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

"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.

I'm keeping my mouth shut on that one... But this is a pretty big change of pace!

#36: "Man of the World" (Peter Green, 1969) - 155 points, 7 votes

http://www.kieran.keegan.btinternet.co.uk/Greeny/Greeny_pics/amsterdam_70.gif

Track link: http://youtu.be/_CT7mzrJunc

"He [Peter Green] has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats."--B.B. King

"Songbird" is not a very interesting song, it's true. But Christine's singing on it is so, so appealing, that I enjoy it anyway. Is there a song out there that Stevie wrote, but Christine sang? That would be a really cool thing to hear, since Christine is by far a better singer, but Stevie's songwriting has some teeth that Christine's don't. I would love to here her smoothness over something gritty.

Better singer in the Glee sense, not necessarily in the "feel" sense...

Songbird was on this killer mixtape that my cousin made for me that had Love and Rockets and The Verve and the first Big Star song I'd ever heard on it; usually inclusion on said mixtape is enough to make any poll ballot I draw up, but space was v v v limited, but I will still pledge fealty to that song forevermore

Is that PG's first entry? I can't recall whether he even has an album in our chart.

I really like the Honey Hi on the Tusk bonus disc - just Christine & Rhodes as I recall it

They Play On made the albums list. xp

Circling back to "I Don't Want to Know," I love the sustained harmony all the way through. I guess it's pretty slight, songwise, but it's a great bit of singing.

<3 peter green

And the Cut Copy remix of Never Forget takes flight nicely.

Isamel, Then Play On was 8th place in the albums ranking...

But yeah, this is the first Peter Green song to appear... Beautiful track.

I'd never even heard of "Man of the World" a week ago, but it leapt onto my ballot after the first listen.

There are three Peter Green songs that I expect to see higher, plus Brown Eyes, but that's it for him.

Ask and ye shall receive...

#35: "Black Magic Woman" (Peter Green, 1968) - 158 points, 8 votes

http://991.com/NewGallery/Fleetwood-Mac-English-Rose---Se-451586.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/6pT3OaV0g64

I love Songbird, and a sparsely arranged, melodically straightforward composition like that is a perfect interlude amidst the multi-tracked feast of popcraft ambrosia that is Rumours.

I agree with others though, that "Don't Stop" is the relative dud on the LP. I actually like the verse sections plenty; it's just the chorus that annoys me.

Exactly it. Say You Will shows what's missing when you take that out.

<i>the multi-tracked feast of popcraft ambrosia that is Rumours.</i>

Nice! Beautiful turn of phrase.

English Rose is the most horrifying album cover of all time.

Nah, it's funny.

I love it!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9PUi1S3XRPo/T8pRybwEfqI/AAAAAAAAAXo/PoH_zMKckNQ/s1600/583J.jpg

"Black Magic Woman" rules, though... Dig John's bass!

"Don't Stop": assumed when the poll was announced it would be a shoe-in for my ballot, but in the end I thought "nah"

"Songbird": used to think "nah" but it's grown on me a lot lately; in the end it was a late cut.

Does anyone agree btw that Rumours is not well sequenced? Don't Stop-->GYOW-->Songbird really doesn't work for me, perhaps because they could all be the Side 1 closer. Not that I have a better sequence in my head.

Ah, that should have been a side question to the poll: Sequence your own Rumours

lol

Haha... I do agree though that the above-mentioned trio doesn't quite click.

#34: "Beautiful Child" (Stevie Nicks, 1979) - 161 points, 8 votes

http://oystermag.com/sites/default/files/stevie_nicks_saucer_eyes.jpg

Track link: http://youtu.be/MDTTI2UVcMQ

Really miss her curls. When did those go? The 80s?

Yep... Same decade her voice went! (ducks)

I love this song. It takes a hell of a band, instrumentally speaking, to sustain that much tension and drive in a song this slow... (Is this their slowest song ever?) The way the harmonies build, interlock, then stagger is lovely. Lindsey's shading is some of the best guitar work on the record--so subtle, but so perfectly placed.

Really miss her curls. When did those go? The 80s?

she mistook them for coke and snorted them

Clarke is your numbering off at Black Magic Woman?

This one...man, it's way beyond the pale for me. I find it to be totally lugubrious. Could be my least favorite Mac track ever.