Tango in the Night POLL (Fleetwood Mac)

Not Buckingham's playing, I just wonder to what extent the aesthetic was determined by having a drummer and lead singer/songwriter in sub-optimal shape. Mirage has a lot less of that sampled sound although the technology did exist and was certainly available to them.

I meant, his playing wasn't deteriorating.

I just wonder to what extent the aesthetic was determined by having a drummer and lead singer/songwriter in sub-optimal shape.

I don't believe in intentionality, but yes: the band's been clear about the shape they were in.

I think Lindsey's spoken about how Stevie's contribution were scraped together as a result of her issues at the time, but I'm not aware of Mick struggling with playing at the time. I mean, the production is very much in keeping with the era?

xps

the band's been clear about the shape they were in.

― meticulously crafted, socially responsible, morally upsta (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 25, 2021 7:11 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i actually disagree, having read a few different interviews with them about it; they tell more than few contradictory stories

At the same time the album is out of time: the programemd chimes and music box effects are novel.

regardless i have encountered no information that suggests mick fleetwood's playing was hampered at all xp

His playing and the drum machines are identifiable.

Pretty sure huge hunks of the album were patched together with a Fairlight. I was blown away learning from the Replacements book that Jim Dickinson used a Fairlight to cobble together acceptable drum takes, and if even the Replacements were (unwittingly) using the Fairlight for that purpose there is no way that Bucky wasn't doing it the same way (and, coincidentally, the same year), especially given members of the Mac were as fucked up as the Mats (and Bucky, if he had his way, probably would have replaced them all with machines if he could have, anyway).

Maybe Mick was hampered because his drum vest hadn’t arrived by studio recording time.

that buckingham solo video is insane

i really hate "little lies" lol i grit my teeth thru it every time i listen to this album which otherwise consistently blows me away. it's one of those songs i really associate w/ being in the back of my mom's car in endless traffic jams trying to get home from school or baseball or something. how did it win this poll?

voting for "everywhere" would be cheating so i prob would've gone with "when i see you again" or "big love"

I can’t really imagine supporting one of the two Stevie non-singles.

"Little Lies" is such a perfectly constructed song abetted by sympathetic production that I never tire of it. I often think Nicks' nasally TELL ME LIIIES chorus backup vocal is the shrewdest, most moving of her Mac tenure.

vs

WASSA MADDA BABY....BABY...BAY-BEE....BABY!

― My life is butthurt so badly (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, September 5, 2009

God, I love "wassa madda baby"

BABY

BABY

BABY

ennyoooseeeeeiiiiwanyoooo rmphrumph

That second half, though! I read it was another Nicks scrap that Buck stapled. Beautiful.

y'all heard this? my god

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=558bIK_X1ZY

I totally became a Mac-obsessed 11year old at this point, thanks to the Big Love video and some really exploitative documentary that was on UK TV around the release of Tango, with its tales of guitarists going mad and multiple touring Macs... Picked up a cheap copy of that 1980 live album shortly afterwards and was in deep

I've not spent a lot of time with the Tango extras, I should but I wasn't hugely enamoured the first time I streamed em. Yeah, obviously a lot of those Nicks tracks were glued together from scraps on the factory floor - really skewed my nascent sense of what a song could/should be at an early age tbh. Maybe in a good way.

My favorite outtake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCEWeD_4lg

I need to stream em again - I'm not home-schooling tomorrow so hopefully I'll get a chance then!

This was the other thing that ran on UK TV around this time and made me a pre-teen Mac devotee - absolute fire drama and intensity, Lindsey and Stevie look like they're spitting at each other during The Chain...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdolGLi0Ayg

I've seen that Mirage tour doc, and, yeah, they're uh jacked up on something

Jacked up on love, my friend.

Also, metric tonnes of cocaine.

Good Bucky demo of "Big Love" here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBSWt0b4K8E

One thing I like about it is for a split second he doesn't have the right effect or mix or whatever enacted, but he quickly switches what needs to be switched.

There are lots of revelatory Bucky talks Bucky clips out there. Like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCGKFY9NBZY

(Hilariously, he gets the time signature of his own virtuoso song wrong and has to be corrected!)

holy shit that acoustic Big Love is WILD

thrilled that that "big love" performance can still blow minds, as it did mine when i was 13 years old

I still stan for the original too, which sounded nothing like what I heard on the radio in early '87. The dance remix w/the house piano break is hot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJh72NlHlmc

Can someone mount a defense of “You and I Pt II”? I always kind of want this record to flicker out exhausted with “When I See You Again” - the closer feels tacked on and inappropriately jaunty to me, but I am no Mac expert so I am keen to know if it works in some way that I don’t understand.

Listen to it this way, with both parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3SOOUtnJWg

Yeah the jauntiness of the second half makes more sense when it emerges out of the first half.

On the album it feels like an endearing but only partly successful attempt to recreate "Never Forget".

Ok I can totally see how the full version would work as a closer - but if I had to trim for time I would keep the first half for sure! I mean if they wanted a nothingy little ditty to finish the album on an up note that’d still work fine!

I am over invested apparently but for me this is a perfect sultry summer evening album and a masterpiece of mood and production as much as songwriting - but that last track always breaks the spell a little.

^agree with the last part. album is on a very short list of default throw-it-on-because-no-one-should-complain lists for me.

idk, that two-parter "You and I" sounds like a bad iteration of "No. 1 Song in Heaven." the two pieces don't fit right at the seams. that full version would've elevated the album, though.

LOVING the two part You & I, tbh

Really digging into extras on the deluxe reissue and damn if there is some good stuff. I have to wonder if Buckingham was on some Prince kick with all of his vocal moves throughout the material.

The subtle changes in the alternate version of “Mystified” have me feeling like that was the kind of sound ABBA would have been putting out if they’d stayed together.

"Little Lies" is such a perfectly constructed song abetted by sympathetic production that I never tire of it. I often think Nicks' nasally TELL ME LIIIES chorus backup vocal is the shrewdest, most moving of her Mac tenure.

Pretty sure huge hunks of the album were patched together with a Fairlight. I was blown away learning from the Replacements book that Jim Dickinson used a Fairlight to cobble together acceptable drum takes, and if even the Replacements were (unwittingly) using the Fairlight for that purpose there is no way that Bucky wasn't doing it the same way (and, coincidentally, the same year), especially given members of the Mac were as fucked up as the Mats (and Bucky, if he had his way, probably would have replaced them all with machines if he could have, anyway).

Agreed. The “Play in the Rain” section of the album especially popped into my head upon hearing the two parter version of “You and I”

Low quality bootleg camcorder recording of "Little Lies" from 1987. Sound quality dicey but comes off well

Better one from 90

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxBP5CnRZwE

(tho obv no Lindsey on either)

Burnette/Vito sounds awful.

I want that Stevie cloak.

yeah they had big shoes to fill and they filled it with....oh u know

Reminds me that I've never checked out any footage from the Campbell/Finn tour. I'm really curious, because I can't imagine the addition of either of those guys ever making something worse.