Fleetwood Mac - best album (a poll)

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Though I've already voted, this thread is going to be a sad thread if Rattlesnake Shake doesn't also get a shout-out.

Now, I know this guy
His name is mick
Now, he don’t care when he ain’t got no chick
He do the shake
The rattlesnake shake
Yes, he do the shake
And jerks away the blues
Now, jerk it

Best song they ever did, even if it's not from my favorite album. Down w/the post-Welch Mac!

― dlp9001, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:11 (sixteen years ago) link

[x] None of them, I don't like Fleetwood Mac

― ☪, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:14 (sixteen years ago) link

Rumours vs. Tusk is an interesting argument. Concise, tuneful perfection vs. the dropped jaw and curious awestruck reaction. Obviously, Tusk is more of a statement record. But Rumours has among the best drum recordings ever -- I LOVE the drum sound.

FWIW, I'd still say "Oh Well" is the best song Mac ever did ... the verion of it they cranked out with Buckingham on the 2003 tour when I saw them proved that.

― Jiminy Krokus, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:28 (sixteen years ago) link

then play on

I love the F-mac/rumors/tusk trilogy too. and bare trees is a sleeper.

― m coleman, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:30 (sixteen years ago) link

Wouldn't be surprised if Nicks came up with melody on the Chain. Sounds like something she'd do. End of that song from the bass riff on is amazing.

― Jiminy Krokus, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:31 (sixteen years ago) link

unfortunately none of the green-era records contain the studio versions of "green manalishi" and "man of the world."

i'm going with the triple-disc Live at the Boston Tea Party. For me, that's up there with Allman's Fillmore recordings and Live Dead.

― QuantumNoise, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:42 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah I just wanted to second your love for Mystery To Me, dlp9001, even though I picked Heroes. You are also right that their cover of "For Your Love" is probably the low point of that record. I will have to give Rattlesnake Shake a try.

― Bimble, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:51 (sixteen years ago) link

unfortunately none of the green-era records contain the studio versions of "green manalishi" and "man of the world."

this is a major disappointment. for all the reissues of the last 15 years you'd think they could do an expanded Then Play On with these two songs. make me chairmen of warner bros records, ok?

― m coleman, Saturday, 28 April 2007 19:58 (sixteen years ago) link

also, does anyone know who was the primary songwriter of "the chain"? and is that the only song of the lindsey-stevie era to be credited to the whole band?

Nicks wrote most of the song.

I voted for Rumours too. Was it Christgau who wrote in 1977's P&J essay that it would prove to be a better record than Never Mind The Bullocks?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:08 (sixteen years ago) link

I will Mark but you have to throw in poor Danny Kirwan's "Dragonfly" while you are at it ok?

― Stormy Davis, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:09 (sixteen years ago) link

(this is actually the rekkid to get which has all those tracks:)

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drh400/h445/h44597ffm3a.jpg

― Stormy Davis, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:10 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, Dragonfly's great. I was just busy trying to work out if that was on a record or not...

― Keith, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link

There is only one Fleetwood Mac that contains "Little Lies" and "Everywhere". Sadly, I'm afraid it won't win, although it's their best.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 28 April 2007 21:25 (sixteen years ago) link

The Best of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac contains "Dragonfly," "Green Manalishi," and "Man of the World," but I agree with m. coleman, i'd rather have an expanded edition of Then Play On that contained Green-era Mac's final singles.

― QuantumNoise, Saturday, 28 April 2007 22:48 (sixteen years ago) link

BTW, I've never been able to figure out if there exists a studio version of "Only You." Anybody know?

― QuantumNoise, Saturday, 28 April 2007 22:51 (sixteen years ago) link

bump

― félix pié, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:11 (sixteen years ago) link

I voted for "Rumours" - terrific record. "Tusk" has stellar moments but a lot of arsing about.

― Groke, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link

I like "Mirage" a lot too.

― Groke, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link

Okay, look. Let's call a truce. Please let the self titled Fleetwood Mac from 1975 beat Rumours. PLEASE. I can even find it in my record collection in a heartbeat even though it isn't in proper alphabetical order. Not bad.

― Bimble, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Oh I like that one too.

― Groke, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link

Arguments to be made for several, and I love Tusk to death, but Rumors was lightning-in-a-platter.

― Vornado, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 18:07 (sixteen years ago) link

Thanks for bumping this. Felt the need to point out that the 24 minute live version of Rattlesnake Shake is often godlike. Thank you, and back to Rumours vs. Tusk. Yawn.

― dlp9001, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:12 (sixteen years ago) link

Self-titled '75 for me. In the words of David Crosby, "We tune because we care".

― Myonga Vön Bontee, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 19:35 (sixteen years ago) link

I love the Peter Green era, but I gotta go with Rumours. I would pick Tusk - if it weren't for all the painfully boring non-Buckingham tracks.

― will, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 21:27 (sixteen years ago) link

btw I really like Nicks and McVie, but they are left in the dust on Tusk.

― will, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 21:28 (sixteen years ago) link

i voted for bare trees. i think it's my current favorite, at least for my mood.

― félix pié, Wednesday, 2 May 2007 23:20 (sixteen years ago) link

I picked Rumours just to be a cunt.

― Saxby D. Elder, Thursday, 3 May 2007 04:29 (sixteen years ago) link

I suspect that Tusk will win in a felicitous example of ILM revisionism.

Relistening to Tango in the Night yesterday, I was struck by its weirdness. Synth-pop, sure, but lots of space in the music, and when Buckingham wants to fill it he'll use harmonies or chimes instead of the keyboards.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:46 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm not sure a tusk victory would count as ILM revisionism. that's been the critic's fave for years, hasn't it?

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:50 (sixteen years ago) link

No one would have predicted it in 1997.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:53 (sixteen years ago) link

ILM didn't exist in 1997, so no revisionism.

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:25 (sixteen years ago) link

Tusk has a lot of great stuff, and (in my view) a fair bit of middling stuff as well, and it's definitely their most unusual album ever (Greil Marcus reviewing it as a punk album probably helped spread its reputation some). If it's an overwhelming favourite here, then I would agree there's some serious revisionism going on (in that, yeah, it was hardly the majority favourite for a long time, and was not particularly loved in its time). I definitely prefer Tango in the Night, which is also uneven but just has amazing singles.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:27 (sixteen years ago) link

by "in its time" I mean "upon release." it was kind of considered a bomb at the time, wasn't it? Commerically, for sure, but even critically for the most part, I think.

― sw00ds, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:28 (sixteen years ago) link

It was an "Ishtar"-like butt of jokes for a long time, yes.

― Stormy Davis, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:30 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, I was first aware of it as an object of scorn (mostly because of "Fleetwood Mac Day" on the radio stations). Simon Reynolds picked it as his great unknown album in 1995 and wrote an essay mostly about "Sara": he wasn't the first critic to like it, obviously, he was just the first one I read. Around that time I started noticing a lot of positive mentions of Lindsay B as a lost production genius, and full-scale critical revival seems to have taken hold in the last 5 years or so.

― Groke, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:33 (sixteen years ago) link

Tusk hit me hard like the punk that it deigned to be when I first heard it, but it's worn a little thin. My parents played Rumours and the self-titled one to death in the 70s and I still want to listen to them, so Rumours it is. Plus, whatever is more popular is just better.

― pj, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:35 (sixteen years ago) link

I don't necessarily take issue with this kind of revisionism, by the way (it's not like rewriting history books or something), and it kind of makes a difference as well who's propping it up (in other words, can you call something "revisionist" if those doing the "revising" weren't even there the first time around? If I first came to Fleetwood Mac in the nineties, I might've gravitated towards Tusk also, who knows?).

― sw00ds, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:46 (sixteen years ago) link

Rumours is a truly fantastic record, but Tusk is just so damn weird for a superstar So. Cal '70s album that it just had to get my vote. (Add to that the fact that I actually got to see the band live on the last date of the Tusk tour at the Hollywood Bowl, with Stevie all teary-eyed about the immenent parting of the ways, and the choice was virtually made for me.)

― JN$OT, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:55 (sixteen years ago) link

I put on s/t ('75) last night just to be sure. It made a strong case, but yeah, still Rumours for me. I need to hear Bare Trees though.

― will, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:56 (sixteen years ago) link

Well, I picked 1997 on purpose. That was the year of The Dance, which was a surprisingly huge hit and introduced a lot of undergrads to the Mac. I remember buying Tusk and Mirage shortly before the MTV documentary and playing them endlessly, the former especially. It was also the year that Miami New Times wrote this appreciative article about the band and specifically mentioned Tusk as a forgotten milestone (how Matthew Sweet hired Richard Dashut to produce Altered Beast, etc).

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 3 May 2007 16:04 (sixteen years ago) link

results...woah!

― sw00ds, Thursday, 3 May 2007 23:57 (sixteen years ago) link

that's... pretty cool.

― circa1916, Thursday, 3 May 2007 23:58 (sixteen years ago) link

One vote for s/t is hard to believe.

― Mark Rich@rdson, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:00 (sixteen years ago) link

I voted for it .. at least, I *thought* I did. MYonga said he voted for it above as well. So, one of our votes didn't take for some reason.

― Stormy Davis, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Listening to Say You Will right now (particularly the devastating "Thrown Down"), I'm convinced it's their best post-Tusk album.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:08 (sixteen years ago) link

which means I should have voted for it.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:08 (sixteen years ago) link

Surprise surprise

― I know, right?, Friday, 4 May 2007 01:03 (sixteen years ago) link

either way, we win.

― poortheatre, Friday, 4 May 2007 04:08 (sixteen years ago) link

I guess Kiln House is pretty cool...

― Saxby D. Elder, Friday, 4 May 2007 04:21 (sixteen years ago) link

Listening to Say You Will right now (particularly the devastating "Thrown Down"), I'm convinced it's their best post-Tusk album.

i totally agree

― electricsound, Friday, 4 May 2007 10:42 (sixteen years ago) link

Skipping 30 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

doesn't mean #1 is BETTER than #2, but it categorically means that more people wanted it.

i kind of see what you're saying, but you can't always assume that albums that people wanted (and bought) ended up being albums that people liked, especially in earlier eras when most people bought albums before they had a chance to hear them. rumours kind of refutes this, i guess, because it got played on the radio so much; tusk, on the other hand, surely made a lot of its initial sales by dint of the fact that it was the same group who did rumours--not necessarily because all those people liked it.

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:34 (sixteen years ago) link

oh my god, Rumours & Tusk neck and neck.

Well, I realize some folks may have liked Tusk when it came out but I do think overall most people felt it was a great disappointment overall when it came out, with good reason. To me the beauty of Tusk is in hindsight. And I don't wish that to be lost on anyone.

― Bimble, Saturday, 5 May 2007 04:03 (sixteen years ago) link

Whoops! *southern hillbilly accent* I gotta check mah overalls! :)

― Bimble, Saturday, 5 May 2007 04:07 (sixteen years ago) link

Nice to see I'm not alone in my love for "Tango In The Night". That's an underrated one for sure.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 5 May 2007 09:30 (sixteen years ago) link

is that the same Stephen Holden that now writes film reviews for the Times??

― poortheatre, Sunday, 6 May 2007 00:18 (sixteen years ago) link

I definitely prefer Tango in the Night, which is also uneven but just has amazing singles.

TS: "Big Love-Seven Wonders-Little Lies-Everywhere" vs "Tusk-Sara-Think About Me-Sisters of the Moon"

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Sunday, 6 May 2007 00:24 (sixteen years ago) link

three years pass...

I was in a restaurant and thought they were playing a Best-Of album. Turns out they were playing "Rumours"...

― more leik Kingsley Anus rite (King Boy Pato), Saturday, 29 May 2010 10:29 (thirteen years ago) link

"TUSK" IS STILL THE BEST FLEETWOOD MAC ALBUM, THROUGH!!

― more leik Kingsley Anus rite (King Boy Pato), Saturday, 29 May 2010 10:30 (thirteen years ago) link

http://www.youtube.com/v/DhTNu6ETd3s

This is my favourite thing ever. If the rest of this gig exists, I've got to know about it.

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, 29 May 2010 12:02 (thirteen years ago) link

Would totally have voted for Mirage here.

― Sean Carruthers, Saturday, 29 May 2010 14:43 (thirteen years ago) link

really! how so?

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 May 2010 15:02 (thirteen years ago) link

Not saying it would be the right thing to do, for sure, but Mirage holds a really special place in my heart - was one of the first albums I really spent any time listening to in any kind of depth. My parents had a record collection but it was largely country and more easy-listening stuff, and up until that point my own collection was ABBA, so discovering the wonko Buckingham tracks on this had a huge effect on me, in the end. So it's largely a nostalgia/sentiment thing I guess.

That said, even if I rationally admit that the pop songcraft on Rumours was stronger, and the Buckingham tracks were wonko-er on Tusk, there were STILL some killer tracks on Mirage! So even though I realize it's challopsy, I know it doesn't raise the aroma that voting for, say, Time would.

― Sean Carruthers, Saturday, 29 May 2010 15:46 (thirteen years ago) link

Mirage is the safest of the Buckingham-Nicks records, but it's got "Hold Me," "Gypsy," "Love in Store," and "Eyes of the World."

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 29 May 2010 15:48 (thirteen years ago) link

I definitely appreciate Christine McVie a lot more on this record that I usually do, that's for sure!

― Sean Carruthers, Saturday, 29 May 2010 15:53 (thirteen years ago) link

(Not to say that I didn't appreciate McVie on Rumours etc, it's just that she was so much stronger than the other offerings on Mirage.)

― Sean Carruthers, Saturday, 29 May 2010 16:09 (thirteen years ago) link

two years pass...

42 votes for Rumours but only one for the self-titled? They're almost the same damn album!

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 10 July 2012 03:32 (eleven years ago) link

I heard Christine's "Got a hold on me" for the first time in a long ass time last weekend at a shitty steak house in Heber Springs, Arkansas.
It's still in my head.

― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 10 July 2012 03:37 (eleven years ago) link

I love the outro.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 10 July 2012 11:14 (eleven years ago) link

six years pass...

RUMOURS still the one!

― The Silky Veils of Alfred (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 13 September 2018 14:19 (five years ago) link

kinda incredible this thread tied

mirage and s/t robbed

― niels, Thursday, 13 September 2018 14:24 (five years ago) link

tango ahead of tusk rmde

― rip van wanko, Thursday, 13 September 2018 14:44 (five years ago) link

Yeah the tie with that many voters is amazing !
Mirage way too low indeed.

― AlXTC from Paris, Thursday, 13 September 2018 16:26 (five years ago) link

six months pass...

Is Rumours better than Tusk?

It's really not even close is it?

― Nick Chiveon (rip van wanko), Friday, 12 April 2019 03:38 (five years ago) link

Fleetwood Mac - best album (a poll)

(it was a tie, if you recall)

― Nick Chiveon (rip van wanko), Friday, 12 April 2019 04:12 (five years ago) link

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