Fleetwood Mac – Mirage, C/D?

Oh, and Tim – email me when you get a chance.

WHERE IS IAN

I am loving this album so much! I have been listening to it obsessively. Every song is good except for "Oh Diane" and even that is bearable now. And the best bits are just amazing - like the snarled chorus of "Book of Love", Stevie's plaintive "PUHLEEASE!" on "That's Alright", or just the entirety of "Eyes of the World", NOT TO MENTION "Hold Me"....

The moment you know Lindsay is crazy though is on "Empire State" with the intensely grunted "STRAIGHT!!!!.... STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART OF ME!"

EYES OF THE - EYES OF THE - EYES OF THE WORLD

I just heard this for the first time. It might not be as "classic" as their '70s albums, but it sure does have a lot of stunning songs. i agree with the original post that the Nicks material is sub-par, but only in the strictest "songwriting" sense; the band as a whole is still top-notch on the Nicks tracks and they sound great. But I have a pressing concern about the opinions of everyone on this thread: what do you all have against "Oh Diane"??? I remembered reading about how it was supposedly bad, and when I heard it I was shocked by how beautiful it was! It's so good! I don't get you guys!

It's just the hack Elvis impersonation that annoys. I like it more than I did initially. It's still the worst (or least good) song on the album.

Re Stevie - "Gypsy" is of course fabulous, and I'm totally in love with "That's Alright", the chorus is brilliant. Only "Straight Back" is a bit off in the songwriting dept.

"Straight Back" sounds like it's missing...something: a melody, a bridge, a middle eight. I can't put my finger on it.

xxpost I know! It's one of my favourite off this one. Eyes of the World is classic.

only just got this - why did it take me so long???

Can't go back
can't go back

<3

A new Remastered & Expanded version of Mirage is due for release in mid-2011 buy Rhino/Warner Music Group. CD 1 will be the original album remastered and CD 2 will feature bonus material taken from the Mirage era, such as B-sides and outtakes. A track listing for this release has not yet been announced.

!!!!!!!

Oh my god

I can't wait for the Tango reissue. The B-sides and 12" mixes from that era were amazing.

after all these years i still don't have a copy of mirage to call my own. if i had my way i'd chop 'oh diane' off the tracklist but oh well

Awesome. I love this hyperactive uber-Buckingham all treble, all the time edition of FM. Sp precise yet so crazy at the same time.

idg why people hate o diane, i love it

"Only Over You" and "Straight Back" are the only duds.

Spot on description Josh.

"Eyes of the World" certainly fits that description.

We never polled this iirc? Could it be because Gypsy would be the ahem, "landslide" winner?

I would like a proper release of this haunting SNicks demo of Gypsy with just her on organ/vox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKIC_Kza4Ek

^^^ Never heard this before. Gobsmacked...

whoa, that demo is awesome!

I'm assuming that's Nicks herself on organ, right?

this is pretty awesome indeed. i assume that's a wurli, no?

Dang, that's something else.

Found this, too, which reveals the bluesier roots of a song I never really though of as such:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxdJLw9C830

And wow, this link reveals a trove of demos and outtakes out there, somewhere:

http://www.inspiredangel.com/fmdemos.php

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.guitars101.com/forums/f90/fleetwood-mac-25-years-the-mirage-sessions-101500.html

Hey, look: more Mirage demos and outtakes!

hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z55QPYSU

Hmm, Tango outtakes here, but I'm too lazy to download them track by track. At least not right now:

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=e04e41db6a83767229740b9422d524b62be59dce5cb22dd03ff3359729d970a0f7b0c90c72f4ee13dea6cde8539f3470

"Joan of Arc" is a spacey, drum machine-driven Nicks song in which the line "There's a few murders in our century" gets a lot of play.

has anyone read Timothy White's Rock She Wrote -- a collection of '80s interviews with Keith Richards, Bryan Ferry, Elvis Costello, Bono, etc? He includes a fantastic session with Fleetwood Mac from the summer of '87, just after Buckingham announced his defection. The band is pissed, which explains their touching enthusiasm for Billy Burnette and Rick Vito.

Anyway, Nicks mentions a song left off TITN with the fabulous title "What Has Rock and Roll Ever Done For You" that I've been wanting to hear for years.

sorry: Rock Lives

So glad this is finally being reissued by Rhino - have nearly broken down a few times and bought it on CD because I was getting tired of waiting...just realized it's been seven years since the last batch. Probably still my sentimental favourite of theirs.

Also all the love ITT for "Eyes of the World" surprising and OTM.

Yeah, I've always hesitated about updating my cassette (!) copy.

"Eyes of the World" is amazing, is there even anything else remotely like it in the world ever?

Another Fleetwood Mac song?

Man, I have to pick this up, only know the singles, which I like. Seems like it must be a common cheap vinyl find but I don't remember seeing it offhand.

the version of "eyes of the world" on the live at boston cd, in which it transforms into a regular rock song, absolutely burns through everything in its path.

oh also fuck yeah at the say you will talk upthread. the buckingham songs on that record are my favorite material of his, such dense thickets of ideas and guitars curving in and out of the mix and all of those voices galloping through. and his fucking guitar playing on that record.

stevie's stuff on that record is cool too but beyond "thrown down" it doesn't really rise to the same level.

h8 u 'oh diane'

so much

it's funny this got revived today, b/c i happened to listen to "hold on" today for no particular reason, and newly struck by its greatness i wondered why i never really delved into this album. as pointed out by most everyone on this thread, it turns out that it's pretty amazing, with crazy layers of buckingham ideas pervasive throughout it (including some great little lead guitar bits by him)

i kinda burned out on tusk a few years back, so i'm glad to have this to work with

fwiw i think "oh diane" is pretty great!

mirage is maybe their densest album in terms of ideas and sound design and its weird that you'd think they'd want to scale back after tusk and *yeah i guess its not a double album* but otherwise this is crazy ornate. Like eyes of the world is packed w/ batshit notions.

Like eyes of the world is packed w/ batshit notions.

yeah the reason I think this is pretty one of a kind is that it's simultaneously really hooky but also just a patchwork of these really great utterly distinct little fragments. Also it's like, the singing comes in at 11, it's like he had five climaxes for other songs that he then just combined into one song.

I don't think there's anything on Tusk really like this - obv "The Ledge" is a bundle of fragments but also sounds like it, while stuff like "What Makes You Think You're The One" is like a great song with great ideas grafted onto it.

OTOH "Hold Me" aside the McVie songs feel a lot more straightforwardly performed and produced than on Tusk.

hold me aside is sortof a major proviso there tho

undeniably, yes. My point is more that Mirage feels like a weird combination of Buckingham both retreating from the edge of Tusk while also intensifying past it - I'd say "Book of Love" and "Empire State" are also more insane than anything on the previous album.

https://youtu.be/RTa6KEE9cZU

Well, he started frothing in this 1982 performance of "The Chain."

📹

Buckingham is visibly off his face in the video for Trouble, as are his backimg band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyONfX5bpyQ

By most/many accounts Lindsey was not into coke, and certainly not to the debilitating degree of Mick or Stevie. I'm sure he dabbled, but I suspect he's just naturally high strung. But then you watch the 1982 video and you think ... just naturally high strung?

It does seem that when bands get into coke that's when things go downhill. But in the case of Fleetwood Mac, when Mick and Stevie went nuts with the stuff it took Lindsey to keep everyone in line (har) and/or salvage their work, which implies he was *not* off his head. And all of his solo stuff is very consistent, very much of a piece and style, so I do wonder if that's just the way he is.

He's not a coke guy; he's been public for years about his epilepsy. Less so about his anger, especially toward women.

I defer to you experts but in the Caillat book he mentions LB snorting up the drugs more than once

Sure. But Nicks is candid: she has said he did drugs, just fewer and less often than the others

From what I know of the era it sounds like everyone was doing some coke, but Lindsey said he was more a pot guy.

sigh, I was only able to appreciate “don’t stop” when some poster (m bison?) pointed out that it works better if you imagine Lindsey *extremely on cocaine*

The Simpsons is how I had that revelation, when Bart sings "Don't Stop" after taking a bunch of Focusyn

sigh, I was only able to appreciate “don’t stop” when some poster (m bison?) pointed out that it works better if you imagine Lindsey *extremely on cocaine*

― brimstead, Tuesday, August 18, 2020 5:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this sounds like some shit i said, m bison otm

terrified that my urge to hear Book Of Love after a dramatic day means I have the emotional maturity of Lindsey Buckingham

whoa oh oh ohhhhhhohhhhhhh

just center yourself on the rock solid emotional maturity of john mcvie, be the penguin

interesting "that's alright" goes all the way back to buckingham/nicks

an all time tune for me, enjoy the alternate version too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngO6-a6NAIc

One of the last times Nicks could hit those high notes before her nose surrendered to coke.

Love Mirage! That's Alright is a really strong song, after hearing the coffee plant demo and realizing how old it is I'm surprised they waited until the 80s before using it. Maybe it was too C/W for the prior albums? I dunno. Better song to me than I Don't Want to Know or Blue Letter, both older tunes dusted off and repurposed for FM.

"That's Alright" is the only non-single on here that's memorable to me.
I was pretty surprised, hearing this record years after their 70s run, how traditional the sound palette was, and especially knowing how completely they'd give in to sampling and programming on the follow-up. I guess 1982 was just on the cusp of these superstar acts still recording with piano, organ, "organic"-sounding harmonies, etc. Also probably the conservatism reflects Lindsey being a good boy after Tusk.

I don't find this album particularly traditional-sounding, especially given the much-vaunted experimentalism of Tusk is largely confined to a handful of tracks (that's not a criticism: a tune like "Over and Over" is not terribly experimental but is still absolutely gorgeous-sounding).

On Mirage the interplay of competing elements - both between various instruments and then between lead versus backing vocals - is incredibly intense, even as formally there is more of an investment in "classic" pop manoeuvres (e.g. the harmonies having a slight barbershop vibe at times).

This culminates on "Hold Me" which is like an intricately wrought musical box, but also elsewhere and more subtly, like on "Only Over You": the complex but unthreatening interweaving of distant sighing backing vocals, churning bass, whining or droning organ, rat a tat drum rolls and a twinkling King Sunny Ade guitar solo from another room (notice how this song immediately repeats the trick from "Gypsy" of fading out on what might have been a much longer solo).

And of course "Eyes of the World" is just nuts, the intro to the guitar solo where it's like a serrated knife cutting through the rest of the arrangement in order to take over the track feels like peak Buckingham to me.

A close listen reveals the importance of Mirage as a bridge between Tusk and Tango rather than as a retrenchment.

My ears always fix on the gated/prominent reverb of this album. The eighties!

Mirage sounds conservative only next to Tusk.

I've realized that Halfway there but for you just about never agree on music.

* Halfway there but for you and I

My ears always fix on the gated/prominent reverb of this album. The eighties!

― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro),

This album doesn't sound '80s. The ethos is still post-punk.

just about never agree on music.

We like some of the same things, just different parts. That's one of the things I like to learn on this site.