CD Odyssey Disc 1585: Fleetwood Mac

It has been a hard 48 hours. Shortly after posting my last review Sheila noted that the wide-eyed stare our cat Vizzini had been giving us when we got back from holiday was not just relief at our return. He had become blind. A very long day and night at the vet later, and it turns out he has Stage 3 kidney disease, and the blindness (which is almost total, apart from a bit of light sensitivity) is irreversible. He now has medication, and has a life expectancy of between a few months and a few years. We just don’t know.

Vizzini’s not in any pain or discomfort and seems to be accepting his new lack of vision a lot more gracefully than we are. I’m a little better tonight, but that’s partly just being cried out. We’ll make the best of the years that remain and give him a good life, but it still hurts.

Sorry to start with such a downer. I will now try to distract myself from this shitty situation by reviewing a shitty record.

Disc 1585 is…. Mirage

Artist: Fleetwood Mac

Year of Release: 1982

What’s up with the Cover?  It looks like some Fleetwood Mac style “drama”. Lindsey Buckingham is dancing with Stevie Nicks, but it looks like Christine McVie wants to cut in. Is this “Rumours” all over again? Sadly, no.

How I Came To Know It: This was part of my deep dive into Fleetwood Mac in 2020 where I temporarily convinced myself that I needed to own more of their records.

How It Stacks Up: After reviewing “Tango in the Night” at Disc1490 I was so disappointed I ranked it last (#4) leaving one rung up for “Mirage”. However, "Mirage" has now failed even this most basic test, and so I must now place it  at #4. “Tango In the Night” moves up one slot by default, although both are equally banished from my collection. Since this is the final review for the band, here’s a full recap:

1. Rumours: 5 stars (reviewed at Disc 1423)
2. Self-Titled: 4 stars (reviewed at Disc 1488)
3. Tango in the Night: 2 stars (reviewed at Disc 1490)
4. Mirage: 2 stars (reviewed right here)

 Ratings: 2 stars

"Mirage” is what it looks like when pop becomes pablum. “Mirage” came out at a time when Fleetwood Mac could do no wrong, commercially speaking, and it spawned several hits. Many of these songs are the best songs on the record, and yet they still found ways to annoy me.

Let’s start with “Gypsy”. Unless you live under a rock, or perhaps in a cult where popular music is forbidden, you will know this classic penned and sung by Stevie Nicks. This tune is solid and has all the elements that make a good Stevie Nicks song. The witch-light quality of the lyrics, and compelling melodies in a mid-tempo sway. In terms of what it is about, Nicks is similar to Ronnie James Dio in her ability to make songs feel mysterious and magical without ever being all that clear what is going on. Does lightning strike? Yes, maybe once, and maybe twice, but all that lightning still left me light on narrative.

“Gypsy” has some annoying production. Fleetwood Mac was an early adapter of every smoothed out soulless sound that ever came out of the depths of 1987 five years later. The worst part of the song is a synthy guitar bit that fades away with a merciless slowness. It is the equivalent of eating a bowl of raspberries where the last one you eat has a worm in it. Sure there was some delightful flavours previously, but that’s not the taste left in your mouth.

Also, good is “Hold Me” which was a top five hit, and inescapable if you watched music videos back in the eighties. The production here is also painful, but the song has a gentle sway to it that is hard to resist, despite the presence of One Thousand Unnecessary Sounds, the worst of which is what is what I suspect is a cowbell on helium.

Other than the hits, we have songs that range from the forgettable to the irritating. They all flow together in the same way instant oatmeal flows together; nice and even, and without any discernable colour. Nicks and Christine McVie have amazing rock voices – two of the best – but even they struggle to rise up out of this morass of sound.

The record’s nadir is “Empire State,” a Lindsey Buckingham number that is supposed to be a love song to the energy of New York City but comes across as a musical number so far off Broadway, you could see the Rio Grande from the loge window. This song also features the only ‘phone with a greater propensity to wreck a rock record than the saxophone: the xylophone. A telephone would have been more welcome.

The record’s best song is the final one. “Wish You Were Here” shows that latter-stage Fleetwood Mac owes a lot to Christine McVie, who can sing her way out of any jam. Here she blows the doors off with her signature voice, and despite some less than enthusiastic drums, manages much better production choices, relying on some well-placed piano to deliver the accompaniment to her brilliance.

“Mirage” is not without its charms, and if you like something that won’t nag at your emotions too hard while you listen to AM radio on your way to work, it will serve. However, if you’re reading this review there’s a good chance you want your music interesting and emotionally impactful. If that’s the case, stick with Rumours and the self-titled record. This “Mirage” is likely to leave you as most do, with nothing but a mouthful of sand for your effort.

Best tracks: Gypsy, Hold On, Wish You Were Here

CD Odyssey Disc 1490: Fleetwood Mac

For the second time in three reviews (and the third since Disc 1423) I’ve rolled the same band. This is what happens when I get over excited about a band’s back catalogue. As you will read, this excess of enthusiasm is not always rewarded.

Disc 1490 is…. Tango in the Night

Artist: Fleetwood Mac

Year of Release: 1987

What’s up with the Cover? A painting by Brett-Livingston Strong called “Homage A Henri Rousseau”. Rousseau was famous for painting jungle scenes just like this one. I like lush greenery as much as the next guy, so I say “sure” to this cover.

How I Came To Know It: More of me digging through the back catalogue of Fleetwood Mac.

How It Stacks Up: Of the four Fleetwood Mac albums I own, I put “Tango in the Dark” in at #4.

Ratings: 2 stars

“Tango in the Night” is everything normally good about Fleetwood Mac, blanched and overcooked into a pale imitation of their previous work. It is broccoli left too long in the steamer, and steak left too long on the grill – soggy, limp, bloodless and tough to digest.

I’m not sure where to start being angry at this record, so let’s just go with the first song. “Big Love” was a radio hit that I did not like in 1987 and like less now. It features a vaguely tribal beat, which is so artificial I imagined it was a tribe of accountants on a corporate retreat, shirts off to expose pasty chests smeared with DEET. Like a lot of songs on the record, “Big Love” sets up a rhythm and then recycles it endlessly. As for the production, the passable guitar is barely audible over the swamp of noise, but the non-sexy panting sounds are very much right up in your earhole.

“Big Love” was one of four radio hits off the record, and thankfully the other three are better. “Seven Wonders” is classic Stevie Nicks, with is vaguely witchy wonderment. It is too bad that the weird triangle sounds and soup of background synth work throughout the song work to strip it of its magic. They doesn’t entirely succeed, but try very hard.

1987 was the worst year in music history for production decisions, and early on that infamy is on full display. The two hits penned by Christine McVie (“Everywhere” and “Little Lies”) are best suited to weather this storm of boredom. In fact, “Everywhere” is a delightful love song. The bass line is gorgeous, the tune makes you want to twirl through a blossoming apple orchard and McVie’s vocals are full of purity and light. It is easily the best song on the record.

Fun fact – the video for "Everywhere" is a recreation of Alfred Noyes’ 1906 poem “The Highwayman” about a brigand and his love for the innkeeper’s daughter. The song has fuck all to do with that, but I like the poem. If you ever want to hear the full poem set to music, Loreena McKennitt does an awesome job of it on her album “Book of Secrets” (reviewed way back at Disc 552). Listen to that here.

OK, after a brief respite listening to Loreena McKennitt, honour compels me to return to “Tango in the Night.” The final hit, “Little Lies” is also a passable tune, although way too smooth and jazzy. Does it help to have vocals of “close your eyes” bouncing from one speaker to the other in a way that suggests the band just discovered the wonders of stereo? Um…kind of? Anyway, it is innocuous sugary pop, and like “Seven Wonders” not totally crushed by the production.

Step outside the hits, and the record has a whole lot of forgettable going on. “Caroline” returns to the metallic non-organic tribal beat experience. The title track has a guitar bit that I believe is attempting to approximate rock and roll, but falling well short. There is one long solo where Lindsey Buckingham gives it all he’s got and manages to land somewhere on the right side of the line (he reminded me a smidge of early eighties Buck Dharma here) but then, unsure of what to do next, the band retreats to the ultimate cop out in music composition – the fadeout.

“Family Man” is notably risible. It has all the stuff that makes the other songs bad (accountant style drumming, saturated production, recycled themes) but adds in awkward Spanish rhythms that are only one step away from sounding like the band 101 Strings.

I could go on to talk about all the other forgettable songs, but I’ll skip doing so because I’m 800 words in and you get the point. I’ll close by saying I’m under no illusions. I expect a certain dose of a.m. radio schmaltz in my Fleetwood Mac, but “Tango In the Night” goes way over that line. This record is a lukewarm and only intermittently pleasant bath that annoyed me more and more with each successive listen.

Best tracks: Seven Wonders, Everywhere, Little Lies

CD Odyssey Disc 1488: Fleetwood Mac

Last night I went to the drive-in! It was the first time since around 1978 (when I saw Superman from the back seat of a 1961 Rambler). In keeping with the seventies theme, here is the third album in a row from that decade!

Disc 1488 is…. Self-Titled

Artist: Fleetwood Mac

Year of Release: 1975

What’s up with the Cover? Just like the Rumours cover, but instead of an artful dance pose, we get a hippy fun house. Look at how the tall guy is short! Isn’t it hilarious? And the other tall guy is super tall and drinking a beer. Isn’t it just delightfully whimsical?

No, it is not.

How I Came To Know It: Late last year I finally bit the bullet and bought Fleetwood Mac’s classic album “Rumours” (long a hole in my collection). This led me on a bit of a deep dive into the band’s back catalogue and this was one of a number of albums I bought in the process.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Fleetwood Mac albums, all from the mid-seventies through the late eighties. (Or to put it another way, when recently asked at a party “do you have any of the Peter Green albums?” I replied, “Who is Peter Green?” I may go investigate now that I know he exists (and apparently founded the band), but it’s all new to me. Admission of ignorance is the first step on the road to knowledge.

I’m still grokking the four albums I do have, making it hard to stack up, but I feel reasonably confident their self-titled album comes in at #2, just behind “Rumours.”

Ratings: 4 stars

The inordinate amount of radio play (FM and AM) that Fleetwood Mac has received over the years causes their hits to always stand out more when you finally put on a studio album. On this record that proved true, but there were also a few deep cuts that pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t have to look long to find one of those deep cuts, as the album’s opening track, “Monday Morning” jump starts the record with an upbeat sing-along groove. It is grounded in some sweet drumming from Mick Fleetwood, but you can still tell this is Buckingham’s song all the way. His high tenor vocals and airy head voice - all the rage with many a modern pop band - leads the way. Sure it is helped with a bit of well-placed backing vocals from Stevie Nicks, but this is Buckingham’s moment on a record where most of the best stuff to come will be fronted by the ladies.

This ability for three gifted vocalists (Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie) to each shine at different times, and then selflessly round out a song’s sound when it is someone else’s turn, is a key to the Fleetwood Mac sound, and the record features plenty of it.

Stevie Nicks has some of the album’s iconic and most enduring moments, including “Landslide” and “Rhiannon”. “Landslide” has since gone on to become an iconic Fleetwood Mac song, but it wasn’t one of the hits when originally released. I guess in that way it qualifies as one of those pleasantly surprising deep cuts, even if the surprise took a while.

“Landslide” features a powerful vocal performance from Nicks that manages a quiet confidence that belies the uncertainty and doubt expressed in the lyrics. I slightly prefer the Dixie Chicks’ cover version on their album “Home,” but there is no doubt that Nicks has the edge over Natalie Maines on the song’s more haunting elements.

“Rhiannon” is another Nicks tune, and one of the band’s most enduring hits. It evokes mysterious forest groves and eldritch romance. I’m not sure who Rhiannon is, but I am sure I’m willing to get lost in the woods to find out. “Rhiannon” is not just the great composition and lyrics of Nicks, however. In true Fleetwood Mac style, the rest of the band fills in the blank space to make the magic happen.

That magic is grounded in the insistent pull of Mcvie’s keyboard playing, and some great guitar work from Buckingham. Buckingham’s guitar sound on “Rhiannon” reminded me favourably of Blue Oyster Cult’s Buck Dharma. Long time readers will know this is high praise indeed.

Back to Christine McVie, who for me is the most consistently awesome member of the band. While I do not recommend her solo album she recorded as “Christine Perfect” (which I could not get through) she is the heart and soul of Fleetwood Mac. Her standouts here include “Over My Head” and “Say You Love Me” (both also hits).

“Over My Head” showcases the purity of McVie’s vocals and on “Say You Love Me” she gets her boogie woogie, singing in her lower register with equal grace. “Say You Love Me” also has some of those great Fleetwood Mac harmonies on the chorus. My only quibble is one verse that includes:

“…I’m getting weaker, weaker, weaker every day
I guess I’m not as strong as I used to be…”

This always irks me. Yes, if you are getting weaker, it follows that you’re not as strong. I don’t expect Christine to be “perfect” (get it? Get it?) but she can do better.

The only songs that fall a little short for me are “Crystal” and “I’m So Afraid” both of which seem a bit too packed in the arrangements, with melodies that can’t quite carry the burden. I think they are intended as immersive mood pieces, but I didn’t feel fully immersed in either one.

However, the rest of the record ranges from very good to nigh on perfect. It is another example of an iconic band at the top of their game.

Best tracks: Monday Morning, Rhiannon, Over My Head, Say You Love Me, Landslide, Sugar Daddy

CD Odyssey Disc 1423: Fleetwood Mac

Today is Remembrance Day. Please spare a kind thought and a minute of silence for members of the Canadian Forces past and present, who have served, fought, and died to preserve and protect our freedom.

….

OK – here’s some music.

Disc 1423 is…. Rumours

Artist: Fleetwood Mac

Year of Release: 1977

What’s up with the Cover? Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks. Nicks inhabits her role of “dark pixie” while Fleetwood poses as Haughty Drummer. As for the rest of the band – separate trailers, I presume, and not invited to the shoot.

How I Came To Know It: If your car had an a.m. radio back in the late seventies – or any time since – then you have heard songs from “Rumours” on a regular basis. For all that, the only Fleetwood Mac I’d owned prior to this year was a Greatest Hits album on CD that I sold back in the early nineties for beer money.

Then, for reasons I still don’t understand but I think have something to do with liking great music, last month I decided to dive into Fleetwood Mac’s back catalogue. “Rumous” was the logical starting point for the journey.

How It Stacks Up: I have four Fleetwood Mac albums, all bought in the last month. Of those four, “Rumours” is unsurprisingly, #1.

Ratings: 5 stars

There aren’t many superlatives that can be employed in discussing “Rumours” that haven’t been used before, and I’m not going to take a coward’s journey through a thesaurus to find them. The record is a classic for a whole bunch of reasons that you will already know.

“Rumours” is so ubiquitous to music collections that the only people who don’t own a copy are people who have converted entirely to streaming services. Even those people are streaming it. For years, I’ve had to guiltily admit I didn’t have it. Parting with the Greatest Hits album was partly me wearying of saying “no, but I have a Greatest Hits record” when someone offhandedly asked “I don’t know, can you put in Rumours?” when I asked what they wanted to hear.

I’ll admit, this irked the iconoclast in me. There’s a reason I take the piss out of the Beatles. Partly, someone has to. Also if every casual “I just like music in the background” rando with an a.m. radio likes something, something must be wrong with it, right?

While this is true more often than not, in the case of “Rumours”…no. There isn’t anything wrong with it. Also, the music is so light and airy and unassuming in its brilliance it doesn’t even inspire me to give it a poke, a la the Beatles. Fleetwood Mac isn’t claiming to reinvent music, or revel in their sudden discovery of the sitar; they are showing what pop music sounds like when everything is absolutely fucking perfect.

We could start with the production, which is clean and lush – the epitome of why everything good from the seventies sounds better on vinyl (my copy is on CD but let us not quibble). It isn’t easy to have this much going on in music and still make everything feel like a single organism. That they did this while going through multiple nasty and intensely personal breakups is a minor miracle that’s already seen all the ink required in previous explorations of the record. Let’s just move on.

The record has three gifted songwriters (Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks), all at the height of their talents. Everyone of these three have a penchant for memorable melodic structures, and none feels out of place. The album sounds cohesive because somehow everyone brings everything to the middle, without it ever feeling like they’re compromising.

These three are also all gifted vocalists – both in their own right, and in harmony with one another. Each has their distinct sound: Nicks with her light quaver, McVie with that sweet classically trained voice, and Buckingham with that high indie rock thing, twenty years before indie rock was a thing. The album features various combinations, all to good effect.

The combination is a hit machine. The record spawned somewhere between four and six radio hits. It is hard to tell where the hits end, because all the songs have become so ubiquitous to pop culture they might as well be hits. It would be too much to discuss them all, so I shall instead offer a few stray observations that caught my attention this time around:

• “Songbird”: Holy crap, but Christine McVie has the voice of an angel. I love Stevie Nicks as much as the next guy, but this song is the pinnacle vocal performance on the record.
• “The Chain”: The bass solo in this song is great, but it also drives me crazy. This is because it sounds so similar to a couple of Blue Oyster Cult bass riffs by Joe Bouchard. The basslines throughout the record make me feel like John McVie and Joe Bouchard were reading each other’s mail, but “The Chain” has literally driven me mad for hours searching for the same riff in a BOC song. I was unsuccessful.
• Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar work: With all those great vocals and memorable lyrics, it is easy to forget just how good Buckingham is on guitar, whether he is wailing out a rock odyssey at the end of “Go Your Own Way” or plucking a light-hearted jangle on “Never Going Back Again”.
• “I Don’t Wanna Know”: Yet more proof that handclaps make all songs better.

In the unlikely event you own music and don’t own this record, please go buy it as soon as you can. One day this pandemic is going to end and you’re going to host a dinner party. Don’t be that person who says “I don’t have that album” when your guests inevitably call for it.

Best tracks: all tracks