You Make Polling Fun: FLEETWOOD MAC POLL RESULTS, ILM Artist Poll #22

FYI, album rankings were tablulated according to the following formula: 1st:10pts, 2:8, 3:6, 4:5, 5:3. I thought it echoed the structure of the tracks formula elegantly in that the number of points for the top placement was 3.33 times the number of points for the bottom placement. And we managed to avoid ties this way as well, thankfully... So without futher ado...

10th Place: Say You Will (2003) - 12 points, 3 votes, 0 number one votes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/28/Fleetwood_Mac_-_Say_You_Will.jpg

Their first record without Christine McVie-penned songs since Kiln House in 1970!

It's too long, Christine is badly missed, and the production is way too harsh ... but I like it

I like imagining that the cover is them feeling really deflated and bummed-out realizing how much they've lost without Christine's presence...

I did mean to come back and do albums btw, I just never bothered. Sorry Clarke.

I would've voted for this most likely.

The Say You Will cover looks like the re-creation of the end of a groovy orgy they had in Van Nuys back in '76.

9th Place: Future Games (1971) - 26 points, 5 votes, 0 number one votes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/Fleetwood_Mac_-_Future_Games.jpg

Christine's first record as a member, and a really lovely, enveloping record... I now feel bad for having cut it at the last second!

Is anyone a huge Kirwan stan?

say you will too low.

can't really complain tho as i forgot about the album ballot.

8th Place: Then Play On (1969) - 28 points, 4 votes, 0 number one votes

http://www.alistairsdream.co.uk/mainalbum/18%20Alistairs%20Music/MUSIC%20ON%20VINYL/F/slides/FLEETWOOD%20MAC%20-%201969,%20THEN%20PLAY%20ON.jpg

Over the course of quite a few years picking off more and more of my mom's old LP collection during trips back to Virginia, I probably flipped and skipped this one 50 times before actually bothering to open up the gatefold and look to see what it was. By the time I did that, I knew about Peter Green and knew the LPs were somewhat hard to come by... You can imagine my delight, especially considering how anally clean and perfect my mom kept her records.

Future Games made my albums list when I realized that a couple of my tracks ballot (and a couple of late cuts) were on it.

Is anyone a huge Kirwan stan?

When I wrote out my ballot short list and put the songwriter's initials next to every song, I was surprised at the number of DKs.

There have been so many instances of me listening to an earlier record, being really struck by a song, and looking to see who wrote it only to reveal it was him.

The Say You Will cover looks like the re-creation of the end of a groovy orgy they had in Van Nuys back in '76.

the Say You Will cover always reminded me of this Rolling Stone cover from 1977:

http://por-img.cimcontent.net/api/assets/bin-200904/4ea67ef0cda9083fba8e48f823439bf9.jpg

I felt guilty about not including anything from the album on my ballot. I like the album but no individual song from it quit made my top 20. And yeah it's a really long album - would've been a double album in the vinyl era. It's longer than Tusk!

I did include at least one Future Games cut, and a couple from Then Play On.

Only one Kirwan song on my ballot, and I'm ashamed to admit it's not "Dragonfly" which i've been listening to repeatedly this weekend and it's getting under my skin

7th Place: Bare Trees (1972) - 31 points, 6 votes, 1 number one vote

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Baretreescd.jpg

Kirwan's last record with the band, and one of their most beautiful covers IMHO. Our first of the lineup to receive a number one vote... It went gold in 1976, and can still easily be found in dollar bins across the world. (A great investment...)

My #3 pick. Side 2 of this album slays me.

The cover sleeve of the original vinyl (in the US anyway) has an interesting texture

went gold in 1976, and can still easily be found in dollar bins across the world. (A great investment...)

as I discovered last week

Do you guys realize Kirwan was only 22 when Bare Trees was recorded? Wow...

6th Place: Mystery To Me (1973) - 34 points, 7 votes, 0 number one votes

http://backtomono.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/fleetwood_mystf.jpg

(It must be seen in full gatefold to properly appreciate...)

McVie's bass playing does not suffer from being so exposed on "Bare Trees" and "Danny's Chant."

but Mick didn't look like that in 1973

awesome cover. this was my #4 out of 5.

I swear, man, their rhythm section... There's some funny stuff happening on that Jimi/Eddie thread regarding the word "underrated," but I really think Mick and John don't get enough props! Also, John McVie took that photo on the Bare Trees cover... I wonder what Instagram filter he used?

Side note: I was the only one to vote for Kiln House! The cover of which Christine drew... I didn't even include any songs from that record on my ballot, but the whole thing is just so much fun to listen to and so damn weird within their discography that I had to include it as my number 5.

5th Place: Mirage (1982) - 43 points, 10 votes, 0 number one votes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e2/Fleetwood_Mac_-_Mirage.jpg

Didn't someone on the lead-up thread say that this was Lindsey Buckingham's least favorite Fleetwood Mac record? The cover art is intriguing... Is Christine seducing Lindsey? Or warning him?

yep -- the let's-consciously-make-a-Rumours-sequel.

which worked commercially: it remained #1 in America for five weeks and outsold Tusk.

it's great!

eyezatha world!

I ended up with three tracks from Mirage in my top 20 but I didn't put it on my albums ballot...

Christgau's take: "This is the safe follow-up Rumours wasn't, and I find myself alternately charmed by its craft and offended by its banality. After seven years, you'd think they'd weary of romantic tension-and-release. But despite the occasional I'm-scareds and can't-go-backs, you'd never know how much passion they've already put behind them--they write about infatuation and its aftermaths like twenty-year-olds. This is obviously a commercial advantage, and I wouldn't want to be immune to its truth. But pop music offers endless variations on that truth, and since only the most graceful are worth pondering I have to say that there isn't another "Hold Me" here. B+"

4th Place: Tango In the Night (1987) - 68 points, 13 votes, 2 number one votes

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/84/Fleetwood_Mac_-_Tango_in_the_Night.jpg

Did you guys know this record started out as a solo project of Lindsey's?

What is kinda amusing about the "attempt to recreate Rumours" narrative (incl. from Lindsey himself) is how relatively little Mirage actually sounds like it. You'd think if they were trying so hard for that they wouldn't have included so many oddities and curios good ("Empire State", arguably even "Hold Me") and bad ("Oh Diane").

re: Christgau - "This is the safe follow-up Rumours wasn't" - more like, this is the safe follow-up to Rumours that Tusk wasn't

Love Tango but I don't think I ended up voting for it - oddly, the weaker tracks (i.e. mainly the two non-single stevie tracks) prevent me from embracing it as an album more than the weaker tracks on Mirage do, even though there's less of them.

in Buckingham's defense, when he says "attempt to recreate Rumours" he (and the band too) mean "We all played together."

God, those Stevie tracks are REALLY rough going, huh? The best song she does on the record ("Seven Wonders") wasn't even written by her.

No I think Christgau meant what he said: Rumours *wasn't* a safe follow-up to the self-titled album when that could have been expected. He's attempting to distinguish between safe commercial appeal and brave commercial appeal, I think.

He's kinda wrong in this case I think (Mirage is the weirder album of the two) but it's a neat distinction nonetheless.

the most aurally adventurous parts of Tusk and TITN are Buckingham stitch jobs.

Rumours def wasn't the safe followup to Fleetwood Mac, so xgau makes sense

xpost ha -- Tim!

x-post

I'm guessing nobody's feeling an insane amount of anticipation for what the top three records will be, haha... In what way was Rumours not a somewhat safe follow-up to the self-titled? I'm not trying to be dense; I've really just always seen those two records as companion pieces.

What depresses me about the non-"Seven Wonders" tracks on TITN is how many good songs Nicks had in storage (her stockpile goes back to the seventies).

I feel sort of bad for not having voted for "Family Man" or "Caroline"--two "lesser" TITN tracks that I think rule.

In what way was Rumours not a somewhat safe follow-up to the self-titled? I'm not trying to be dense; I've really just always seen those two records as companion pieces.

to my ears there's a sense in which the eponymous debut betrays its origins by sounding like a bunch of pop songs with generic I/you pronouns that coheres thanks to expert playing ("Rhiannon" def not though). I guess "Go Your Own Way" is a more urgent, structurally inventive take on "Blue Letter" and "Songbird" a more despairing "Warm Ways."

what I love most about the eponymous album is how the songs have an audible joy -- a bunch of people realizing that not only do they like each other, but they make SHIT HOT music together. That's how "Monday Morning" sounds; it LEAPS off the turntable.

Yes, exactly! I love the way the s/t feels. It's lesser songs are better than Rumours's lesser songs, I think, and I enjoy listening to it more (and do listen to it more frequently as well).

In any case, Rumours wasn't made with commercial appeal as a primary objective, which makes its massive popularity all the more ironic. Certainly demonstrates that sometimes the best way to sell a gazillion records is to just make music that reflects what you're feeling.

In what way was Rumours not a somewhat safe follow-up to the self-titled? I'm not trying to be dense; I've really just always seen those two records as companion pieces.

I have too, and yet, there's a definite feeling of yin/yang between those two as well. The first one was made when all the band members were getting along and there were two couples amongst them; the second was made by a tense band after everyone had broken up.

all alone on the edge of... seton hall

lol *hill darn

"Hackensack! Hackensack!/In the middle of my room..."

Hahaha that's so bad.

Linthicum rings like a bell through the night...

Somebody mentioned upthread that "Station Man" and "Hypnotized" carried over into 1975-76, and "Oh Well" is on the 1980 live album. Did any pre-75 material hang around in their live set after 1980?

I recall a dj on the local classic rock station claiming "Hypnotized" popped up in the setlist for a recent reunion tour.

I think some of this stuff sneaked back into their set in '87, once Burnette & Vito replaced LB. Rattlesnake Shake became a staple on that tour, and Black Magic Woman got played as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZVIEaKV4cI

This poll, which I didn't participate sent me back through the entire Buckingham/Nicks-era catalog. In addition to Rumours (and I concur with Al's sentiment that it's pretty clearly the best, revisionism notwithstanding), the first stunner for me in the bunch was "Monday Morning," which is such an effusive way to open this era of their career. I also think Mirage is a pretty underrated record all in all. "Gypsy" and "Hold Me" are incredible singles -- and the production on the whole is kind of a perfect fusion of the Rumours smoothness and Tusk's out of tune guitars (the cover snap is also outstandingly Shakespearian).

One thing: the poll also prompted me to buy the Caillat book, which hipped me to how Lindsey apparently has this long history of physically abusing people -- particularly women (which is confirmed here).

How is this not better known about him? Do people just write it off as the price of genius or something?

i read a chunk of Harris' book one long afternoon at the bookstore two summers ago, and while her blithe entitlement got on my nerves I had no reason to doubt the events therein.

I believe "Blithe Entitlement" was the original title of Mirage.

blithe entitlement is snorting coke with Stevie Nicks in a parked car outside a house where a big early eighties Hollywood party's taking place.

I just read the Caillat book too! It was absolutely worth the read. I loved all the little production details. So much great information there. Wish he hadn't been as hung up on Nina from the Record Plant. What a cornball.

I love this exchange b/w Courtney Love and Nicks:

CL: One thing you've always done, I realized recently, is write about these muses, these other females, these goddesses. These parts of yourself. You don't write big, sexy love ballads about men. I wondered why that was for you? Because I do the same thing. I was listening to a song of Billy Corgan's yesterday called "I Need a Lover." It's sexy, okay. But I'm listening and I'm going, I can't write like this.

SN: You know who else asked me that same question a long time ago: Prince. We were really close for a while--we never went to bed together, but we had something that was very, very special. And he always said, Why don't you write songs that are more sexual? And I said, Well, because that's not the way I am in my real life. I am not a person who walks naked through the house. I will always have something beautiful on. It will be beautiful, and it will enhance me.

Those last two sentences!

There's so many layers to Courtney's question. It's not clear to me that she's only -or even at all- asking about the lack of explicit sexuality in Stevie's music. The way she frames the question tells me she's trying to find out whether her own muse is as autonomous (from men) and feminist ("these other females", "these goddesses", "these parts of yourself") in spirit as Courtney has made her out to be ("Because I do the same thing").

Stevie's answer is very "Stevie", in that neo-Victorian way of hers, and in its final two sentences(which I doubt she would have uttered circa 1975), somewhat diva-ish. But in that answer too, there's more than that, which I can barely begin to articulate..

I was listening to Bjork yesterday, and it strikes me how different sexuality plays out there. Bjork seems to be perpetually startled by sex (and love too), and she keeps circling around this sense of awe and wonder, and gutturaly celebrating it. With Nicks you could say, well, she wants to cover "nakedness" up in something beautiful, and in this way she's just a big prude. But I think it's something else. I think, unlike Guomundsdottir, she's just not at all startled by her sexuality, or even desire more broadly, at all. If anything, what she's "startled" by (constantly disappointed by, more precisely) is the other side of it: the frustration of desire, the loss of the the loved one, and the ensuing aftermath of mourning or melancholy ("I know I could have loved you but you would not let me").

I just read the Caillat book too! It was absolutely worth the read. I loved all the little production details. So much great information there. Wish he hadn't been as hung up on Nina from the Record Plant. What a cornball.

He was kinda corny across the board though, no? It's one of the things I liked about the book. The guy outwardly acquired all the accoutrements of 70s California cool - the gig, the car, the babes, the deductible cocaine- but throughout it he retains a "wow gee-whiz" tone about the whole thing. He comes across as genuinely digging and respecting the people around him, without being blind to their flaws.

Agreed -- I thought it was a great read. How could you not be jealous of him?

You know, aside from the whole Lindsey-choking-him thing.

I have just now realized Lindsey is playing here in town tonight. Snapped up a ticket pronto. Made me glad for this poll having reignited my Lindsey interest.

I saw him in August: a brief, intense performance. Terrific.

Yeah, that was a great show. I liked the contrast between his zenned-out stage patter and the taut, manic playing. Rock and roll.

I showed Christine McVie a little bit of love.

I will forever believe that the chorus to “Hold Me” was cooked up by Lindsey in the studio and that he deserves a writing credit. The original refrain is shit.

Sounds like he added the background gremlins and tightened the lyric?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbYV6PO6UKY

xp :) every good blog post starts with a pre-emptive riposte to the reader

Christine stands in opposition to the general narrative that Lindsay came on board and pushed the band into being a pop juggernaut (not to diminish his contributions)

but Christine's style and songwriting was already pretty established, there's stuff in the Bob Welch/Kirwin era that could easy slot into FM or Rumours

like this for example, love this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmJtRnazW20

Is there a good 70s or 80s live version of “angel” on any sanctioned release or good boot?

I shouldve voted for Coming Home & the 74 Angel. Heroes is a bit of a monster; prob Bob Welch's finest hour (while Christine is warming up for the s/t next year)

Bad Loser too tbh

Don't Stop over Sands of Time and Woman of 1000 Years? Criminal.

A few years ago, I bought four of the early-'70s albums as budget CDs: Future Games, Bare Trees, Mystery to Me, and Heroes Are Hard to Find. I did play them all in the car, but only once and put them away. Took them out again last week and was really struck by two instrumentals (well, one's a near-instrumental): "Sunny Side of Heaven" and "Safe Harbour."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxUtZSdXy6A

They only got one vote between them in this poll--would have added them to my ballot for sure, also "Forever."

I'd never heard Behind the Mask, but the other day my shuffle gave me something that I assumed was Christine solo, but no. Behind the Mask. It was ok.

I want to buy the one CD I'm missing in that sequence above, Penguin, but it's not part of the same budget series and very over-priced on Amazon for some reason ($35 used plus shipping).

Bare Trees sounds like its sleeve: spare, wintry, fragile.

I wasn’t familiar with Prove Your Love until it was in that HBO show about the Lakers a couple years back. That was a nice surprise

A compilation focused on those post-Green, pre-N&B years would've been very welcome, but it doesn't look like we ever got one. Bare Trees is the best of them though thanks to Kirwan. Based on that album, especially for his solos on songs like "Spare Me a Little of Your Love," I think he could've flourished as the lead guitarist with the later group if they could've made that work, but based on his conversations at the time, he clearly had enough of the band and later his mental illness would make it impossible.

(by "making that work," that probably means filling in for Buckingham when he quit/was fired, but by then Kirwan was in no shape to do anything)

kirwan replacing buckingham in 1987 would have been so dope

just read Fleetwood's latest autobio, he'll have to write another one, what a life to have to keep updating your autobio, but per Mick he wasn't sure what to do about Danny's nervous breakdown so he consulted Jon Lord after the gig and was convinced to fire him that night, and then he cried afterwards

where were the adults, anyways it's kind of a sad read, reads sadder than the 94 autobio, feel like maybe rock star is not a good job

Play On, from 2014? Or is there something newer?

yeah that's the latest, covers everything up to Christine tentatively joining back up and working out new material, which I guess turned into the Buckingham/McVie record, on account of Stevie not being at all interested in writing/recording

Mick talks very wistfully about his dalliance with Stevie, was pretty intense apparently before he traded her for her best friend lol, what a shitshow

his greatest regret seems to be the wild ass drama he subjected his kids to, which was a lot but at least he understands how shitty that was and is repentant

wow how interesting. am now curious to learn more. i recently discovered Mystery to Me - was amazed. what a beautiful start to finish conceit.

I want to buy the one CD I'm missing in that sequence above, Penguin

It's completely forgettable. McVie and Welch are on autopilot, and the new "lead singer" performs on two songs that have nothing to do with Fleetwood Mac. Christine plays some nice piano on "Road Runner", that's the highlight.

I really like “Remember Me” and “Dissatisfied.”

Actually “Did You Ever Love Me” too. I guess I just like Christine’s stuff.

I swear Penguin was listed as a new release on the Cherry Red website a few weeks ago, but it's nowhere to be seen now.

It's not that bad considering the state they were in at the time, pretty impressive turnaround though I'm sure it was stressful

and yeah it totally gave Christine a chance to stretch out a little more which totally saved the band several times, Christine McMVP

also Penguin is a really good album cover, maybe the best Fleetwood Mac album cover

i recently discovered Mystery to Me - was amazed. what a beautiful start to finish conceit.

yeah what a rebound, fire the singer, keep the guitar player and move the entire band into an old farmhouse in the english countryside, because of course

guitar player and drummer's wife hit it off, drummer is not happy, bass player and keys player are on the rocks, bob welch is over it and eyeing a solo career, make a record you have ~4 weeks

cannot imagine a world where this ragtag crew is subsidized by the upper crust to make Mystery to Me but they sure did

bass player and keys player are on the rocks

...and she is supposedly "hitting it off" with the engineer.

also Penguin is a really good album cover, maybe the best Fleetwood Mac album cover

This is Bare Trees or Mystery to Me depending on whether I'm up or down, I've actually displayed the latter around the house.

Controversial opinion: Christine's songs on Heroes are Hard to Find are better than what she came up with on the '75 album.