Two Discs Of Rumours Does Nothing To Undermine Its Perfection!

The Good: A perfect album with great b-side material.
The Bad: None.
The Basics: Fleetwood Mac's timeless rock album Rumours is enhanced by a two-disc version which includes rough cuts, jam sessions and b-sides as well as the classic album!


I cannot imagine there will ever come a time when I might feel like I am anything but the luckiest person on the planet when it comes to a couple. As the holiday season approached a few years back, my wife started to go through things like my Wish List online to figure out just what incredible things she could gift for me that I had not told her about. After months of her being frustrated with how nebulous I was about what I wanted for the holidays, she found just what I wanted. And while I had already reviewed (and loved) Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (reviewed here!), she found what I truly wanted: the two disc version!

The two-disc version of Rumours contains the original c.d. version of Rumours along with a bonus disc of musical content. It is important to note that the original c.d. version (the one I've already reviewed) differs from the old record and cassette of Rumours through its inclusion of "Silver Springs." "Silver Springs" was written and recorded at the time Rumours was produced, but space limitations of the medium did not allow it to be put on the record. With compact disc, Fleetwood Mac made their definitive cut. Now, with the two-disc version of Rumours, fans and listeners have an "ultimate" edition. The first disc is the twelve-track c.d. version of Rumours.

The second disc, however, is an eighteen song treasure trove of outtakes, rough cuts and emo versions of most of the songs on Rumours, as well as song by the band that were being recorded right around the same time. All of the tracks were written by members of the band and the second disc used the medium fairly well as the eighteen musical presentations (some are minute-long jams or instrumental versions of Rumours songs) occupy 61:58 of the disc's capacity. The first ten songs on the album are simply demo versions of ten of the Rumours songs (all but “The Chain” and “I Don't Want To Know”). The music has a generally similar sound to the finished products, though instrumental accompaniment on songs like “Second Hand News” and “Dreams” seems more pronounced. Through the production of the song, the vocals became more balanced in both songs and the rough cut of the songs makes that very clear on this disc.

The overall feel of the album is one of listening to acoustic rock, which is appropriate because there is minimal production on both the instruments and vocals on the bonus album of Rumours. The members of the band play their own instruments and sing their own lines, but the rock and roll edge of the album is definitely muted, save in the drumming of Mick Fleetwood. The instrumental performance that defines “Brushes (Never Going Back Again)” is surprisingly engaging for hearing the song without the lyrics. The band's rough version of the song does not – as one might fear – sound like an elevator music version of the track, but rather like a more moody, contemplative version of the familiar song. Conversely, the rough cut of “You Make Loving Fun” seems slightly less energetic than the final version.

As for the other tracks on the album, the demo (with lyrics) of “Never Going Back Again” is included, as is one for “Gold Dust Woman.” The three versions on the two discs only sound moderately different from one another. As well, “Mic The Screecher” and “For Duster (The Blues)” are just instrumental tracks which have Mick Fleetwood or everyone but Stevie Nicks (who only provided vocals to the sound of the band at the time) playing instruments and jamming along. “Think About It,” “Planets Of The Universe,” “Butter Cookie (Keep Me There),” and “Doesn't Anything Last” are played as straightforward rock and roll tracks with the participation of the whole band. As such, they sound like they would be perfectly appropriate accompanying Rumours songs. They seem like b-sides from the same sessions, which is (conveniently) what they are.

“Planets Of The Universe” has similar contemplative lyrics to songs on the Rumours album. So, when the group sings “And the days go by / They go into the seas that have no shores / Haunted by that same closed door / Looking up at skies on fire / Leaving nothing left of us / To discover / And the planets of the universe Go their way / Not astounded by the sun or the moon / Or by the day / You and I will simply disappear / Out of sight / Ooh, but I'm afraid soon there'll be / No light / No doubt, no pain / Come ever again” (“Planets Of The Universe”) the simple rhyme scheme does nothing to lessen the wonderful sense of imagery the band creates. As well, the presentation of the lines makes the song resonate with much of the same level of emotion as other songs on Rumours. That said, none of these b-sides is a lost “Songbird” or “Silver Springs!”

Even so, the other songs are good, in an acoustic rock sort of “everybody's here, we're jamming, we're creating something significant” type way. The previously unreleased tracks have a similar human resonance to the best songs on Rumours, even if they are not quite the masterpieces listeners might hope them to be. Still, with lines like “Step into the velvet of the morning / Let yourself lay back within your dreams / Take on the situation but not the torment / Now you know its not as bad as it seems / Well I know you'd like to come away / But baby you can't come / Your fortune is your life's love / Oh and anytime you think about leaving / Think about what you know” (“Think About It”) it is clear that the well did not just dry up when the recording session for Rumours ended.

As a result, anyone who loves Rumours will enjoy the two-disc version. The bonus content enriches the listening experience and one is likely to come back to the final album with renewed interest. I know that having listened to the second disc several times now, it is staying in rotation with Rumours. I'd recommend anyone who is thinking about it, listen to Rumours (aren't libraries great?!). If you like what you hear (you will!) purchase the two-disc version. It'll keep the whole thing fresh and the album truly is one of the timeless rock and roll albums of all time. What could be better than that?

The best tracks on the second disc are “Think About It” and the low point is “Mic The Screecher.”

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Then Play On
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Tusk
Tango In The Night
Behind The Mask
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac
Say You Will

10/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Indistinct Fleetwood Mac: Then Play On Is Another Early, Unmemorable Album By The Band.

The Good: Some decent instrumentals
The Bad: Utterly unremarkable vocals and lyrics, Short.
The Bottom Line: Disappointing and musically bland, Then Play On is a blues-based Fleetwood Mac album that is indistinct and easy to pass by.


The other day, as she was eagerly listening to songs she liked from one of the Shania Twain albums I had in for review for my Artist Of The Month, my wife smiled at me and asked, "Given the way that you listen to these albums over and over again for review, does that mean you memorize them?" To which, my response was, "For the most part, yes, so long as they are memorable and distinct. And it works more like being able to quickly recognize them than, say, being able to sing them back or hum the tune." Still, she seemed somewhat impressed and I realized that by immersing myself in a different artist each month, I am gaining an extensive musical knowledge.

There is irony here, then, in the fact that Then Play On arrived on my doorstep after I had finished my exploration of the music of Fleetwood Mac and as I listened to it, I realized that most of the works on their early albums that I had reviewed left utterly no impression with me. Moreover, after two dozen listens, I could not tell anyone a single song on Then Play On. Looking at the track listing, I'm coming up blank each and every time. The reason for this is simple; Then Play On is not a wonderful album and the songs monotonously drone from one to another as the album goes on with little definition between the tracks and it is near-impossible for me to muster up the interest to even consider this album in a scholarly context. In the shortest possible terms; this is a real easy "not recommend."

With thirteen songs clocking out at 54:08, it seems like Then Play On would be a decent value, despite the fact that it does not fill the entire compact disc. This album is the creation of the 1969 incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, which was John McVie and Mick Fleetwood (of course!) with Peter Green, Danny Kirwan and John Spencer. Christine Perfect (later McVie) provides backing vocals on at least one song. The quintet wrote all thirteen songs, provides the primary vocals for all of the tracks that have lyrics and they play their own instruments. As well, Fleetwood Mac is credited as producing the album, so it is hard to say this is anything but the musical vision of the band at that time in their career.

Unfortunately, that musical vision is both stronger on the instrumentals as well as more monotonous in the same field. This incarnation of Fleetwood Mac is producing blues-based pop-rock and with the men harmonizing on songs like "Like Crying" and creating tunes that are mostly pluckings and strummings over and over again. Indeed, Then Play On is heavy with the bass of John McVie, much like later albums would prioritize the drumming of Mick Fleetwood. As a result of heavy bass on songs like "Before The Beginning," the album resonates with a darker, more murky sound than the later works. There is no hint of upbeat-sounding pop here, it is throbbing, dank and moody blues-rock that has a smoky sound to it. Indeed, this is music presented through a haze.

On Then Play On, Fleetwood Mac even does some songs that are solely instrumental. "Searching For Madge" and "Fighting For Madge" are two back-to-back instrumental tracks that are the band's rock-based Classical songs. The bass-dominated "Searching For Madge" is moody and weird, while the percussion-based "Fighting For Madge" is much more frenetic and there is the sense of danger and hazards in its presentation. "Underway" is also instrumental and the album opens with the guitars plucked out with Mick Fleetwood banging the bongos pretty fast ("Coming Your Way").

Vocally, Green and Kirwan dominate the album with their smooth vocals, but more often than highlighting either man alone, they are harmonizing through the songs. They articulate their moody lyrics adequately, but unfortunately are not singing the world's most interesting lyrics, not by any means. Then Play On is plagued by repetition made worse by predictable rhyme schemes. Take, for example, "Like Crying," which is only 2:21, and has the lines "She's got so much blues / Her best friend can't help her / Her best friend's a woman / How can a woman help her / Woman's got the blues / She just feels like crying / She just feels like dying / Woman's got the blues." The song is very simple lyrically and repeating those last three lines over and over again does nothing to accent the point of the song in any meaningful way.

But the murky instrumental accompaniment does fit the lyrics well-enough. On "Although The Sun Is Shining," the men sing "Although the sun is shining / High above / There's one thing on my mind / You my love / I see a weeping willow / In the park / Like this There's sadness growing / In my heart" and the moody lyrics mirror the heavy bass in the song. The track is well-harmonized and the deceptively upbeat chords that open the song make Kirwan's stark vocals seem almost ironic. This track has an almost "Simon and Garfunkel" quality to it.

But the entire album is not just depressing. Instead, Peter Green - who would leave after this album to join a fundamental group that is now widely regarded as a cult - infuses some of the songs with a sense of spirituality. It was Green who wrote and performed the lines "Now it's the same as before / And I'm alone again / With no sorrow for myself / And I'm blaming no one else / And closing my eyes / And seeing you standing there / Now it's the same as before / You've touched me with your love / And though you're in my heart / We're still a world apart / As now I'm back to the time / Where I would search for a dream / But no use to try anymore as before / Someday I'll die, and maybe then I'll be with you" ("Closing My Eyes") which have obvious spiritual undertones to them.

But even the few forceful tracks, like "Rattlesnake Shake" end up only mildly breaking up the monotony of Then Play On. I notice that song when it comes up on the album, but the vocals are drown out by guitar accents and poppy hand claps that make the song more blase than spectacular. It makes Then Play On a mix of songs that academically one thinks ought to be memorable, but aurally blend together into fifty-some minutes of musical mush.

The best track is the instrumental "Searching For Madge," the low point is . . . well, pretty much the rest of the album.

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Rumours
Tusk
Tango In The Night
Behind The Mask
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac
Say You Will

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Finishing Off Fleetwood Mac With Say You Will, A Fairly Average Pop-Rock Album.

The Good: Some good vocals, Some decent lyrics, Sounds good overall.
The Bad: Nothing extraordinary or truly new for the band.
The Basics: A good, but not fabulous, album, Say You Will has a vibrancy and sound similar to other Fleetwood mac albums with Buckingham producing.


When one has an extensive body of work, the way Fleetwood Mac does, it becomes difficult to create something that is so new and different that fans sit up and say "wow!" Fleetwood Mac, as my monthlong exploration of their work has pretty well proven to me, has undergone several incarnations and have produced in a number of musical styles. In the 1980s and 1990s, before they broke up, there was a fairly stable version of the band, which included Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and John and Christine McVie. They reconvened for a post-break-up concert performance which was enshrined as The Dance and they began to produce together again, welcoming back writer/performer/producer Buckingham, who had sat out one of the 1990s albums.

The result was Say You Will, an album that saw the departure of Christine McVie (she went off to do solo work) and brought me to my most recent reviewing conundrum. Buckingham, who produced a high number of the band's prominent pop-rock singles, returns and as a result, the band seems to tack toward the pop-rock arena and while it is good, Say You Will has a pretty standard pop-rock sound, which is pretty much exactly what one would expect from this iteration of Fleetwood Mac.

With eighteen songs, clocking out at 76:06, Say You Will certainly packs the value into the compact disc by using the medium extraordinarily well. There is a web connection bonus feature that connects fans to information about the band on-line, but outside that having so much music is a great value in and of itself. Say You Will is a pretty fair presentation of Fleetwood Mac's musical vision, at least as it was in 2003 with this quartet. Fourteen of the songs are written entirely by Nicks or Buckingham and the remaining four, co-written by either of them, have some - like Nicks' "Running Through The Garden" - where the Fleetwood Mac member wrote the lyrics and used music from another person. Oddly, there is an uncredited creative lift for "Peacekeeper," which Lindsey Buckingham wrote, but clearly borrows its tune - or developed it from - the Paul Simon tune "Kodachrome." This does not make it bad, but it does seem somewhat less original than some of the group's other works.

Still, this is mostly Fleetwood Mac's musical vision and their intent is pretty solidly realized through the on-album and behind-the-scenes credits. Buckingham produced or co-produced all of the tracks and Buckingham and Nicks provide all of the primary vocals. As well, all of the main instrumentals are performed by members of the quartet, with Nicks even picking up the keyboards for this album!

The result is a pretty solid pop-rock album with little that truly distinguishes it as great. There are more political songs on this album, mostly written by Buckingham - "What's The World Coming To," "Murrow Turning Over In His Grave," "Peacemaker" - with little musical variation. The songs are driven more by keyboards, bass and drums than guitar and the vocals are always put forward, so they dominate the sound of the album. The instrumentals are not bad, but most of the songs are up tempo numbers like "Everybody Finds Out" or "Destiny Rules." There are few songs that are mellow and subtle, like "Illume (9-11)." But even the ones that sound upbeat, like Say You Will often have more complicated or moody lyrics to them.

The lyrics are presented alternately by the haunting vocals of Stevie Nicks - she is frighteningly mournful on "Illume (9-11)" - and the energetic, declarative vocals of Buckingham. Both artists perform well within their established ranges, so fans will not be at all surprised by the range of either vocalist. Those coming only to this album, though, are likely to appreciate both artists' range. Nicks has the ability to go from soprano down into a more dusty range and Buckingham has a complimentary voice that does from mid-range up to tenor, so the two voices actually have a strange overlap that plays out beautifully on songs like "Say Goodbye." The songs where the two harmonize, they illustrate a magic between them that has been absent for albums where either was not participating in the process.

Lyrically, Say You Will (the album) is a decent mix of the political and the personal, with a few overlaps like the Stevie Nicks track "Illume (9-11)." Far from being a 9/11 pandering song, the tribute - which Nicks dedicated to the former mayor of New York City and several institutions in New York City - is a genuine, thoughtful tribute with lines like "I'm alone now / With my thoughts / Of how we could make it / Of how we could get out / What we've been through / All of the trauma / The smell of Nag Champra / Shadow of a stranger / I will not take you for granted / I wouldn't trade you for jade / Or for diamonds / Not for one minute / Not for anything / I need you to be there / Just remember when I am haunted / That I was just so scared" ("Illume (9-11)"). Nicks makes a song about tragedy that works well for both the specific incident as well as personal tragedies.

Songs like Buckingham's "Peacekeeper" have a way of doing the opposite, though. Opening as a song that sounds vaguely personal, Buckingham's lyrics soon become sharply critical of warfare and warmongering. He invokes images not of personal horror, but of the results of the collective apathy to pacifism when he wrote "When the night is cold and still / When you thought you'd had your fill / Take all the time you will / This is not a test, it's not a drill / Take no prisoners, break their will . . . You know all of our friends are gods / And they all tell us how to paint our face / But there's only one brush we need / It's the one that never leaves a trace" ("Peacekeeper"). It is songs like that that make it hard to deny that there were some people - even at the time - who were not looking at the consequences of U.S. invasions and the potential disaster it would be. Buckingham paints an ugly, but accurate, portrait of warfare and its consequences, something that has not been done nearly often enough in post-Vietnam popular music.

But the whole album is not political or a blend of the personal and political. Nicks wrote a perfect anthem for the desperately in love when she penned the lines and presented the refrain "Say you will, say you will give me one more chance / At least give me time to change your mind / That always seems to heal the wounds, if I can / Get you to dance" ("Say You Will"). Arguably the album's most recognizable song, this creates a vibrant pop-rock number out of desperation. The creativity here is lyrical, not instrumental or even thematic (though the essential begging love song has not done this well arguably since "Ain't Too Proud To Beg") and that is enough to make the album enthusiastically worth recommending, even if it is not objectively the most original album in the world.

The best track is "Say You Will," the low point is the unmemorable "Throw Down."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Rumours
Tusk
Tango In The Night
Behind The Mask
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac


6.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Behind The Mask Is Another Fleetwood Mac Album That Rings As Average.

The Good: Decent vocals, Interesting instrumentals
The Bad: Few distinctive songs, Somewhat short.
The Basics: Fun and listenable, but still not Fleetwood Mac's best album, Behind The Mask is a very narrow "recommend," just because when it does take chances, it seems to succeed.


As September races toward its close, I find my stack of Fleetwood Mac albums diminishing and I consider that September was a much better month for me - musically - than August. Fleetwood Mac, honestly, was less of a risk than Ani DiFranco as far as devoting a month to them, as I had a couple of Fleetwood Mac albums and I have some songs by them I absolutely love; I had never heard anything by Ani DiFranco before I did my immersion in her works. So, as I have studied Fleetwood Mac for this month, I have managed to get a much more round view of the band and an appreciation for its history and the various combinations of its members. After I reviewed Tango In The Night, I was surprised to learn that the album was the last one by the Fleetwood Mac that is the most currently recognizable line-up of the band; Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, and John and Christine McVie.

So, picking up Behind The Mask, the surprise for me was not that the recognizable band was no longer there, but rather who was gone and who had replaced them. This incarnation of Fleetwood Mac is down Buckingham (who still pops up for guitars on the title track) and he is replaced here by two new guitarist/vocalists: Billy Burnette and Rick Vito. The result is an album that sounds good, but is still not one of Fleetwood Mac's best. Behind The Mask does not have strong single and the album is good when it is not simply mediocre. The songs range from the traditional pop-rock, which is often boring in this context, to the straight-out weird (like "In The Back Of My Mind").

With thirteen tracks, occupying over fifty minutes, Behind The Mask is an album that has Fleetwood Mac exerting less creative control than most of their works since the late '60's, early 1970's. Only seven of the songs are written purely by members of the band, with the other six being co-written with others not from Fleetwood Mac. To the band's credit, Vito and Burnette are given the chance to write on the album and, in fact, the country/bluegrass twang of "When The Sun Goes Down" was written just by the new pair. The band is credited as a co-producer on the album, so there seems to be more than just the band's members creating on this album.

Still, some of the strength of Fleetwood Mac has to be from the fact that the sextet (in this case) is powerfully musical and they jam together using their own talents. So, for example, Stevie Nicks appears solely to provide vocals on the album. Vito, Burnette, and Christine McVie also sing and their voices are powerful on their own and in harmony. As well, the band plays their own instruments and all but Nicks play at least one.

Considering that this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac has two guitarists and a bass, one might think that Behind The Mask (the album) would be a guitar-driven one. Rather interestingly, songs like the single "Behind The Mask" illustrate well how Fleetwood Mac retains a more keyboard-driven sound. "Stand On The Rock" has a very classic rock and roll sound with Mick Fleetwood's drumming dominating the song. In fact, on that song, listeners are reminded of just how funky bass and percussion tracks - at least at the hands of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood - can be. This is ironic because Vito wrote the song and yet it remains strong for the band's founders.

Generally, Behind The Mask is more purely a rock and roll album and perhaps the jettison of Buckingham made that possible. Gone are the pop sensibilities and the band returns with a stronger sense of united sound, held together with a core guitar, bass, and drums combination. Christine McVie's keyboards are still present in many songs, but there are very few where her keyboards are not in competition with the core sound. Still, keyboards do drive songs like "Hard Feelings," at least until the bridges where the guitars rock over the keyboards.

The album is a pretty solid mix of the men's voices with Nicks and Christine McVie largely being used for vocal accents. Indeed, Nicks only shines on "The Second Time." She presents her song "Freedom," but it does not showcase the depth or force of her vocal ability the way the final track on the album does. Instead, Behind The Mask is an oddly masculine album in the area of vocals. Burnette and Vito have lower voices than Buckingham, so their vocals are clearly masculine and their harmonies, like on "Hard Feelings" sound more like the anthemic rock of groups like Journey than traditional Fleetwood Mac. The album also has fewer presentations by any one vocalist, with the bulk of the songs having extensive harmonizing between multiple singers.

Behind The Mask seems largely to be a socially conscious album, with songs about the nature of the place of people within the world. The songs generally have a bigger sensibility to them than traditional, easy love songs. So, even the songs that are about love tend to be more social commentary. Indeed, love is more of an afterthought when the band sings "Oh there’s no warning / That takes you to the promised land / Hearts made of crystal / Crumble like castles of sand / Echoes of emotion / And the visions of a fool / Echoes of forbidden ground / And it’s too good to be true, too good to be true / Love love love / Love is dangerous" ("Love Is Dangerous"). Far more often, the album is preoccupied with questions of how people relate.

Perhaps the most obvious example of songs where people relate to the world is the anthem "Freedom." Stevie Nicks and Mike Campbell mix the personal with the political with lines like "Freedom, well it’s a thing that is fleeting / Freedom is standing next to you / My intentions were clear / I was with him / Everyone knew / Poor little fool / Beautiful as you are / With that high spirit / Morning star of evil hit me / Cut me like a knife / Cool and collected / She became that with time / Totally rejected" ("Freedom"). While such sensibilities are not alien to Fleetwood Mac at all, "Freedom" remains one of the more potent examples of the blending of a personal metaphor to make a societal commentary.

This is not to say that the album is devoid of deeply personal songs. "The Second Time" is a pretty traditional ballad calling out a former lover or friend with reminiscences. "Hard Feelings" is a repetitive little number that actually explores the nature of wounds and the effect they continue to have on people. But the album opens with the more impressively direct inspirational song "Skies The Limit." As simple as the song might be, it is rare that a musical group tries to evoke a positive response from the listeners by calling them out as Fleetwood Mac does when they sing "Sooner or later / I'll keep the promise / I made you / Sooner or later / It will be greater/ Than we ever knew / The sky is the limit now" ("Skies The Limit").

But even the thematic elements that are unique or underrepresented in music still challenge the listener to not be unimpressed with the results. Behind The Mask is unremarkable and it is only through a cointoss that I ultimately recommended it. It is a good rock album for those who have heard a lot of everything else and want something new. Behind The Mask manages to promote the idea that it has something to say, but largely it has been done before, just not by Fleetwood Mac.

The best track is "The Second Time," the low point is "In The Back Of My Mind."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Rumours
Tusk
Tango In The Night
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Great, But Not Worth The Buy, Tango In The Night Is Delightfully Paradoxical.

The Good: Amazing songs, Great production, Lyrics, Vocals.
The Bad: A little short, Monolithic.
The Basics: Not since Rumours have I so looked forward to a Fleetwood Mac album, but unlike Rumours, the best songs on Tango In The Night are available elsewhere.


Sometimes things come along that I can easily acknowledge are wonderful, but I am nevertheless unable to recommend. This is usually either because something is unpleasant - which was my reason for not recommending Requiem For A Dream - or because of one of the many standards I actually have. In the case of compact discs, occasionally there are wonderful albums that I cannot recommend in the final analysis and usually the reason is because all of the very best tracks on the album are available elsewhere. That is exactly why I am unable to recommend Tango In The Night.

Don't get me wrong, Tango In The Night is a great album, firmly above average. It is so good that this seminal '80's pop-rock album has five songs from the album on the definitive compilation The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac. The thing is, those five songs are the essential and best songs from Tango In The Night and honestly listeners will not be missing much by having only those songs in their permanent collections. That said, those five songs - "Big Love," "Seven Wonders," "Everywhere," "Little Lies," and "Family Man" - are the lifeblood of Tango In The Night and outside them (I could even argue that the essentials need not include "Family Man") the album is not bursting with anything that sounds different or is thematically deeper than those.

With a dozen songs, occupying 44:28, Tango In The Night is mostly a Fleetwood Mac vision of pop-rock music. All of the songs are written or co-written by the quintet and the album is co-produced by Lindsey Buckingham from the group. Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie provide all of the vocals and Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie all play instruments on the album. The album is very much within the control of the band and it is hard to argue that the end result is not what the band intended.

That said, Tango In The Night is pretty incredible. This album has danceable and deep pop-rock hits. They are generally unified on the album by Mick Fleetwood's pounding drumming - "Seven Wonders" might well be one of his best performances - and Buckingham's production. The mix of keyboards, drums and bass dominate almost all of the songs, though the vocals are almost always pushed forward so they are easy to hear and understand.

The problem on the album with the instrumentals is the way they essentially make the same statement over and over again. The prevalence of the synths and keyboards to pounding drums on songs like "Everywhere," "Welcome To The Room . . . Sara," and "You And I, Part II" makes all of the songs resonate in the same way, despite that they have very different melodies. The general vibe to them is so similar that it is easy to get lost in the album and feel like the album is less distinct track to track than it otherwise could be.

Similarly, the vocals are often produced to such a quality that the natural voices of the performers are lost. The distortions on Buckingham's voice on "Caroline" make one wonder where his natural voice went. Conversely, though, McVie's vocals on "Little Lies" are haunting and natural though that is one of the few tracks on the album where the production elements are stripped back to give more of a natural voice against the synths. Nicks, unfortunately, suffers on songs like "Welcome To The Room . . . Sara" with reverbs and other electronic manipulations that prevent her full voice from being presented.

That said, the lyrics on Tango In The Night are some of the group's best and they are always presented in ways that they can be heard. "Tango In The Night," the single, is a poetic remembrance of love. The song, written by Buckingham, has a strong sense of imagery to it with its lines like "Listen to the wind on the water / Listen to the waves upon the shore / Try to sleep, sleep won't come / Just as I begin to fade / Then I remember / When the moon was full and bright / I would take you in the darkness / And do the tango in the night" ("Tango In The Night"). Buckingham captures a sense that has both a specific time and place and a universal feeling anyone who has ever been in love and had a special night can relate to.

The album is dominated, at its best, by love songs, though there is often a moody quality to that love, as there is on "Little Lies." That sense of conflict and inner turmoil is not unique to "Little Lies." Far less known, "Isn't It Midnight" delves into a similar emotional territory with its lines "So cool, calm and collected. / You had a style, a rakish style. / Well, my poor heart never connected. / You'd stay so long on my mind. / Well, isn't it midnight / on the other side of the world?" McVie, who wrote the song seems able to create some of the more murky lyrics on the album.

In contrast, Buckingham seems more repetitive on the album. "Caroline" and "Family Man" both repeat their titles far too many times within the songs. At least "Family Man" has a positive moral message and works because it is something different than a love or love loss song that is like what permeates the rest of the album.

On c.d., Tango In The Night seems shorter than it ought to, even with its problems with blending together. Still, for those looking for the essential 1980's produced pop-rock sound, it is hard to imagine better than Tango In The Night.

The best track is "Everywhere," the low point is the less memorable "Mystified."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Future Games
Bare Trees
Rumours
Tusk
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

8.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Dreadfully Short And With One Lame Track, Bare Trees Is Still Worth Buying!

The Good: Wonderful overall sound, Good lyrics, Creative and diverse
The Bad: VERY short, "Thoughts On A Grey Day."
The Basics: A good, but terribly short, Fleetwood Mac album, Bare Trees has some nice tracks (and one dud) for those who like light rock.


Some who read my many reviews of my August/September Artist Of The Month, Fleetwood Mac, might believe that I am not enjoying my exploration of Fleetwood Mac's music. This is not at all true, especially as I depart their earlier works in favor of the more recognizable quintet that was charting as I grew up. Between getting through earlier, rougher, albums that have more of a bluegrass/country sound than the pop-rock of Fleetwood Mac I enjoy, and having rigorous standards, it might be interpreted that I am not enjoying Fleetwood Mac. But I am.

Herein lays the quandary with albums like Bare Trees. After a few early albums by the group that I have not enjoyed, I listened to Bare Trees and instantly took to it. I knew right away that I would be recommending it and I was excited to put it on high replay. But the more I listened to it, the more sparse it sounded - as a result of its very short running time - and the more the final track began to grate on me. The result is an album that on c.d. is closer to average than extraordinary.

With only ten songs, clocking out at a measly 37:10, Bare Trees ought to have been combined with another album from this era in Fleetwood Mac's history both to use the c.d. medium better and to salvage one of the less wonderful adjacent albums. This ten-track disc is largely the musical vision of Fleetwood Mac, which was comprised of Kirwan, Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies at this time. Nine of the ten songs were written by band members and it is hard to argue that the final track, "Thoughts On A Grey Day" is even a Fleetwood Mac song as it is written and performed by "Mrs. Scarrott" without any real musical accompaniment. Still, it made it onto the album.

The other nine tracks are written by Welch (two), Christine McVie (two) and the remainder by Kirwan. The album was produced by Fleetwood Mac and the three writers perform the vocals on their nine songs. Each of the members of the band play their own instruments and this is a rather guitar-driven album and Mick Fleetwood's drumming is consistent, but fairly mellow throughout. In other words, Fleetwood Mac is largely in control of this album and it turns out as a success for them as a result.

Instrumentally, Bare Trees is a mellow rock and roll album which is largely guitar and keyboard based. The album includes an entirely instrumental track, "Sunny Side Of Heaven," which makes up for the repetitive quality that McVie's lyrics on "Homeward Bound" has before it. Songs like "Bare Trees" and "Spare Me A Little Of Your Love" are upbeat in their sound with the guitars and percussion strumming and beating out tunes that are easy to groove to. The more mellow "Sentimental Lady" is one of the best mellow, slow, romantic songs that early Fleetwood Mac created and it makes for a delightful different song that still fits the rest of the album. The presence of the keyboards makes it more memorable than the final track on the album and the mellow nature of it still carries a light rock feeling, which fits the rest of the album.

The real strength of "Sentimental Lady" (outside the lyrics) are the vocals. The vocals on "Sentimental Lady" have the singers of Fleetwood Mac actually harmonizing, so the song has an almost a cappella sound to it (though the keyboards and very light drums prevent it from being a true a cappella). The rest of the songs have the writers of their songs singing them. But even here the album has a rather unified quality to it as Christine McVie, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch all have very clear, articulate vocalizations. Moreover, they all share a similar range. Kirwan and Welch have excellent tenor voices and McVie tends to sing in that lower (for a woman) range. The result is that Fleetwood Mac has a generally androgynous quality to the vocals that makes the vocals more consistent on this album than the instrumentals.

And the band has a lot to sing about, though largely the album is dominated by songs about relationships. The differences in the poetry from the group's three writers, though, can be fairly extreme. Christine McVie, who was still a fairly young singer-songwriter, seemed to have rather limited ideas and filled out her songs with a lot of repetition. So, for example, on "Spare Me A Little Of Your Love," she wrote and sang the tiresome refrain "So spare me a little (just a little bit) / Spare me a little (just a little bit) / Spare me a little of your love (of your love) / Spare me a little (just a little bit) / Spare me a little (just a little bit) / Spare me a little of your love (of your love)" which is repeated three times in the song, which is less than four minutes long. Outside that rather simple refrain, there is little substance to actually make up a song!

But that does not mean that the album is a wash lyrically. The song "Bare Trees," written by Danny Kirwan, has a wonderful sense of imagery. Singing of loss and harsh breakups, he contrasts nature with the interpersonal with lines like "Bare trees, grey light / Oh yeah it was a cold night / Bare trees, grey light / I was alone in the cold of a winters day / You were alone and so snug in your bed" ("Bare Trees"). Kirwan has a good eye for imagery and a nice sense of diction to put it to a song, but the song - like McVie's - is hardly complicated.

Perhaps that is why I like "Sentimental Lady" as much as I do. As much as the song seems to repeat with a cannon, it actually has more stanzas outside the extensive refrain. This musical storysong is a nice song about desire with Welch's ideas clearly expressed: "Now you are here today / But easily you might just go away / 'Cause we live in a time / When paintings have no color, words don't rhyme / And that's why I've traveled far / Cause I come so together where you are / And all of the things that I said that I wanted / Come rushing by in my head when I'm with you" ("Sentimental Lady"). The singsong nature of the lyrics is nullified by the extensive stanzas without the simple rhymes and the overall sentiment of the song works wonderfully.

All in all, Bare Trees is a good, but nowhere near perfect, light rock album that is mellow and harmonious, but not overbearing. And perhaps the biggest complaint I can have with it is that there is not enough of it. Those who want real value out of their c.d.s are likely to find the same problem with it.

The best track is "Sentimental Lady," the low point is "Thoughts On A Grey Day."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Future Games
Rumours
Tusk
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

7/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Short And Repetitive, Future Games Is Another Fleetwood Mac Album Worth Passing By.

The Good: Generally sounds good
The Bad: Blandly melodic, SHORT, Some unremarkable lyrics
The Basics: Cripplingly average, Future Games has a rather indistinct collection of eight short tracks that mellow their way nowhere.


In the pantheon of Fleetwood Mac albums, there seem to be several different phases and some are certainly better than others. While there are some albums that seem to be inarguably great, there are some that are definitely more "hit or miss." Future Games, which marks the official arrival of Christine McVie to Fleetwood Mac (she had appeared on earlier albums under her maiden name of Christine Perfect as a backup singer on a few tracks) seems to be one that people either like or hate. For my part, I fall pretty easily into the "leave it" collection of reviewers who have been subjected to Future Games on high replay. It is short, bland and too many of the riffs are repetitive within this album. Moreover, it does not have a single track that stands out and as a result, it is ultimately quite forgettable.

With only eight tracks, clocking out at a meager 42:24, Future Games is hardly an exemplary use of the compact disc medium. Instead, this short, indistinct album should have been combined with another one from this era when it was transferred to c.d. as it could be and the combination of two albums from this era could actually use a single c.d. better than just this album alone. Still, the album is distinctly the creation of Fleetwood Mac . . . at least as it existed at the time. This incarnation of Fleetwood Mac finally adds some estrogen and it is comprised of Danny Kirwan, Bob Welch, Mick Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie.

The quintet wrote all eight songs and Fleetwood Mac produced the album as well. The album includes one of the few songs that every member of Fleetwood Mac wrote together, in the form of "What A Shame." Rather impressively, Fleetwood Mac allows the two newcomers - Christine McVie and Bob Welch - to submit two songs each. In addition to writing and singing their own material, all of the members of Fleetwood Mac play an instrument and so it is very hard to argue that Future Games is not the creative vision of Fleetwood Mac.

The problem here is that with only eight short songs, all of which are rather mellow pop-rock, the album has a monotonous quality to it that is more draining than anything else. Some of Fleetwood Mac's albums are invigorating, some are mellow or moody. Future Games is just murky with the bass and deeper guitar chords dominating songs like "Woman Of 1000 Years." The songs are all slow and contemplative in ways that are utterly forgettable. Like some of the other early Fleetwood Mac albums, there is no distinct single on Future Games that makes one think there is anything indispensable on this album. In fact, the way one track melds into the next, this is one of Fleetwood Mac's most indistinct albums.

The combination of guitar, bass, and piano dominates and this might be the glaring difference between Future Games and virtually every other Fleetwood Mac album; Mick Fleetwood's percussion is not pounding or pronounced. Oftentimes, Fleetwood's drums bind an album such that the songs share a common energy. Here, it is the lack of strong percussion that makes the album seep together like some gelatinous musical experience. Christine McVie's pianos on "Morning Rain," for example, completely drown out Mick Fleetwood's drums.

In addition to more subdued percussion, Future Games is an example of Fleetwood Mac at its least distinguished vocals (at least of the albums I have heard so far). In addition to being split between Kirwan, Christine McVie and Welch, the vocals often involve harmonizing between the vocalists. The result are songs that sound alike vocally as an androgynous aural sensation that lacks articulation.

This type of harmonizing happens on songs like "Morning Rain," but here it might actually benefit the song. After all, it's not exactly the greatest set of lines in the world when McVie wrote "What's that you do / What's that you say / There's no use complaining / It's the only way / There's no use feeling dissatisfied / Cause how can you know until you've tried / Clear as the morning rain / Seeing it very plain / We've got to start again" ("Morning Rain"). I know I usually go easier on the older songs for having predictable rhyme schemes and obvious sentimentality, but in this case, the lines are so obvious and dull that its presentation actually might help the band survive the embarrassment of singing the lines.

This is not to say all of the songs are bad, not by any means. Despite the use of "la di da's" in "Sometimes," Kirwan's lines paint a bleak musical picture with wonderful lines like "Although my back is aching / I'll work the whole day through / Although you hear that I've been wasting / All my time / Taking the sun from the sky / Lifting our hearts to the day / Thinking of new revelations / Talking with nothing to say / Sometimes I get to thinking / About the times we used to have / But now you've gone away and left me-so alone." Kirwan adequately expresses a wonderful sense of futility and loss in the song and his lines here are pretty wonderful.

Ironically, songs like Future Games sound more like the Moody Blues than what one might expect from Fleetwood Mac. And when the lyrics can be heard, they are generally all right. Even McVie manages to close the album well with "Show Me A Smile." Singing to a child, she presents her own lines "Everything's going fast around you / There will be things to astound you / You'll be a man in no time / My little one" ("Show Me A Smile") and here the simplified diction works perfectly.

But all in all, this is an indistinct and average-at-best Fleetwood Mac album and fans will want more for their money, especially if they do go through the effort and expense of hunting this album down. There are much better uses of one's c.d. purchasing bucks!

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Kiln House
Rumours
Tusk
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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More Folksy And Mellow, Kiln House Is Still Worthwhile Fleetwood Mac!

The Good: Melodic vocals, Catchy tunes
The Bad: Short, Nothing so catchy as to be indispensable.
The Basics: A 1950s album that never was, Kiln House has Fleetwood Mac emulating the styles of rock from twenty years prior on a short album that is still fun today!


In my exploration of popular music, I have a few standards. One standard I have lived by for quite some time is that I will not recommend an album where all of the best tracks are available on superior compilation albums. If there is a compilation which trims away the fat of shorter releases, I'll take that. So when I began my study this month of Fleetwood Mac's music, I am not sure I was prepared for the sheer number of albums where that went unrepresented on their "best of" albums. Kiln House is an album which has no tracks represented on the latest compilation discs and that makes it remarkably easy to recommend to those who want a decent, mellow Fleetwood Mac experience.

Fleetwood Mac is pretty much the Oasis of its day; it went through several incarnations and based upon when one gets into them, one might have radically different notions of who and what the band is. Just as Oasis has its core of Noel and Liam Gallagher, so too does Fleetwood Mac have its core in John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. On Kiln House, the band consists of that pair and Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer. Unlike many of the later releases, Kiln House is pretty focused on doing what it intends to, which is create a 1950's style rock and roll/rhythm and blues album in 1970. Now on c.d., the album still resonates with a retro cool that makes it easy to recommend, despite its short duration.

With only ten songs clocking in at a paltry 34:26, I would gladly nix this album and recommend it combined with either of the albums next to it, if such a one-disc condensing of any two albums from this era existed. This is not the best use of the c.d. medium, but Kiln House is a pretty solid retro-sounding concept album wherein Fleetwood Mac sings much like Buddy Holly and early rhythm and blues/rock and roll artists with very mellow guitars, plaintive vocals and generally wholesome lyrics. This is mostly the vision of Fleetwood Mac as seven of the songs were written by the band, with an additional song co-written by the band. Two songs are covers or derivative enough of others' works that other artists are credited with the writing of them.

Still, the men of Fleetwood Mac (this album precedes Christine Perfect - McVie - joining the band) hold their own as vocalists on the album and as the dominant writers of the material. In addition to singing their own songs (primarily Kirwan and Spencer), the group plays their own instruments. In this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, the band is a pretty tight quartet consisting of guitar, bass, piano and drums. On several tracks, the piano is swapped out for another guitar. The album was produced by Fleetwood Mac, so it is hard to argue that this is not the artistic vision of the band, at least as it was at that time.

And generally, Kiln House is both interesting and successful at what it does. Opening with a song that has do-wop type vocals ("This Is The Rock"), the band evolves almost instantly into a more contemporary (at least for the '70's) rock song ("Station Rock"). After the first two tracks form a sort of historical bookend, the band abandons the country/bluegrass twang of "Station Rock" for more traditional rock and roll songs that have clear, articulate vocals with the instrumentals lilting out pretty obvious and simple melodies. Songs like "Buddy's Song" and "Tell Me All The Things You Do" hail directly back to the 1950's while "One Together" is very much the '50's ballad that never was.

The vocals, generally slow and clear, are dominated by Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer and both have similar mid-range vocals. Emulating the voice of Buddy Holly on "Buddy's Song," they remind listeners of the innocence of the Holly-type singers and the album becomes an upbeat tribute to the rhythm and blues and rock and roll of the 1950s. The men never truly stretch their range either into the bass or higher tenor ranges. Instead, the men stay safe and cool in a very smoky vocal place that works for them. In fact, the only real range comes in the more subdued and slightly lower "Blood On The Floor."

Songs like "Blood On The Floor" offer listeners a wonderful taste of Jeremy Spencer's sense of irony. Amid the sincere sounding vocalizations, that sound like they would be perfect as a '50's dance number for the slow dances, Spencer croons "Well I came home one night / She were lyin', / With her legs around / Another man's bod / She saw me, stared laughin' / But she cried, when she saw my gun / Goodbye world / I guess we must part / They're taking my life / 'Cause I shot my sweetheart / I don't say I'm sorry / I just say I'm sore / The reason I'm goin' / Is blood on the floor" ("Blood On The Floor"). The lines clearly mock the simplistic rhyme schemes known to dominate many 50's songs and Spencer's wit is enough to make one smile pretty consistently when hearing the song. But the notion of taking the "cheating heart" song of the '50s and making a joke of it - even one in questionable taste - works wonderfully for the album.

That said, there are also songs like "Tell Me All The Things You Do," wherein the group presents lines of earnest love and desire. Kirwan wrote the ridiculously simple lines "Tell me / Tell me all the things you do / I'll tell you / Tell you all the things I do" ("Tell Me All The Things You Do") and unlike many of Spencer's songs, it is presented without any sense of irony or tongue-in-cheek wit. Kirwan accurately recaptures the slow dancing, high school movie ending feel of many '50's ballads.

Nowhere is this more true than on "One Together." Soft and sweet, "One Together" has a late-60's, early-70's sensibility to the lyrics with the notions of peace, love and togetherness. Still, the song is presented in a '50's style, but the band makes it sound perfectly natural when they sing "How can my heart be filled with doubts of you / When you can fill me with a love that's true / But I can't help but sigh, / And sometimes wonder why / What can I do / I want to see you more and more each day / I really need you, you're my only way / You say it's alright (sic) now / But still I wonder how, what can I say" ("One Together"). Perhaps it is the rhymes, but the song works wonderfully for what it intends to do.

For those who like '50's rock and rhythm and blues, Kiln House is a wonderful, but dreadfully short, musical exploration of that era. But bring your sense of humor; where one writer sees the good and pure, another seeks to twist it. Where one sees a place to burn, another sees a place to live. It's wonderful for the blending.

The best track is "One Together," the low point is the repetitive "Hi Ho Silver."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Rumours
Tusk
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

7/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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A Little Overproduced, Otherwise Pretty Excellent, Tusk Is Likely To Satisfy Fleetwood Mac Fans!

The Good: Sounds good, Duration, Good vocals
The Bad: Outside the radio hits, it's a bit monotonous.
The Basics: A creative and musically inspired album, Tusk offers many good listens, but is still not a perfect album.


Before the allegation that I am being deliberately contrarian with my review begins to fly (I DO read my comments, thanks!), I thought it was worthwhile to mention up front my standards. I reserve 10/10 ratings for perfect albums. Every album I review, I consider on a ten point scale based on instrumentals, vocals, lyrics and production. Despite having pretty rigorous standards, sometimes I find myself enjoying something more than the apparent rating of it.

This is where I find myself this evening as I consider the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk. Tusk is a creative, well-produced album that earned a pretty solid seven in my rating system. Still, as I considered it, I tried to come up with what I would actually say to recommend it to a friend and I continued to fumble around with "It sounds good." As lame as that is, I do more strongly recommend this album than I have anything articulate to say about it. For the most basic criteria, I enthusiastically recommend it because (if nothing else) the best songs on the album are not just the radio hits or the songs that will be found on compilation albums. So, while Tusk, "Sara," and "Think About Me," all charted in the United States and "Storms" also appears on The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac, there are other songs, like "That's All For Everyone" and "The Ledge" that are equally memorable.

With twenty tracks, clocking out at 72:18, Tusk is very much the creative vision of the band Fleetwood Mac. Released originally as a double album, Tusk includes tracks written by three of the five members of Fleetwood Mac at the time this album was produced (all but Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, ironically, wrote songs). The album is pretty well balanced between Christine McVie (six songs), Stevie Nicks (five songs) and Lindsey Buckingham (the remaining nine songs) as far as the writing goes. While Fleetwood Mac is credited as a co-producer of the album, but Lindsey Buckingham has taken a lot of blame for "over" producing the album, but regardless of one's opinion, Buckingham probably did have more to do with production on this than the others, as he is also credited as one of the album's engineers.

Buckingham is probably taking undue blame for the sound of the album. The quintet sounds remarkably good. Balancing male and female vocals (Nicks and McVie have tracks where they are alone and harmonizing, while Buckingham pretty much represents the vocalizations of the y chromosome on these songs) Tusk is musically rich and employs the entire band quite well. In addition to doing their own vocals, each member of the band plays at least one instrument and Buckingham manages to play five different instruments over the course of the album. The creativity of the band cannot be denied.

It is hard to deny the result, either. Tusk is more than just standard pop-rock, it is pretty much every permutation of pop-rock imaginable. "Angel" has strong vocals and "Storms" is almost acoustic in some parts, while "What Makes You Think You're The One" is a pounding pop anthem that is energetic and keyboard driven. Amid guitar and bass-driven anthems comes "That's Not Funny," which is more keyboard-driven and exuberant. The album is a great mix of slower and up tempo tracks and listening to it is a real treat in that its duration makes the similarity of some of the tracks somewhat less noticeable. "That's Enough For Me" sounds more bluegrass even!

Still, musically many of the tracks sound similar with an electric and . . . (sigh, yes) produced sound. This is arguably the result of the pretty pounding percussion lines that run through virtually every song. Drummer Mick Fleetwood is excellent at what he does, but because virtually every song includes him doing quite a bit on drums (the drums are noticeable on every track), there is a sense of regularity to the album that even the songs that venture into different genres seem to maintain.

Vocally, the album is pretty wonderful. Outside the obvious vocal quality on "Storms," Stevie Nicks dazzles with her song "Angel." Lindsey Buckingham and the others harmonize wonderfully on songs like "That's Enough For Me" and generally, the vocals utilize recognizable amounts of the singers' voices (as opposed to production elements). In fact, the only song where the vocals do not truly hold their own against the instrumentals is on the somewhat noisy Tusk, where the vocalists occasionally compete with a marching band . . . and lose. Otherwise, the vocals are largely clear and produced to the forefront, though on "Brown Eyes" they are murky enough to make it difficult to understand the lyrics.

On Tusk, Fleetwood Mac is a little less repetitive than on some of their other albums and as a result, some of the songs hold up better over multiple listens. Songs like "The Ledge" have a flavor that is half musical storysong, half emotional exploration with lines like "Countin' on my fingers / Countin' on my toes / Slippin' thru the ringer / Watchin' how it goes / You can love me baby but you can't walk out / Someone oughta tell you what it's really all about / Buy another fixture / Tell another lie / Paint another picture / See who's surprised / You can love me baby but you can't walk out / Someone oughta / Someone oughta tell you what it's really all about." Despite the somewhat obvious rhyme scheme, the song is well-presented and emotes clearly.

Arguably one of the best combinations of vocals and lyrics, though, comes from Christine McVie on her song "Never Make Me Cry." It is one thing to have plaintive vocals and another to have soulful lyrics. On "Never Make Me Cry," the two are expertly combined as one of the most beautiful ballads Fleetwood Mac ever presents. It is hard to not get choked up when one hears "Go and do what you want / I know that you have the need / You know that I'll wait, as long as it takes / So go and do what you want . . . I may not mean everything / But I'm happy to have your love / So don't worry baby, I'll be alright (sic) / And I'll never make you / I'll never make you / I'll never make you cry" ("Never Make Me Cry"). McVie presents it perfectly.

Of course, some of the songs are just weird and the title track is one that seems to have an element that is either dated or peculiar to the writers. Indeed, it seems like there is some allusion I am not privy to that combines "Why don't you ask him who's the latest on this throne? / Don't say that you love me! / Just tell me that you want me! / Tusk!" ("Tusk"). I have listened to that songs hundreds of times (only a dozen on this album) and I've still no idea what it means in this context.

So, some of the lyrics are dense, but much of the album is smooth, easy listening pop-rock that has a mellow edge to it. The vocals are diverse and largely clear and Tusk is easy to enjoy, but it seems to work on a more visceral level than a rational one.

The best track is "Storms," the low point is the less memorable "Brown Eyes."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mr. Wonderful
Rumours
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

7/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Fleetwood Mac Goes Generically Bluesy With Mr. Wonderful!

The Good: Generally interesting instrumentals, Good overall sound.
The Bad: Monotonous sound for the overall album, Nothing leaps out lyrically or vocally, Short.
The Basics: Average-at-best, Mr. Wonderful opens my Fleetwood Mac study with a very different blues album which is repetitive and unremarkable.


There is a pretty easy standard to hold oneself to when reviewing classic rock artists like Fleetwood Mac, which is to come to every album independent of the hype or later accomplishments. When one is able to divorce themselves from what they do know of an artist or their work, it becomes fairly easy to listen to older works one has not heard before and listen objectively. In my case, for my August Artist Of The Month - Fleetwood Mac -, their era was largely before I was truly musically aware, though they did have several hits while I was growing up. So, while I have enjoyed a few of their albums and virtually all of their radio hits, having Fleetwood Mac as my August Artist Of The Month seemed like a good idea to me.

But being largely ignorant to the works of Fleetwood Mac outside a few of their universally acknowledged great albums or classics, I was able to pick up Mr. Wonderful for my first new Fleetwood Mac experience and come to it with a sense of enthusiasm that made me excited to begin this month of reviews. The thing is, Mr. Wonderful was a purely new album to me; none of the songs from it made it onto any of my compilation albums I already had or have heard. In fact, for those who grew up in the 1980s, this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac is virtually unrecognizable as the only enduring members of the later band are John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. The thing is, more than just the change in line-up evident from the liner notes, Fleetwood Mac's sound is almost entirely different on Mr. Wonderful such that most listeners would never peg this as a Fleetwood Mac album. This does not mean it is bad, but it certainly is different!

With only a dozen tracks clocking out at 41:21, Mr. Wonderful is a blues-based guitar, bass and piano-driven album by the men of Fleetwood Mac. In this incarnation, the band was Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood, though a few guest artists popped up, including Christine Perfect (who would later marry and divorce John McVie and be one of the core members of the later band). This is, however, a much more masculine and blues-driven band for Mr. Wonderful and it is much more of a studio creation than later works. Failing to chart in the U.S., Mr. Wonderful is only marginally created by the quartet of Fleetwood Mac. Members of the band only wrote three songs and co-wrote six others. Three of the songs were written by people who were not members of the group and the album was produced by Mike Vernon, with none of the band being involved in the engineering end of the album. As a result, it is a tough call as to how much creative control the quartet had over the resulting work.

It should be noted, though, that Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer provided the lead vocals and all four men play their own instruments. In this fashion, at least the band becomes reasonable performers and for a sophomore album, there are worse outings for sure. That said, that the most Fleetwood Mac does is sing and play three songs unique to the members with a pretty tight combo of guitars, bass and drums is pretty mediocre.

The sound on Mr. Wonderful is different from other Fleetwood Mac albums, but is remarkably pedestrian and obvious blues. Far from being innovative rock and roll, Mr. Wonderful has fairly average blues riffs on guitar and bass for virtually all of the songs. More troubling - one assumes - than on the original record is that on the compact disc form, songs like "Doctor Brown" and "Need Your Love Tonight" are adjacent to one another now. This is problematic because the two songs sound virtually identical with almost the exact same guitar and bass parts and little differentiation in the vocals. The fact that many of the songs use the same rambling guitarwork interrupted by a few good pickings makes the album ridiculously monotonous when replayed over and over again (believe me, I'm on my twentieth listen now!). Still, the blues sound of this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac makes for something different for those who might tire of rock and roll. Or, you know, songs that sound good.

This is not to say that blues aren't good music, but as with all genres, there are good and bad blues. I do not profess to be an expert on blues at all. But as a common listener, I want to hear some variety on the albums I listen to and on Mr. Wonderful, the best one can hope for is the slightly slower tempo to "If You Be My Baby" or the slightly more rapid strummings on "Stop Messin' Round."

Arguably as mediocre as the repetitive guitar/bass instrumentals are the vocals. While Christine Perfect is credited with some backing vocals, I can't hear them. Instead, this album is dominated by the strained mid-to-low range vocals of Green and Spencer wailing out their lines. They are generally audible and articulate enough to be heard or understood, but because all of the songs have the same slightly drawn-out, plaintive sound to them, it is easy to get tired of the singing quickly. Unlike the instrumentals, which have some tempo changes, Mr. Wonderful's vocals are all the same, tired, faux-soulful and limited in their range.

This brings us to the lyrics. Like a lot of blues, Mr. Wonderful is dominated by repetitive lyrics, most of which tell musical storysongs. Take, for example, Spencer's "I've Lost My Baby." The song has a pretty obvious blues theme and sensibility to it with lines like "I'm waiting this mornin' / I'm waiting for my baby to come back home / I'm waiting this mornin' / I'm waiting for my baby to come back home / You know she left me this mornin' / And I don't know where she gone" ("I've Lost My Baby"). Here we see the repetitive style in full bloom and the nature of the lines. The woman is "baby" in all of the songs and there is more an observational quality than any form of action throughout the album.

Similarly, "Love That Burns" - one of the songs co-written by Green - becomes monotonous with its repetition. More than actually exploring love through the lyrics, the song hopes the emotion of the vocals will carry it. Unfortunately, the strained verses of "Would you love me, would you love me tomorrow / Like you say you love me now / When the flames of our flesh have stopped burning / And the fire of our love has cooled down" ("Love That Burns") are met with few answers and the overall feel is less passionate and more dulled by repetition. We get from the title of the song that this is a burning love, but the song does not illustrate how or why, merely "this is a love that burns, will it keep burning?" Ultimately, it makes for a remarkably unsatisfying musical experience to listen to this over and over again.

It is this same quality that closes the album with the limited catharsis of "Trying So Hard To Forget." On that song, the listener is finally treated to some sense of resolution with the lines "I would spend most of my days / Running and hiding from the world outside / If I ever get to heaven / You know, that sure would ease my worried mind / Yes, if I ever get to heaven / That sure would ease my worried life / You know when I find that place in the sky / People I'm gonna leave this old world behind" ("Trying So Hard To Forget"). The song at least has some sense of definition to it, but it is not even a terribly complete storysong. In fact, none of the songs make their points so much as repeat the emotion over and over again ad nauseam.

The resulting album is easy to pass by and I let it come down to a cointoss for the rating as it was a remarkably average experience. At best, Fleetwood Mac fans who fell in love with the works in the '80s and beyond ought to listen to Mr. Wonderful once to appreciate how far the band came, but beyond that, they can save their money for better albums.

The best track is "Stop Messin' Round," the low point is the unmemorable "Lazy Poker Blues."

For other Fleetwood Mac albums, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Rumours
The Dance
The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac

4.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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