Fleetwood Mac – Mirage, C/D?

yeah, the drumming on "Hold Me" is amazing -- that little fill before the outro guitar solo.

yeah i thought maybe hold me would be the exception but this album has no breathing room like the end of over and over and mick fleetwood never feels indispensible like on what makes you think your the one for eg.

A friend and I, listening to the "Seven Wonders" 12-inch a couple of months ago, wondered aloud if a Big Corporate Band ever released so un-1987 album as Tango in the Night. When other dinosaurs camouflaged missing parts with synclaviers or whatever, Buckingham used stacked or accelerated harmonies and all manner of synthesized chimes, celestes, toy pianos, and such. I can't think of two songs that sound so out-of-time as "Little Lies" and "Big Love."

Whereas, I dunno, even my favorite Mirage tracks sound like expert 1982 studio-rock.

How many of Christine's songs does Lindsay do "more than just a bg vox", it's almost like doubling. Notice this a lot on my faves and even on my not-so-faves (ie, "Don't Stop")

Obv "Think About Me" (my favourite example, esp. on the line "I don't hold you down / maybe that's why you're around...") and "You & I", nothing else immediately coming to mind...?

I endorse "Eyes of the World," "Hold Me," and "Gypsy" as the classics, while "Love in Store," "Can't Go Back," and "Book of Love" as second-tier goodies, but the rest are bland.

"Book of Love" is totally first-tier!!!

But I'm certainly not saying this album is an out and out classic, read my posts again.

Which song do you guys dislike most: "Straight Back" or "Welcome To the Room...Sara"?

i mean when i finally heard mirage and tango i was shocked at how good they turned out to be but in the end you have to admit that rumours and tusk are unfuckwithable and these will always be lesser dented albums

welcome to the room sarah is some full on garbage but you can tell just by reading the name come on

Would agree re the singularity of Tango's sound but OTOH I sort of see it as the culmination of post-Gabriel late-eighties exoticism in mainstream rock which a lot of people were dabbling in but less successfully (am I correct in remembering that you don't much like "Tonight Tonight Tonight" alfred?).

I'd rank them:

Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
Tusk
Tango in the Night
Mirage

Which song do you guys dislike most: "Straight Back" or "Welcome To the Room...Sara"?

"Straight Back" is a like a smoke machine hiding nothing, but "Welcome To The Room...Sara" actively does harm to Nicks' standing in my eyes.

its where buckingham drowning bad songs in crazy production really just resembles him jumping up and down on the other side of the room trying to create a diversion while stevie nicks sticks coke up her arse

but the exoticism is discrete and isolated: the title track and maybe "Caroline" (that's where I assume you hear the "Tonight Tonight Tonight" allusion) and the Rousseau cover art.

I love typing the ellipses for "Welcome To The Room...Sara."

I do kinda love the friend-in-need bits in "Isn't It Midnight" and "When I See You Again" -- Buckingham just says, "Alright, bitches, stand back: I'm taking over."

btw tonight is a night i feel like talking abt music

welcome to the room sarah is some full on garbage but you can tell just by reading the name come on

lol

"Caroline" (that's where I assume you hear the "Tonight Tonight Tonight" allusion)

Yes. But I'd say that there's a kind of submerged (or restrained) exoticism to the sound throughout, esp. the interlocking of buckingham's guitar playing and the synthetic wall hangings, even if the result is quite restrained (see in partic. "Family Man" and "You and I").

I love typing the ellipses for "Welcome To The Room...Sara.

Waiting for Drake to make "Welcome to the Room #Sara"

tango in the night kindof reminds me of the soundtrack to a clockwork orange

Pretty good:

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

Buckingham is shockingly candid about the band's bad faith.

FInding myself in rare agreement with Alfred... what could this mean?

You've realized I'm awesome?

you've realized I'm... awesome?

I once again should recommend that "Destiny Rules" making-of "Say You Will" DVD, which makes it explicitly clear that this band is and has been for eons incapable of doing anything without Lindsey's guidance/vision. It's telling that several of the tracks on "Tusk" are essentially just him, with token input from the others, and there's no reason to believe that "Mirage" and "Tango" don't follow that pattern as well. Basically, he hunkers down to make a solo album, gets the call and decides whether or not to donate said works in progress to the new album. Sometimes the others contribute bits and pieces to more or less complete tracks, sometimes they don't. "Say You Will" in particular has several songs totally indistinguishable from the versions he recorded for (the original) "Gift of Screws"

Well, sure...but Buckingham needs McVie's warmth and soul, Nicks' batshit craziness, and that remarkable rhythm section.

"Say You Will" in particular has several songs totally indistinguishable from the versions he recorded for (the original) "Gift of Screws"

yeah this was both disappointing and sort of awesome when i realised

I've seen that doc, by the way, and the two moments I remember: (a) Nicks getting miffed at Buckingham criticizing her approach to songwriting ("Would you call Bob Dylan structure-less?") and Mick Fleetwood rising to his full height and glowering and scaring Buckingham, reminding him and all of us that while Buckingham is the Genius, Fleetwood is The Leader, and it's his band.

I'm reminded also of the dearth of good criticism of FM in the mid to late nineties when I discovered them. I finally heard my parents' vinyl copy of Rumours in late '96 and bought the '88 greatest hits, after which I got TITN and Tusk in quick succession. Besides Greil Marcus' famous piece positing Tusk as a punk album (I hadn't read Simon Reynolds' essay yet), it was still considered at best a Noble Failure.

The success of The Dance changed all that. I had 18 and 19-y-o friends discovering Rumours that winter and being totally blown away. That was the period when the Tusk revival inched forward.

Fleetwood is The Leader, and it's his band.

Clearly you forget the moment when Mick sits Lindsey down and tells him the label and managers (each member appears to have his or her own manager) wants him to tone down the weirdness and cut the album down to a more commercial single album, and Lindsey looks him right in the eye and basically says "fine, I'll take all my songs and release my solo album instead." And Mick, fearless leader, immediately backs down.

Also, Stevie brings a giant dreamcatcher to her first day in the studio.

Oh, and "Tusk" revival began in earnest when Spin, way back when, listed it as one of the top 10 most underrated albums. The same list, if I recall, started the "Paul's Boutique" revival.

(Or was it overlooked albums?)

Clearly you forget the moment when Mick sits Lindsey down and tells him the label and managers (each member appears to have his or her own manager) wants him to tone down the weirdness and cut the album down to a more commercial single album, and Lindsey looks him right in the eye and basically says "fine, I'll take all my songs and release my solo album instead." And Mick, fearless leader, immediately backs down.

I remember, but how many solo albums does Buckingham sell? Besides, by Say You Will it looked pretty clear that each member had made his or her peace with everyone else's idiosyncrasies.

and McVie was the only one who said, "Fuck this, I'm leaving to release a solo album" (which didn't sell).

finally, as much as I love "Trouble" and at least five or six other Buckingham solo tracks, Stevie Nicks has plenty more solo moments I care for.

(which didn't sell).

there's a v good reason for this

if these were the sort of songs she was likely to be contributing to 'say you will' i for one am glad she wasn't involved

I dunno about albums sales, but certainly especially Stevie but also Lindsey were no slouches in the solo album department, even Christine, back when any of them were selling records, FM included.

If anything, it's probably most accurate to suggest FM is simply the best vehicle for Lindsey's brand of weird. Wolf in sheep's clothing and all that. FM are one of those totally mainstream bands, like Steely Dan, where sometimes I wonder whether the average fan truly has any idea how strange this stuff actually is.

McVie is a formulaic writer, for better or worse: she bangs out tunes on the piano which require Buckingham's arrangements to make them special. But those tunes are essential to FM. As much as I believe in Buckingham as The Genius, I can't give him most of the credit; it always looks like these other people are appendages to His Vision. It's too facile, too beholden to auteur theories about art.

it's probably most accurate to suggest FM is simply the best vehicle for Lindsey's brand of weird.

otm

Like Tim, I'm a fan of Say You Will: still enormously underrated. But whatever the tension produced by accommodating three different songwriters, McVie is missed. Forced to contribute all the tunes, Buckingham and Nicks include at least three pieces of filler apiece. There's something to be said about fractious democracy.

FM are one of those totally mainstream bands, like Steely Dan, where sometimes I wonder whether the average fan truly has any idea how strange this stuff actually is.

Perhaps this goes without saying: I think "average fans" do pick up on this stuff pretty readily but maybe are less inclined to try to put it in context like "ironically, Buckingham's work was much stranger than much of the post-punk and new wave that purported to react against 70s soft rock etc etc."

Forced to contribute all the tunes, Buckingham and Nicks include at least three pieces of filler apiece.

w/r/t Nicks I'd say the killer to filler ratio is higher on SYW than on any album she's been involved in since Tusk.

stevie's songs on SYW are the best since tusk imo, 'gypsy' excluded

"Goodbye Baby" and "Throw Down" are A+.

^^

i love running through the garden as well

"Thrown Down" boasts the most Mirage-like production btw: all restrained fury.

In addition to the above I particularly love "Destiny Rules".

In fact the only Nicks song on the album whcih I think is a misfire is "Silver Girl".

I don't care for the one about 9-11 in which she's searching for a vocal melody using her new vocal style.

Yeah, that 9-11 one is a dud that comes distractingly early in the album.

Re: mainstream acceptance, I don't know. I have plenty of friends who think of both Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan as simply mellow hanging with your pals music, and live neither attracts the freaks that flock to, say, Yes shows (who had the most eccentric hodge-podge of fans I've ever seen at a show). But FM and SD are just so skewed, the former massively high-strung for such a "mellow" act and the latter so clinical and cynical for relax-and-have-a-good-time smooth operators. Their popularity, especially as MOR staples, is like a great sleight of hand trick.

I mean, splitting the difference between two bands, it'd be as if XTC were playing outdoor summer arenas and blasting from SUVs.

I don't think it's necessarily the case that skewed intensity and maintream acceptance are mutually exclusive or even inversely proportional (although I accept that things can trend that way) - hence songs like "Don't Stop Believing", "Under Pressure", "Total Eclipse of the Heart".

"simply mellow hanging with your pals" is different and I'd agree with you there, but mainly because neither FM's Greatest Hits nor Rumours if taken in isolation give a good sense of how weird the band can be (of course if you are familiar with, say, "The Ledge" and "Empire State", then you can also hear those qualities of weirdness and over-intensity nestled within tunes like "Go Your Own Way" and "Rhiannon").

I think Steely Dan is a much better fit for your argument in terms of the songs being both generally beguiling to a broad audience and so idiosyncratic simultaneously.

I remember: (a) Nicks getting miffed at Buckingham criticizing her approach to songwriting ("Would you call Bob Dylan structure-less?")

hah, he even takes a sort of dig at her songwriting in that clip from '82 upthread: "Stevie Nicks writes poetry, and...has a certain sense of melody which isn't always very well-developed..."

thing is, when "gypsy" goes into its sole diversionary little bridge part i don't think it really serves the song particularly well. i mean, one of the great things about "gypsy" (and "sara"!) for me is their "structure"-lessness and the relentless repetition of their "plonk-plonk-plonk-plonk-plonk..." themes

And she became enough of a craftsman to write sturdy solo hits on her own, albeit often arranged by hacks.