Fleetwood Mac - best album (a poll)

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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

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, May 3, 2007 10:33 AM (Yesterday)

Tom, I seem to remember Tusk-love in Frank's APA as far back as the days when you were a member.

― Rock Hardy, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:14 (sixteen years ago) link

I remember being blown away by Tuskwhen it came out and this was at the height of my punk/nuwave disdain of mainstream pop SO THERE.

― m coleman, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:20 (sixteen years ago) link

"That's All For Everyone" was on a tape yes! But that was around the same time (I joined Franks in 1994 or so) and for whatever reason I got the impression it was atypical. I probably wasn't paying attention and they were saying the album was atypical.

Actually I remember now that I GOT that tape in summer 95, after the Reynolds essay, cos I remember listening to it while writing job applications that summer.

― Groke, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:21 (sixteen years ago) link

Y'all are making me regret I didn't read Simon's essay.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:22 (sixteen years ago) link

not as accessible as its immediate predecessors perhaps but Tusk has always been esteemed by those "in the know" as far as I can remember.

― m coleman, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Alfred it was 90% about how great "Sara" is! - which I agree with but if you've read The Sex Revolts you've read what he has to say about it.

― Groke, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Grr...

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:26 (sixteen years ago) link

"great unknown album" eh? sold four million worldwide

here are some reviews from back in the day:

http://www.superseventies.com/fleetwoodmac4.html

― m coleman, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:28 (sixteen years ago) link

Tusk is one of the most fascinating records to listen to, precisely because it goes all over the place, and it represents the imposition of Lindsay Buckingham's will. It's a testament to the album's strangeness that my least favorite song on it, "Sara," has perhaps the best arrangement/production job. Well, that and "That's All For Everyone," which I wish Christine McVie had sung just for the experience of hearing her in those overdubs.

This thread illustrates an interesting point: In criticism, what does calling something the "best" really mean? The most perfect production? The most challenging? The weirdest or most beautiful? The one that triggers the most personal response?

I mean, I can make the following argument -- Rumours is the best, but Tusk is the best -- and not really sound too stupid. Ain't rock great? :-)

― Jiminy Krokus, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:32 (sixteen years ago) link

The name of the book was Unknown Pleasures, so my phrasing was a shorthand for that. It was an excuse for music journalists on Melody Maker to write a short essay on a record they loved but which was either little-known or underrated. Obviously Tusk would have fallen into the latter category in Simon's opinion!

― Groke, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:32 (sixteen years ago) link

Ha ha ha, the liner notes in my Tusk CD Reissue this quote from the Rolling stone review:

the one Seventies group that can claim a musical chemistry as mysteriously right... as the Beatles'

But the original quote is:

the one Seventies group that can claim a musical chemistry as mysteriously right -- though not as potent -- as the Beatles'

Can you spot the difference?

― I know, right?, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:36 (sixteen years ago) link

That's revisionism!

― I know, right?, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:37 (sixteen years ago) link

...

― m coleman, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:38 (sixteen years ago) link

This thread gives me a good excuse to link to Stephen Holden's fine review of the record for Rolling Stone -- a personal favorite of mine.

― Jiminy Krokus, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:41 (sixteen years ago) link

that tie is pretty bloody strange...

― Charlie Howard, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:47 (sixteen years ago) link

"great unknown album" eh? sold four million worldwide

Which I'm pretty sure was considered a letdown after Rumours, much in the way Bad was considered a letdown after Thriller. I don't know--I remember Rumours being EVERYwhere in '77 and '78--Tusk didn't generate a fraction of the interest--or it died out much, much quicker. But maybe that's my selective memory.

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:51 (sixteen years ago) link

Was "home taping" as much a factor in its "disappointing" sales as Mick Fleetwood alleges?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:52 (sixteen years ago) link

Apparently, some radio station early on played the entire thing--and tons of people taped it! Or so the story goes...I think.

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:53 (sixteen years ago) link

radio stations used to do that all the time in the mid 70s! by 1979 the practice had died out to some extent. don't forget 1979 was a huge sales slump in the music business, the equivalent of the 1929 crash.

― m coleman, Friday, 4 May 2007 14:07 (sixteen years ago) link

that's true--that was when the boom went kinda bust, I suppose (and Fleetwood Mac obviously weren't the only ones hurt).

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 14:12 (sixteen years ago) link

Let's not forget that the RIAA certifies albums per record. Tusk is certified double platinum, but that's cuz it's a double album. Mirage and Tango in the Night actually outsold t.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 14:44 (sixteen years ago) link

fleetwood mac albums ranked by actual sales in the soundscan era, i.e. how record buyers have judged them in the past 15 years, not including greatest hits:

1. the dance (soundscan-era release)
2. rumours
3. say you will (soundscan-era release)
4. fleetwood mac
5. tango in the night
6. tusk
7. mystery to me
8. bare trees
9. mirage
10. then play on

fleetwood mac 2004 expanded reissues ranked by sales:

1. fleetwood mac
2. rumours
3. tusk
(the first two are neck and neck, with tusk way behind)

― fact checking cuz, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:07 (sixteen years ago) link

albums ranked by actual sales in the soundscan era, i.e. how record buyers have judged them

Does not compute.

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:08 (sixteen years ago) link

Are you getting this from the RIAA site, cuz?

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:09 (sixteen years ago) link

them's from a friend with access, not RIAA. what doesn't compute?

― fact checking cuz, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:10 (sixteen years ago) link

assuming that sales = how people "judge" albums. it's a contributing factor, but hardly the only one. I'm pretty sure Pet Sounds isn't the biggest selling Beach Boys record, for instance.

― sw00ds, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:12 (sixteen years ago) link

The Dance's ranking at the top makes sense; but the second best-selling should be the 1988 comp, according to the RIAA.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:13 (sixteen years ago) link

wow, interesting post fcc. amazing that Bare Trees and Mystery to Me beat out Mirage and Then Play On.

on the other hand...

fleetwood mac 2004 expanded reissues ranked by sales:

1. fleetwood mac
2. rumours

general public in being right shocka!

― Stormy Davis, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:13 (sixteen years ago) link

(x-post)
ain't no better judge that the public's dollars! doesn't mean #1 is BETTER than #2, but it categorically means that more people wanted it. and that's exactly how the public judges such things.

i'm sure you're right about pet sounds. i'm also sure that while critics and record geeks and many of my close personal friends adore it, the public at large would not rate it as their favorite. not even close.

― fact checking cuz, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:16 (sixteen years ago) link

alfred, i was excluding comps.

― fact checking cuz, Friday, 4 May 2007 15:16 (sixteen years ago) link

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

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