it more in the "Exile" loose and shambling mode. As much as LB-era FB can be loose and shambling. Its nervous, anxious lack of focus is it's focus. And frankly, the album runs 74 minutes, which is not long at all. The most recent Beyonce album, for example, is almost 67 minutes, as are, like, tons of albums these days. Tusk is nothing.

Tusk is everything

I'd cut:

Buckingham: That's Enough For Me
McVie: Honey Hi
Nicks: Angel

But the band itself was at the peak of its powers, so it's hard to fault them as songs. Plus, Haim's "Honey and I" has warmed me to "Honey Hi."

― guess that bunt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, May 7, 2014 5:31 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you MAD?????? ANGEL????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

good god!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SN's best song imo

That Mirage concert was the first FM I ever saw. I was a little kid, and the fire between Lindsey and Stevie on The Chain was electrifying.

And that 1980 live album, as I've probably said several times on ilx, is my favourite thing they've ever done. http://thefoghatprinciple.wordpress.com/fleetwood-mac-live-warner-bros-1980/

First few posts in this thread are such faint praise. "Rumours, Mirage, Tusk etc are worth the charity shop 50p." Yeah I reckon so.

The consensus that Lindsey/Stevie-era Mac were A Good Thing is still pretty recent. I remember writing an NME 'buried treasure' thing on the 1980 album when I started there, in 1999, and the next week's letters page was brimming with ire that this music had been taken seriously (though Swells was editing the letters page that week, so it may have all been his invention).

That rascal Big Jim Swells

they got lumped in with the eagles, who remain shit

Yeah, my mom actually hates them (though her younger siblings like them well enough). Fleetwood Mac were so big at the time, it's easy to see why people would hate them (just like it's easy to see why people would hate ABBA). Pretty, rich, lots of drugs -- they were celebrities making pop music, and if you were of the mind that "real" music meant big messages, or politically correct ideology, they could very easily seem superficial, egotistical, the glamorous cousins to the Eagles' faux-rootsy, but equally "vapid" LA pop.

I feel like this band got its re-appraisal once the kids who didn't have to live through their initial fame could look back and just listen to the music, or see pics and not be offended at the disconnect between FM's fame/fortune, and their own lives/ideals.

(note, none of this really pertains to the pre-Nicks/Buckingham era)

that sounds about right.

as an analogy, i find it pretty impossible to listen to radiohead just because (a) they were so overplayed and overdiscussed for a while in the 1990s/early 2000s, (b) the worst sort of rockist discourse circulates around them such that they seemed to become hidebound "classic rock" just 10 years into their career.

but i'm sure they made great albums that i've ignored.

the eagles, who remain shit

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Thursday, May 8, 2014

HOW CAN YOU SAY THIS IT IS UN-AMERICAN

Well, yeah.

My friend, who grew up in the AM radio era, has emphasized to me just how ubiquitous Fleetwood Mac was in the '70s, just as unescapable as the Eagles (who he hates), and overexposed enough that he never heard anything after Rumours, because he had had enough listening stuck in the back seat on long road trips. But I made him a copy of Tusk a while back and he loves it.

you really shouldn't compare fleetwood mac to the eagles.