Tusk (1979)

I had never fathomed the emptiness of this star vehicle until recent weeks. That's partly because I never owned a copy until it was years old and then never played it often. And partly because, when I decided to look into it, I went all the way with the Tusk box on Napster. All this time I've been inclined to defend Tusk based mostly on favoring two of its three singles (one very much) and also feeling some need to argue for the Buckingham-Nicks model against the ravening Peter Green hordes. Stevie Nicks made a natural companion with Christine McVie, who is as close to an original member as you can find after Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood, and Christine's brother ex-husband, John, the bass player. I'm not saying Stevie and Christine are natural companions because they are both women, but because in their outlook and mood they are equally sisters of the moon (as documented by name here in fact). If there are any further questions, Stevie Nicks is a Gemini and Christine McVie is a Cancer. They have more in common with Danny Kirwan or Bob Welch than Lindsey Buckingham, who is the real wild card here, a pop gremlin more out of the school of the Beatles, with an affinity for hooks, pop song constructions, and studio wonkery. It was natural in the late '70s that he would be drawn to New Wave. If Buckingham represented a wash of Beatles influence on the old Fleetwood Mac, New Wave was similarly a wash of Beatles influence on punk-rock. Tusk, as noted everywhere, was Fleetwood Mac's lavishly budgeted laboratory to do with as they wished, a job-well-done from the label for being so helpful in selling a kajillion records (Rumours is still in the top 10 of all-time album sellers).

I love the title song, "Tusk," which went to #8 late in 1979, and always have. It's not just the marching band, the whole thing is buggy but also tight as a drum. In fact, "Tusk" starts with, builds on, and never gets far from a basic drum pattern, on which the layers are built vertically, sliding in and out in overlays: nonsense lyrics, more percussion, the gorgeous Fleetwood Mac harmonies, and of course that marching band (the genuine USC thing). The song spins, it floats in the air, it sits down, it dances in place. It's irresistible, Buckingham's primal essay at New Wave. But inspection of the Tusk box has also convinced me that that single version is the only good one that exists (among a handful of other versions scattered over the five CDs). "Sara," the second single, was also top 10, and I liked it too, although I don't like it very much anymore—the mood of Stevie Nicks at her best is present, but slowed to a soporific crawl. You want to get this song a cup of coffee because it sounds like it's about to pass out. I'll stick with "Rhiannon," "Dreams," and even "Gypsy." The third hit from Tusk was a Christine McVie song, "Think About Me," which made it to #20 early in 1980. I'm not a fan. And the rest of the album, some 17 more tracks, moves through Buckingham New Wave experiments ("The Ledge," "Not That Funny," "I Know I'm Not Wrong") and lots of muzzy-headed buffaloing around the place from Stevie and Christine, which in spite of themselves sometimes wander into decent places, but only occasionally, such as a certain keening apotheosis in "Sisters of the Moon." For the most part Tusk is way too much work with way too little reward. Proceed to Mirage.

44. Fleetwood Mac, "Warm Ways" (1975)

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I knew the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks mid-'70s reboot of Fleetwood Mac almost entirely as a top 40 singles act, which I loved. I never felt driven to get the albums. Partly that was because friends were picking them up—when album sales are counted in the millions it's likely you will know a few owners. And sure enough one day I was visiting somewhere and heard this; it pinned me and it's been one of my favorites ever since. It's a Christine McVie song, who remains my favorite Fleetwood Mac as much as I like Buckingham and Nicks—her voice is at once so plain and so ethereal, and though her songs may be light on infectious melody they have a luscious, bruised, ripe quality that is irresistible. They overflow with poignance. They make me feel love—can I say that? This also expresses a certain kind of ideal of twenty-something romance in the '70s that worked on me deeply and without fail. I wanted the scenario and the story that it tells to become true in my life, a story of a single remarkable night that goes on for a lifetime, easy and peaceful. The singer just blissful in her bed: "Sleep easy by my side" and "I can't sleep, with your warm ways" and the real kicker tucked away in the chorus, which I think may not translate well as naked words: "Forever / Forever now, / Together." I even swear it came true for me on one notably historic night of my life, and lasted for nearly a decade. That it didn't survive the '80s only makes me the sadder every time I hear this now. But it's a good kind of sad, though it may have taken me awhile to get here.

Mirage (1982)

A sentimental favorite, perhaps, if only because my first assignment as a music journalist (a career more or less abandoned 15 years ago) was a review of the Twin Cities concert in 1982 in support of this album. It's clearly all a bit pro forma, harking back to the vein of the big mega-success albums of the '70s and reined in considerably from their experiments with Tusk, often characterized, fairly and otherwise, as bloated. There's a formula and they appear to be comfortable with it by this point: three songwriters, three styles, solid rhythm section. And say what you will that formula worked again, producing a double platinum album that spawned three hits, one of them (Christine McVie's "Hold Me") a #4. In spite of my misgivings about Stevie Nicks her song "Gypsy" is my favorite here (yes, title notwithstanding), even as it inscrutably name-checks the Velvet Underground (albeit lowercase, so I don't know what's going on actually, but I'll just chalk that up here and now to the typically gauzy Nicks). Lindsey Buckingham, arguably the person most responsible for Tusk, appears to be dominating still, with five of the 12 songs and his uniquely squirrelly, affecting guitar all over the place. Christine McVie comes next with four songs, and finally Nicks with three—two of the worst and the one best, which should not surprise anyone paying attention to the band and her antics. What can I say? I don't know that it was their last good album, because I had stopped paying attention by the time the next one came out five years later, but I know it's a good one. Worthy. That is, setting aside any bias I may have in favor of it. I do remember groaning when I got the assignment, followed by the pleasant surprise when I started playing this, followed by a certain defensiveness about it that I have clung to ever since. I also learned a valuable lesson about getting into a show, as my clearance was bollixed up (not unusual in these circles, believe me) and basically had to stand on a table and shout to get in, in the process missing the opener, Men at Work. The show was by the numbers, as I recall, but this album? Fine. Just fine.

"Dreams" (1977)

79. Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams" (April 30, 1977, #1)

As much as I stake everything on Christine McVie as my single favorite Fleetwood Mac, and as much as I champion Lindsey Buckingham, both as songwriter and guitar player, and as much as I'm the first to snicker right along at the antics of Stevie Nicks, swirling inside her rainbow of scarves, I think it's hard to deny that Nicks is the one who delivers the most potent goods when it comes time to trample the airwaves. Sure, her big numbers tend to be all of a piece—"Rhiannon," "Sara," "Gypsy," and this, the best of them, "Dreams"—but they are also, all of them, moody, atmospheric, gorgeous exercises built to Nicks's earthy register and just made for prancing about in slow motion within haloes of cascading fabric. I don't even care that the lyrics here are just as trite as they can be: "Thunder only happens when it's raining," etc. What matters is the tight, exalted hush of the band, the simple elegance of the melodies, and, more than anything, the texture of Nicks's voice, pushing against the firm foundations of the song, lifting and rising, falling and swooping, buoyed by the otherworldly harmonies of Buckingham and Christine McVie behind her, like a leaf caught in an autumn wind. It's not coming to ground anytime soon, floating and twisting and just beautiful. I would also like to take a moment to call your attention once again to the superior rhythm section, which sets a rock-solid groove from the first second and maintains it right through. I remember feeling fortunate at the time—amazed, even—that something as good as this was on the radio every day for all those weeks.

Law and Order (1981)

The only way Lindsey Buckingham's first solo album and self-produced one-man-band studio overdub extravaganza surprised anyone, or anyway me, was in how good it was. And it's awfully good, at least when it is. Sounding for all the world like approximately one-third of every Fleetwood Mac album since 1975, it also isolates a few key facts that might have been taken too much for granted previously: Buckingham is a careful, melodic songwriter who gets his emotional points across with surprising arrangement, economy, and effectiveness and a disarming penchant for letting the big swooning gambit just rip (cf., the stark, plaintive, and insanely endearing chorus, "I think I'm in trouble"). He will get his head around some crazy idea or other and go off all quirky (see also Tusk, which even so has plenty of pleasures to call its own, and we'll be getting to them soon enough). But that keeps things interesting. There's usually something memorable to take away humming. His stuff works—nor does he have to prove it to anyone, though I must say, given his track record these past decades, it's nice enough when he does. Everything I've heard of his solo albums is pretty much all the way there consistently, and of course that's not even to mention the Fleetwood Mac oeuvre. He's a pretty good guitar player too, though there's less of that on display here. Sure, yeah, you have to forgive the occasional excesses, often notably misplaced—here it's the opening track, "Bwana" (see also "Tusk," which someone thought would make a good single) (and in a way it was). He does a lovely job with the cover of the Kurt Weill standard, "September Song." He's a sheer delight on the aforementioned "Trouble," "I'll Tell You Now," "It Was I," and "Johnny Stew." He's even willing to make fun of hot tub culture in "That's How We Do it in L.A."—although, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to find out he'd written it in one. In L.A., no less. But I guess just because you have perspective doesn't mean you can't take your share of the pleasure.

Rumours (1977)

It's 30 years later and this album still resides comfortably in the top 20 list of all-time album sellers, reason enough for many (in fairness, myself included with some cases, e.g., Celine Dion, Dirty Dancing, Alanis Morissette, Boston, Garth Brooks, Boyz II Men, etc., etc.) to dismiss it. But this is the primary vault of Fleetwood Mac hits—"Go Your Own Way," "Dreams," "Don't Stop," "You Make Loving Fun"—and if you don't like at least one of them, well, all right. This is also where Lindsey Buckingham's pop production smarts/sensibility, not to mention an impressively squealing guitar in the sundry breaks, really start to step out. Stevie Nicks contributes another knockout punch in "Dreams." And that rhythm section is still kicking ass all over London and southern California. All respect to lovers of Brit blues, but comparing this to Peter Green's projects is like comparing Saturday Night Fever to Odessa, or Nevermind to Bleach. Things change; sales happen. It doesn't necessarily mean it's for the worse. I know what you say.

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Fleetwood Mac (1975)

Peter Gabriel named his first four solo albums Peter Gabriel. Royal Trux named their first and third albums Royal Trux. So if this is the second Fleetwood Mac album named Fleetwood Mac (the first, in the era of Peter Green, was their first; this one is their 10th or so) it's not as if that isn't without precedent. Self-title also turned out to be perhaps more appropriate than anyone would have guessed, as it ushered in the era of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who arguably overhauled the band more than any other pair of players passing through, and brought the world more or less a whole new Fleetwood Mac. This is a stone goodie, bearing some of their best-known, and best, hits: "Over My Head," "Say You Love Me," and the redoubtable "Rhiannon," one of the greatest of all '70s pop songs and which heralded the unmistakable sound—often repeated, rarely matched—of the gauzy Stevie Nicks. Not to mention "Warm Ways," a Bob Welchesque throwback by Christine McVie (my favorite Fleetwood Mac—who is yours?). Oh, and the rhythm section is solid too.

(Special thanks to RE-UPPED!)