50 great things about Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk"

that's the one on the tusk bonus disc

weird that it's listed as "IT'S Not That Funny" there

Confession: I'm a much bigger fan of "Storms" than I am of "Sara."

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:30 AM (3 hours ago)

Me too, by a huge margin.

I like both 'Storms' and 'Beautiful Child', but I'll always love 'Sara' more than the two of them put together.

sara is a masterpiece, the original LP version 4 life

One kinda subtle trainspottery thing I noticed about "Never Forget" is that on the outro the band sings "It Will Be All Right" 5 times with 5 different melodies (or shifts of emphasis at least).

the best timing for this thread - so many things to say

-the hypnotically simple major chord grooves on songs like honey hi and angel
-the close harmonies on angel and just the whole vocal line
-the thwomp! of The LEDGE intro
-Think About Me as the song from Rumours that wandered off got lost and showed up on the wrong record!
-everything about that's all for everyone - a brilliant song
-the easing in of the over and over intro...the pacing in general....

So much to love - the crisp airless drums on Beautiful Child - the fade-in on Honey Hi - newspaper snares on The Ledge - the chaos breakdown and building chants in Tusk - rubber band guitars on That's Enough For Me - ultra minimal drum breaks at the end of Brown Eyes - the endless falling chords and shimmering haze of That's All For Everyone - impeccable fuzz guitar thickening Think About Me - literally every track has a little treat tucked into it somewhere.
God, I have been living with this album since I was 9. If side 4 was the only music I could listen to for all time, I'd be OK with that.

excellent BBC doc from last year

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hxpxp

man Ken Caillat is still clueless about the album.

omg seeing Fleetwood Mac in antwerp in a month OMFG.

The best, I suppose, way that I could answer that is to tell you of an experience that I had about a week ago in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We found this incredible health food store that had a restaurant, and I went in to pick out some things that I needed. And this girl came up to me. She was real tiny, real kind of dark hair, real straight, real plain, but real pretty, and she said, ‘You’re Stevie Nicks, aren’t you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘Well, do you have a minute?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ She said, ‘It’s very strange that you could have come here tonight because for a long time I have wanted to be able to walk up to you and tell you something. I am a graphic artist. I have no way with words. I draw and you sing, and you write and I create. To me, you are the best songwriter that I know. And I don’t know you.’ And I said, ‘But yes you do know me, because you were brave enough to come and tell me this.’ And she said, ‘I want you to know when you leave here that what you write makes me happy. It makes me sing, and I can’t sing. And it makes me laugh, and sometimes I don’t feel like laughing. But you have given me something, and I think that your writing is indeed something very special. And I know you hear it all the time—’ And I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t hear that all the time. And if you don’t tell me, who will tell me that?’
The only thing that I ever wanted my whole life was to be a good writer and to write something that might take away somebody’s pain for a moment. And the fact is, I was right, because people do at some point sit down and listen to I Have Always Been a Storm and say, ‘And so have I always been a storm.’
— Stevie Nicks (Jim Ladd 1979)

otm

Had a flash a few months ago that "I Don't Want to Know" off "Rumours" would also fit on "Tusk," if they scuffed it up a bit.

http://www.superseventies.com/oaaa/oaaa_fleetwoodmac4.jpg

That is so awesome.

why the extra packaging...

its cool though...

Angel studio outtakes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPn0U7qnXaY

Great live version, check the LB/SN moments around 2:30 - 3:15:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN8MvFQKtz8

I've heard it a million times and I still can't unravel the randomness of the drums on "What Makes You Think You're the One."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwmrzSIXA5Q

I love putting songs from "Tusk" on mixtapes for friends don't really listen to much music, who, if they know Fleetwood Mac at all, only know it from the radio. Because the Stevie/Lindsey stuff in particular is so familiar, or half-familiar, that they sort of just go with it and don't even realize how weird it is. And so they end up thinking that "Tusk"-era Mac is perfectly normal and go around listening to all the spazzy stuff like it's some hit that everyone else knows and not some cult fave.

It makes 74 minutes go by like nothing.

all i want to do is listen to 'tusk' and the stuff posted on the balearic disco thread for the rest of july

why not, you deserve to be happy

the best double album of the 70s

listening recently i noticed for the first time that the harmonies in save me a place are all multitracked lindsey, thats a great thing

This MST3K credits sequence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLDQOVrtgJ4

^ YES

that is one insanely expensive credit sequence if they're actually licensing everything. also, it's awesome.

The completely insane yet pleasingly non-obvious sequencing: "Over and Over" is the first song? "Never Forget" is the last song? "That's All for Everyone" is in the middle of the second side??
― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, February 23, 2004 12:09 AM (10 years ago)

I contend that "Over and Over", over time, repeated listens, stretched across the decades, slowly but surely exerts itself as the greatest album opener ever.
― collardio gelatinous, Friday, December 7, 2012 5:58 PM (1 year ago)

this issue has been on my mind lately. has anyone in the band ever talked about why they made "over and over" the album opener? it's a great song, but it's such a bizarre choice, even for a weird, sprawling double album. it's like taking the first lap of the indy 500 in first gear.

You could definitely rearrange this record, swap a few bits round, take some songs out in order to make a more personal and palatable iteration of the original. Hmm... I wonder if anyone's ever tried doing this?

all i want to do is listen to 'tusk' and the stuff posted on the balearic disco thread for the rest of july

― dude (Lamp), Friday, July 11, 2014 5:38 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just saw this - Lamp, have you heard this groovy edit/remix by Gigamesh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fss3Xn5dZzU

i first heard over and over on their 1980 live album, which was the first mac album i ever bought, as a kid. and that version remains one of my all time favourite mac tracks (lindsey's guitar solo, swoon) that the Tusk version, which i heard later, can't help but disappoint.

You could definitely rearrange this record, swap a few bits round, take some songs out in order to make a more personal and palatable iteration of the original. Hmm... I wonder if anyone's ever tried doing this?

― 3kDk (dog latin), Tuesday, August 5, 2014 6:51 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously don't get the people who shake their heads at Over and Over as track one.

Yeah me neither, really. I mean, I get that it doesn't exactly herald what's to come, but what opener would, in an album that gets as close to being three solo albums as one can get without dissolving the "band" concept entirely?

I find this to be an exquisitely gentle intro to the album. Lindsey and Stevie (and Christine for that matter) will make more urgent emotional and aesthetic demands soon enough, but why not warm up the ears and heart a little before that?

It wasn't a wrong choice as an opener, just an intriguingly unconventional one.

Just finished listening to this from over the last three months. Really amazing.

"That's All for Everyone" is maybe the most amazing song I've heard in the last year, hypnotic.

From the bonus disc I was impressed by demos/alternates of the Lindsey songs. As great as the album versions are I think it's a shame he didn't incorporate the level of jangling/twinkling that you get in the demos. I hope he did more with that sound later on.

Cover of Beach Boys' "Farmer's Daughter" is lovely, but several of the demos don't seem all that necessary but I suppose loads of people would want them anyway.

On "Storms" in the 2nd chorus when Stevie drops the words "hour of" down an octave

"That's All for Everyone" is maybe the most amazing song I've heard in the last year, hypnotic.

This one I like, but it frustrates me as it sounds SO similar, in style and content to something else I can't put my finger on. Maybe some early-70s Beach Boys, Sunflower era?

this, i think, but it could be a numbe ro fBB songs from that time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mky-UhxUKoM

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-fleetwood-macs-tusk.html?_r=0

Wow, is "Storms" such a pretty song.

about a year ago "Sisters of the Moon" took over as my #1 and doesn't want to move

http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j449/HideousLump/Tusk.jpg

Half a block from my apartment.

'Walk A Thin Line' and 'That's All For Everyone' still firmly lodged in my Top 5 songs from this.

xp I was initially thinking that the Fleetwood Mac tribute band was aiming to do "Tusk" in its entirety, which would've been awesome. Still, a half block walk is hardly prohibitive in your case.

I, personally, would totally go to see a Fleetwood Mac tribute band if they were going to play Tusk in its entirety. Now that Christine's back in the band, the Mac themselves should totally go for it before it's too late.

dare ya to say "tusk deluxe" ten times fast.

http://www.spincds.com/blog/2015/10/23/fleetwood-mac-tusk-deluxe-expanded-editions/