Tango in the Night POLL (Fleetwood Mac)

"Little Lies". Do it for me. Honestly.

the b-side to "7 wonders" is a pretty cool instrumental, "book of miracles" i think it's called. sounds like christine wrote it. it's nice.

"Little Lies" is the best thing Fleetwood Mac did ever do. Thus, my pick is easy even though "Tango In The Night" had lots of strong tracks.

the b-side to "7 wonders" is a pretty cool instrumental, "book of miracles" i think it's called. sounds like christine wrote it. it's nice

Oooh!

At the moment I'm leaning towards Everywhere, it might be McVie's best ever, after Over & Over of course.

Lots of Lindsey being very Lindsey on the production as well.

About this album gets the same HDCD treatment their three late 70s albums got. It's better than all of them.

lolz

This may sound even better.

little lies

LULZ I'd forgotten how lame Lindsey's replacements were. xxp

Ha ha ha that Kids Inc. one is especially great since that's FERGIE.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

LULZ I'd forgotten how lame Lindsey's replacements were. xxp

Lindsey once said, "At least it took TWO guitarists to replace me, heh heh."

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

C.McVie pwns all.

The only surprise is how well "Welcome to the Room...Sara" did.

Correct winner :)

"Seven Wonders" got NO VOTES?!

Oh shit I forgot to actually vote for "Isn't It Midnight".

Seriously, seven people think "Welcome to the Room... Sara" is the best song on this album? Surely these people have not actually heard it and are just assuming any Stevie song with the name "Sara" in it must be good?

It is awful.

Shame to see "Family Man" getting no love.

just picked this up for £1 + i love it even more than i remembered but wtf at 7 votes for welcome to the room sara!?!!

2. "Seven Wonders" (Stewart, Nicks) – 3:38 0

This is one of the fuckedest things in the history of ILM polls.

otm

wtf at 7 votes for welcome to the room sara!?!!

The seven core members of ilm's Stevie stans, innit.

Yeah but what's weird is that it's the worst of her three songs on there. Voting for it seems terribly perverse.

exactly!! it cant just be abt stevie nicks fans

It's NOT worse than "When Will I See You"!

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

i also picked this up recently and was surprised at how amazing it still sounds. "caroline" in particular deserves more love

i think this could be stevie nicks' worst contributions to any record she's been involved with imo

i wonder how many of the people who voted for "welcome.." are mixing it up with "sara" from tusk

" "caroline" in particular deserves more love"

this is spot on.

My issue with "Welcome To The Room... Sara" is that it sounds like a parody song, like something from that French & Saunders send up of Fleetwood Mac. It actively undermines all of Stevie's signature tricks. "When Will I See You" is merely weak.

Nicks' songs are amazingly strong on Say You Will, but then I've not heard the stuff she's done between the two albums.

Like Bella Donna, Trouble in Shangri-La, etc? If you like Nicks, you'll love the albums, but outside maybe one or two tracks (Nomad, maybe?) nothing really knock-out there.

I know Bella Donna, The Wild Heart and Rock Little, just none after that.

But then I rarely listen to those ones much. What's interesting about Nicks is that she really does work so well as a group player, even though her songwriting style would never suggest it. The half of Say You Will she contributes is possibly as much Nicks as I'd really want in one sitting.

CAROLINE

all the "ooh ah"s in "big love" are still bizarre

Seven Wonders is pretty good, deserved a vote imo.

Yes "Everywhere" is brilliant. I was very annoyed when someone made a swirly house-pop cover version

Tiiiiiiim, who did this?

think i've heard it

basically they looped bits of it so it's longer and added some helpful echoes

theres def a balearic disco edit that jaxon posted on the noize board FM thread iirc.

You've all heard this, I hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9ovcZKmMpw

There is no way the Little Lies voters have heard the whole thing.

jeez al i didnt know you thought honey hi was a dud

feel like i dont even know you and i cant trust your opinion anymore

you talkin' to me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9zbCuD1ulA

???

Duds on Tusk: "Honey Hi" (McVie), "Angel" (Nicks), "I Know I'm Not Wrong" (Buckingham)

Duds on Mirage: "Straight Back" (Nicks), "Wish You Were Here" (McVie), "Empire State" (Buckingham).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:47 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh yeah, I'll still stand by that.

h8 you

HONEY HOOO-NEY HI

Yet it's perfectly acceptable for Guided by Voices to record on 4-tracks and The White Stripes to record on old analogue equipment?

"Dated" isn't a pejorative, btw.

it is a sound I find highly unpleasant to listen to, how's that

That's better!

Framing "Big Love" as a missed opportunity presupposes that the live version had some notional existence at the time the original was composed - is there any evidence of that? I agree that Buckingham's live version is spellbinding, when I saw them live a few years ago it was the one moment of the show that gave me a chill even though I knew what was coming. But I've always assumed it was something that Buckingham developed after the fact. I'm just happy both versions of the song exist.

I don't think the studio version of 'Big Love' was a missed opportunity at all. The live version is indeed great, but the studio version still holds up.

Obviously the other thing about Tango is that it's a front to back production masterpiece that feels totally one of a kind and cohesive* so the idea of wanting to swap out some of its rococo excesses and make it less "Miami Vice" feels like a violence to me. If ever there was a record where "sounding like Miami Vice" was elevated to the level of vital ontology it was this one.

*except where Stevie's songs fall over.

in time this has become my favourite mac record

er next time to mirage

Another issue that I have with this whole "sounding like Miami Vice" bullshit is that Tango in the Night doesn't sound like Miami Vice at all.

otm

Tim F OTM about the quality of the production on this record, though - although I don't think the production is overstuffed or even excessive. I can think of far, far, far worse examples of heavy handed '80s production.

Seriously, this isn't even that "80s."

Are there even snares that go "poosh?"

The snare sounds are quite tasteful across most of the record, thinking about it - I can't think of any moments where cavernous reverb is applied or any excessive gated reverbs.

I guess Isn't It Midnight is pretty 80s, right down to the tempo.

The production on this record is '80s, though - it couldn't possibly be placed in any other decade - it just uses the trends of the time tastefully instead of in an OTT way like others did.

agreed. this record sounds super nice, not to simplify it - but yeah

It's basically the 80s way of making a record sound 70s dry, when most 80s signifiers lean hard on the studio mush.

"isn't it midnight" is like "what if the heart s/t were tasteful," a great question with a great answer

I dunno, the pristine digital quality of the overall sound and the programmed, layered nature of the production and the keyboard sounds used and the precise, automated nature of the mixes place this square in '80s territory for me, even without the massive reverbs. It has more in common with Brothers in Arms than it does No Jacket Required.

As for the drumming on 'Big Love', my guess is the same as Josh's in that I think it's actually a combination of programming and overdubbed drum parts. My guess is that Buckingham laid down a basic drum machine part as a guide (to get the timing tight) and built the track up from that, and then got Mick to overdub toms, "real" snare fills, cymbal washes etc. It's possible that the guide track was replaced eventually, but it doesn't sound like it.

If anything that's another intriguing data point in favor of the production: it's hard to tell what is programmed and what is Mick fuckin' Fleetwood.

Big Love is all about the Balearic masterpiece of a remix by Arthur baker imo

*except where Stevie's songs fall over.

uh whassamatta. baby.

That alt Mystified is pretty awesome and weird, though there's a single recurring drum sound in it that I'm finding crazily distracting.

Framing "Big Love" as a missed opportunity presupposes that the live version had some notional existence at the time the original was composed - is there any evidence of that?

In this interview he talks about Big Love being about "the potential of a single guitar doing the work of a whole track", so that tells me he might have written it that way first, then added all the other elements later in the process

https://youtu.be/iBSWt0b4K8E?t=71

and the dream says I WANT YOU
and the dream is gone

I never ever ever got burned out on 80s production styles/techniques. 90s and 00s, almost immediately.

If anything, my appreciation for the technical skill of '80s production has only increased with time. There were a lot of legitimately stunning production achievements in the '80s. Of course, there are many examples of the trends of the time done badly, but that exists in every decade.