Fleetwood Mac - Tusk - The official Song by Song thread!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Lynd8, Aug 25, 2020.

  1. Lynd8

    Lynd8 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York
    Fleetwood Mac - Tusk - 2LP Released October 12, 1979

    Hi All,

    I have enjoyed this LP for nearly 40 years now, and as you may have seen in some of my recent posts, I'm on a little bit of a Fleetwood Mac / Lindsey Buckingham kick lately. I am hoping there is some interest in discussing this album thoroughly - song by song, and nitty gritty detail to nitty gritty detail. Similar to some of other great threads here, I am hoping to post a song title (in order), every couple days with some introductory thoughts and then have everyone chime in what they think of the song - perhaps some lyrical analysis and thoughts on the steps forward this music made and comments on the overall departure of sound from the 1977 classic - "Rumours"

    Before we get started on the individual songs, maybe we can just say a little about the album in general - thoughts we may have had way back when it came out, and where it stands these days in our playlists.

    The main story is well known to Fleetwood Mac fans - after selling 30 million plus copies of "Rumours", Lindsey Buckingham pushed the band in a new direction. This was partly in response to new-wave sounds arriving in 1979-1980 and partly that he just didn't want to release "Rumours Part 2". Instead of selling 30 millions copies, it sold something like 4 million copies, which was considered by some to be a failure.

    Over the years, more people have seemed to appreciate what Lindsey was trying to accomplish and Lindsey and Mick Fleetwood have both named this their favorite Fleetwood Mac album.

    My own introduction to the album is quite funny ( I think it is anyway LOL). I was about 16 in 1977 when "Rumours" was selling faster than just about anything previously. I was firmly into Led Zeppelin, and the likes of The Rolling Stones and The Steve Miller Band - to name a few, and every time my Mom played the damn thing (alternating it with The Eagles' "Hotel California") I wanted to run and hide!

    Not sure when it was exactly, but a few years later, while I was in the Navy (and perhaps missing home) a friend of mine was playing The 1980 Live album and I was hearing the different versions of "Rumours" songs which I thought were pretty interesting and these new songs like "Not That Funny" and "Sara" and thought they were great. I tracked down a copy of "Tusk " and really enjoyed it and I've enjoyed it ever since.

    I went back and "discovered how great the '75 LP was, along with "Rumours" and eventually "Mirage" as well. The "Tango In The Night" album followed a few years later and I'll reserve judgement on that for now but I've never ranked that as high as the other four.

    I also enjoy the re-releases which shed light on the album with early takes and other versions.

    So let's get the ball rolling, with your general thoughts on the album. Here's a refresher from Wikipedia with some info about the album and its tracklist:

    Tusk is the twelfth studio album by British-American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released as a double album on 12 October 1979.[3] It is considered more experimental than their previous albums: partly a consequence of Lindsey Buckingham's sparser songwriting arrangements and the influence of post-punk.[4] The production costs were estimated to be over $1 million (equivalent to $3.52 million in 2019), making it the most expensive rock album recorded to that date.[5]

    The band embarked on a nine-month tour to promote Tusk. They travelled extensively across the world, including the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. In Germany, they shared the bill with Bob Marley. On this world tour, the band recorded music for the Fleetwood Mac Live album released in 1980.[6]

    Compared to 1977's Rumours, which sold 10 million copies by February 1978, Tusk was regarded as a commercial failure by the label, selling four million copies. In 2013, NME ranked Tusk at number 445 in their list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[7] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[8] In 2000 it was voted number 853 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.[9]

    Songs:

    1-1 Over & Over – Christine McVie
    1-2 The Ledge – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-3 Think About Me – Christine McVie
    1-4 Save Me A Place – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-5 Sara – Stevie Nicks
    1-6 What Makes You Think You're The One – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-7 Storms – Stevie Nicks
    1-8 That's All For Everyone – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-9 Not That Funny – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-10 Sisters Of The Moon – Stevie Nicks
    1-11 Angel – Stevie Nicks
    1-12 That's Enough For Me – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-13 Brown Eyes – Christine McVie
    1-14 Never Make Me Cry – Christine McVie
    1-15 I Know I'm Not Wrong – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-16 Honey Hi – Christine McVie
    1-17 Beautiful Child – Stevie Nicks
    1-18 Walk A Thin Line – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-19 Tusk – Lindsey Buckingham
    1-20 Never Forget – Christine McVie
     
  2. skyblue17

    skyblue17 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I love this album, and it's one I know the best, so I'm in!

    My Fleetwood Mac interest came to be thanks to The Dance, so I didn't experience the albums in the same organic way of those doing so in real time. That said, as a big Lindsey fan especially, Tusk was quick to join my collection once I was on my first Fleetwood Mac kick. I also love the special ("Tusk doc") that goes into the recording process a bit. While it's not as cohesive as the previous two Buckingham/Nicks era records, it's a great listen with some fantastic songs.

    A fun fact about me is that I was very into this album when I was struggling to understand geometry in high school and rewrote a number of the songs to remember math specifics. Yes, there was a song called "What Makes You Think You're a Parallelogram."
     
  3. willy

    willy hooga hagga hooga

    It’s perfect. I’m in.
     
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  4. GoodKitty

    GoodKitty FloydM

    Location:
    Pacific
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    I was 14 when this album came out, greatly anticipating it along with everybody else post-Rumours ....
    I remember when a family friend came over and said "I just heard the new Fleetwood Mac on the radio -- it's called Trunk !" :laugh:
    Between the lead single "Tusk" and the strange biting-dog cover ..... this new release made an odd first impression ..... It was not gonna be Rumours II .

    I got it on cassette and played it constantly for months .....
    Then got to actually see them in March 1980, my first real arena-show, and still the only time I've ever seen Lindsey.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2020
  5. Chemguy

    Chemguy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Western Canada
    The 70s White Album. Love it very much.
     
  6. Lynd8

    Lynd8 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York
    This is a glimpse into the photography of the Album, from the 2019 book 'Fleetwood Mac FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the Iconic Rock Survivors' by Ryan Reed.

    (The Ballad of Photographer Jayme Odgers, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Photobomb)
    Jayme Odgers met Larry Vigon around 1967 while teaching a graphic design class at LA’s Art Center College of Design, which Vigon attended. Around nine years later, Odgers started to merge his graphic design work with photography in the pursuit of hybrid “photo-graphic images,” which he assembled using an “early, Luddite version of Photoshop.” He also started working on album covers, and in 1978, his former pupil came calling and hired him for an exciting new project.

    “On the Tusk album, for whatever reason (probably a lavish budget coming off the immense success of [Rumours]), Larry decided on hiring three different types of photographers: a rock and roll photographer, Norman Seeff; a documentary photographer, Peter Beard; and a fine art photographer, which is where I fit in,” Odgers recalls.

    Vigon took a ballsy step by cutting ties with Herbert Worthington, following his gut to find a more radical approach that would match Buckingham’s more ragged, experimental songs. Still, Odgers doesn’t recall being given any instructions. “Larry is a good art director, and by this I mean he understands the trick of finding the right person for the job, then allowing them do what they do best,” he says. “It’s much like the great Alexey Brodovich’s (of Harper’s Bazaar fame) dictum, ‘Bring back something that will shock me.’ I tend to thrive on those conditions. I love to graphically ‘shock.’”

    It was the perfect combination: a nearly blank check and the freedom to pursue any radical visual idea. But Odgers quickly realized that working with a band of such diva-like temperament was going to be “highly unusual.” First, he had to sign his contract, which turned out to be a head-scratcher in itself. “I was paid the full amount upon signing and then immediately asked if I was satisfied,” he recalls. “It was apparent to me they had had legal difficulties in the past and wanted to put any litigious nonsense to bed straight away. They were exceedingly direct about that. They left no wiggle room for later reprisals.”

    Then the arduous process began. First, Odgers scouted the city for potential shooting locations. Then he waited. For an excruciatingly long time.

    “Their representative advised me they would call when the band was in town ready to be photographed,” he says. “I’d get the call, ‘They’re in town, get ready!’ I’d then set about prepping for the shoot, which was considerable scrambling. And then nothing. It would be a no-show: ‘Sorry, they’re out of town.’ This happened three times over the period of a few of years, as I recall. At a point, I began to wonder if I was ever going to photograph Fleetwood Mac at all. I figured, ‘To hell with it.’ Whenever they called, I was simply going to have Fleetwood Mac come to my then home/studio and photograph them there. No more scouting around — I was done with that. At the time, I was living in the Marion Davies suite at the Los Altos, a building built by William Randolph Hearst. I chose the main living room as the location for the shoot. It was large, had interesting architectural details, and seemed intimate unlike a typical photo studio.”

    Eventually he conceptualized the album’s vivid “upside-down” shot featured in the inner booklet, a collage that shows the band drifting around a surreal living room scene where ceiling and floor are blurred into one. Christine and John McVie are planted on the ground; Fleetwood clings to a chair above his head; Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham float around in an eye-popping display of antigravity camera trickery.

    “My photo-graphic work during that period of time involved photo-composing individual elements together into a single image,” Odgers says. “The idea for the Fleetwood Mac shoot was simply to have the various band members floating in a room. I simply thought that would be visually arresting. Gravity-defying objects have always been alluring to me.”

    The concept was brilliant for an album like Tusk, which, with its jarring shifts from soft-rock balladry to punk-pop angst, offered a similar sense of displacement. Odgers prepared the space by “visually turning the room upside down.” He stuck plants on the ceiling to hide electric features, covered the floor with a white backdrop to offer the illusion of a ceiling, and placed lighting fixtures on the floor. “It was actually a rather simple conceit rife with potential,” he says.

    The band’s part was to simply participate: stand here or lay there, grab this or look at that. But the quintet, seemingly eager to make such creative decisions more of a hassle, didn’t instantly connect with Odgers’s off-the-wall vision.

    “Let me say straight away, they hated the idea!” he recalls. “I think they even hated me personally for suggesting such an idea. Perhaps for that reason, they refused to be in the room at the same time. I found this utterly shocking, as I’d never experienced such a thing before, or since. They were exceedingly difficult, even broke things in my house.

    They basically were as obstreperous as possible, like intractable mud. Slowly, over a period of time, I had each one come into the photographic area and do something. For example, I had Mick hold a chair against the ceiling: shoot. Later, Lindsey was willing to lie down on a low stool upside down: shoot. All Stevie Nicks would do is lie on the floor: shoot. Each person was a separate photo session!”

    The project, and its participants, became so difficult that Odgers eventually felt the band was “trying to scuttle” him. But ironically, by refusing to work together, they played into the photographer’s creative strengths. “Unbeknownst to them, my photo-graphic forte was putting separate images together seamlessly, so I pushed on,” he continues. “Had they all been willing to be photographed together, the image never would have looked like it does. Whatever magic that exists would have not been possible. Their obstinacy is the reason it works. Since I had no idea they wouldn’t appear in the studio together initially, the whole thing turned into an experiment on the fly. The means determined the end.”

    Even after finishing the shoot, Fleetwood Mac made Odgers’s job difficult. “Mick Fleetwood confided to me later that when the group took the all the various photographic images to Warner Bros. Records for review, they loved them all — except mine,” he says. “It caused immediate arguments. Mick said two hours later they were still fighting [about] whether or not they should use it at all. He eventually concluded since they were bickering endlessly about this one image, perhaps it should be included for that very reason, that it would incite conversation and discussion. On that they could agree. It was included. I got very lucky, as it almost didn’t happen.”

    It’s only fitting that Odgers’s whirlwind story ends with an ironic denouement. In 2016, when Rhino Records released an “Alternate Tusk” featuring alternate takes and live cuts, the label chose to include a black-and-white version of the “floating” shot as the front cover. Needless to say, the photographer was dumbfounded.

    “We never arrived at Rhino’s reason for using it. Clearly it left us questioning,” Odgers says. “Perhaps that’s its secret: The image provides no answers, only questions. It won’t settle down to a comfortable resolution and go away. It keeps one questioning.”

    Though the floating collage remains Tusk’s true visual centerpiece, the album’s other artwork is equally compelling. The stark cover photo shows producer-engineer Ken Caillat’s dog, Scooter, tugging playfully at his pant leg. (It’s laughable that the band hated Odgers’s high-concept approach but embraced this.) And the inner images blended Norman Seeff’s casual group shots with Peter Beard’s manic collages, inspired by his photographic diaries of Africa.

    In Storms: My Life With Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, Carol Ann Harris describes Norman Seeff’s photo sessions as “complete bedlam,” writing, “Every time he got the band in position for a picture, he turned his back and one of them slipped away. Each had their own private agenda: they needed a drink, a toot, or a pee. By the end of the long shoot, he was about to tear his hair out.”

    In all fairness to the Mac, Beard didn’t encounter the same stubbornness from his subjects. Beard says he was “surprised” to receive the band’s phone call, but he ended up instantly gelling with the musicians. “We spent many days with the band and everyone got on very well,” he says, describing Tusk as his favorite Mac LP. “It was great fun, and I have a great deal of Polaroids from that time.”

    ...and a little extra info about the art of Tusk, from an Interview with Ken Caillat:

    As for the “Tusk” album cover art, that little dog biting at some unseen person’s leg is a shot of Scooter — Caillat’s dog — and his leg, he said.

    “My dog is biting my leg,” he said of the image that also appears on the cover of his book about “Tusk.” “I think they only liked it because they could see his canine.”
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2020
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  7. GoodKitty

    GoodKitty FloydM

    Location:
    Pacific
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    I remember reading somewhere that a Warner Brothers employee said something like "Obviously we had very high hopes for TUSK ..... but when we finally got to hear it we saw our Christmas bonuses fly out the window."


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    Last edited: Aug 25, 2020
  8. domesticmachine

    domesticmachine Resident Forum

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    Masterpiece. I’m in. While I enjoy the alternative Tusk in the box set and referenced above I much prefer the mid 2000’s bonus disc as far as outtakes go. Wish they had pressed that one to LP. That being said what other album are there two whole alternative version LPs that hold up!?

    My wife got me into this LP when we were first dating in the nineties and it launched a hugely rewarding enjoyment of Fleetwood Mac and especially Lindsey Buckingham for me. Maybe not everyone’s entry point but I think it’s a unique set of songs that exemplifies everyone’s talents.

    The one thing I say about Tusk every time I take it out to play - I’m not sure people rejected the music, it just had too many god d***ed sleeves!
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2020
  9. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Count me in. I have the 5 CD/2 LP/1 DVD set that came out a few years ago. One of my all time fave albums
     
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  10. The Gomper

    The Gomper By Your Side?

    Location:
    Missouri
  11. Neonbeam

    Neonbeam All Art Was Once Contemporary

    Location:
    Planet Earth
    "Tusk is here" sounds like a tag from something like "Jaws" or "The Shining"! :uhhuh:

    A threat. Or a nice idea for a thread! Since I know this album by heart - and even remember period reviews making fun of the lavish packaging, something like "Kinda hard to find the records in all this cardboard!" - I'm in! :goodie:
     
  12. Lynd8

    Lynd8 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York
    Rolling Stone Review DECEMBER 13, 1979 by Stephen Holden

    At a cost of two years and well over a million dollars, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk represents both the last word in lavish California studio pop and a brave but tentative lurch forward by the one Seventies group that can claim a musical chemistry as mysteriously right — though not as potent — as the Beatles’. In its fits and starts and restless changes of pace, Tusk inevitably recalls the Beatles’ “White Album” (1968), the quirky rock jigsaw puzzle that showed the Fab Four at their artiest and most indecisive.

    Like “The White Album,” Tusk is less a collection of finished songs than a mosaic of pop-rock fragments by individual performers. Tusk‘s twenty tunes — nine by Lindsey Buckingham, six by Christine McVie, five by Stevie Nicks — constitute a two-record “trip” that covers a lot of ground, from rock & roll basics to a shivery psychedelia reminiscent of the band’s earlier Bare Trees and Future Games to the opulent extremes of folk-rock arcana given the full Hollywood treatment. “The White Album” was also a trip, but one that reflected the furious social banging around at the end of the Sixties. Tusk is much vaguer. Semiprogrammatic and nonliterary, it ushers out the Seventies with a long, melancholy sigh.

    On a song-by-song basis, Tusk‘s material lacks the structural concision of the finest cuts on Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. Though there are no compositions with the streamlined homogeneity of “Dreams,” “You Make Loving Fun” or “Go Your Own Way,” there are many fragments as striking as the best moments in any of these numbers.

    If Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks were the most memorable voices on Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, Lindsey Buckingham is Tusk‘s artistic linchpin. The special thanks to him on the back of the LP indicates that he was more involved with Tusk‘s production than any other group member. Buckingham’s audacious addition of a gleeful and allusive slapstick rock & roll style — practically the antithesis of Fleetwood Mac’s Top Forty image — holds this mosaic together, because it provides the crucial changes of pace without which Tusk would sound bland.

    The basic style of Tusk‘s “produced” cuts is a luxuriant choral folk-rock — as spacious as it is subtle — whose misty swirls are organized around incredibly precise yet delicate rhythm tracks. Instead of using the standard pop embellishments (strings, synthesizers, horns, etc.), the bulk of the sweetening consists of hovering instrumentation and background vocals massively layered to approximate strings. This gorgeous, hushed, ethereal sound was introduced to pop with 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love,” and Fleetwood Mac first used it in Rumours’ “You Make Loving Fun.” On Tusk, it’s the band’s signature. Buckingham’s most commercial efforts — the chiming folk ballads, “That’s All for Everyone” and “Walk a Thin Line” — deploy a choir in great dreamy waves. In McVie’s “Brown Eyes,” the blending of voices, guitars and keyboards into a plaintive “sha-la-la” bridge builds a mere scrap of a song into a magnificent castle in the air. “Brown Eyes” sounds as it if were invented for the production, rather than nice versa.

    About the only quality that Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie share is a die-hard romanticism. On Tusk, Nicks sounds more than ever like a West Coast Patti Smith. Her singing is noticeably hoarser than on Rumours, though she makes up some of what she’s lost in control with a newfound histrionic urgency: “Angel” is an especially risky flirtation with hard rock. Nicks’ finest compositions here are two lovely ballads, “Beautiful Child” and “Storms.” Her other contributions, “Sara” and “Sisters of the Moon,” weave personal symbolism and offbeat mythology into a near-impenetrable murk. There’s a fine line between the exotic and the bizarre, and this would-be hippie sorceress skirts it perilously.

    McVie is as dour and terse as Nicks is excitable and verbose. Her two best songs — “Never Forget,” a folk-style march, and “Never Make Me Cry,” a mournful lullaby — are lovely little gems of romantic ambiance. With a pure, dusky alto that’s reminiscent of Sandy Denny, this woeful woman-child who’s in perpetual pursuit of “daddy” evokes a timeless sadness.

    “Not That Funny,” “What Makes You Think You’re the One,” “That’s Enough for Me” and “The Ledge” affect a rock & roll simplicity and directness that are strongly indebted to Buddy Holly, an obvious idol of Buckingham’s. These songs have the sound and spontaneity of beautifully engineered basement tapes. A bit more sophisticated yet still relatively spare, “Save Me a Place” boasts closely harmonized, un-gimmicky ensemble voices and acoustic textures that underline the tune’s British folk flavor. But Buckingham’s most intriguing contribution is Tusk‘s title track, an aural collage that pits African tribal drums, the USC Trojan Marching Band and some incantatory group vocals against a backdrop of what sounds like thousands of wild dogs barking. “Tusk” is Fleetwood Mac’s “Revolution 9.”

    The calculated crudeness of Buckingham’s rock & roll forays both undercuts and improves Tusk‘s elaborately produced segments. And several of these segments demonstrate that the limits of the California studio sound, developed in the Sixties by Lou Adler and Brian Wilson for the Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys, have at last been reached. Fleetwood Mac has arrived at the point where technologically inspired filigree begins to break down rather than enhance music, where expensive playback equipment is not only desirable for appreciation but necessary for comprehension. In McVie’s “Over & Over” and Nicks’ “Storms,” the production goes too far, and the tracks quiver with an eerie electronic vibrato.

    The wonder of Fleetwood Mac’s chemistry is that the casting of these two less-than-major talents in pop music’s answer to Gone with the Wind elevates them to the stature of stormy rock & roll heroines — one compelled to reach for the stars, the other condemned to wander the earth. Within the context of the group, we not only accept these women’s excesses and limitations, we cherish them as indispensable ingredients of their characters.

    The aura of romance is finally the real substance of Fleetwood Mac’s music. If the band has an image, it’s one of wealthy, talented, bohemian cosmopolites futilely toying with shopworn romantic notions in the face of the void. Such an elegant gossamer lilt is also synonymous with the champagne buzz of late-Seventies amour. But perhaps, as Tusk‘s ominous title cut and other songs suggest, in today’s climate of material depletion and lurking disorder, the center of things — including Fleetwood Mac themselves — cannot hold. Plagued by internal conflicts and challenged by New Wave rock, this psychedelically tinted folk-rock tribe might well be the last and most refined of a breed of giddy celebrants who, from the early Sixties on, prospered on the far shore of the promised land as they toasted the pure splendor of a beautiful and possibly frivolous pop dream.

    Can this dream survive the economic chill of the Eighties? How far can Lindsey Buckingham’s rock & roll primitivism carry Fleetwood Mac when folk music, not rock, is really the basis of their style, and when erotic fluctuation remains their central preoccupation?

    Tusk finds Fleetwood Mac slightly tipsy from jet lag and fine wine, teetering about in the late-afternoon sun and making exquisite small talk. Surely, they must all be aware of the evanescence of the golden moment that this album has captured so majestically.
     
  13. willy

    willy hooga hagga hooga

    Never thought of that before but, yes, that is spot on!
     
  14. OberonOz

    OberonOz Senior Member

    An amazing album. This was the first Fleetwood Mac album I bought brand new. I got into Rumours after it was released and had been around for a bit. Tusk was the first new release. Whatever I might have been expecting - Rumours 2 most likely - this album definitely was not it! At first I found it a bit jarring, although I was completely entranced by Stevie Nicks "Sara" and the oddball title track was a real earworm too.

    Lindsey was front and center on this album though. Favourite LB tracks like "What Makes You Think You're The One" and "Not That Funny" and "Walk A Thin Line" are very different from what had come before, but that was a good thing. They toured this album extensively and I got my first chance to see them when they came to Perth in February of 1980. I remember having front row seats that I cheated somewhat to get.

    There were two concerts going on sale on the same Saturday morning, the Police on their first ever Australian tour was quite a small queue that I was near the front of, and Fleetwood Mac had a massive snaking line through the carpark for their tickets. As a result, the venue security decided to let the small Police line up in first to buy tickets. I ran in, got my Police tix and asked if I could buy Mac tix as well. Hence the front row seats!

    The band were thrilled to be in Perth after a Japanese tour. They were in top form and put on a brilliant show. They loved being somewhere everyone spoke English and used dollars (even if they were not the US dollar). I was fortunate enough to meet the band too. I got to spend some time chatting in the hotel bar with Lindsey, met all the others, Stevie last. She was apparently suffering from the (rock & roll) flu and was a bit sniffly. I gave her a kiss on the cheek anyway and she was very sweet!

    Today, I still love the album, but my go to now is the 5.1 surround mix. Amazing stuff :)
     
  15. Jmac1979

    Jmac1979 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Louisville, KY
    Tusk literally came out around the time I was born (I was born in Dec 1979), so I wasn't "there". It was actually the last purchase I made of the "Rumours lineup" albums around 2000 or so (I started getting into them around The Dance) but it might be my favorite
     
  16. mark winstanley

    mark winstanley Certified dinosaur, who likes physical product

    Tusk is a wonderful chocolate assortment, with lots of different flavours, and for those of us who like or love it, that is the real hook here.
    I was 10 or 11 when it came out, and although I didn't buy it til years later, the title track always grabbed my attention.
    I remember reading the reviews, a lot of them kind of scathing, and focusing on the differences, and saying this isn't an album, it's a collection of solo songs, and all that stuff.... Mirage got the same kind of reviews.
    I suppose I understand those reviews to some extent, but it just seemed like some folks were bitter that the band avoided making rumours part 2.
    Avoiding Rumours part 2 was specifically Buckingham's point. I believe he had been enjoying the punk and new wave scene, and wanted to try and avoid the pigeonhole ...
    Anyway, I really like it

    I enjoy the 5.1 that they finally released :)
     
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  17. footprintsinthesand

    footprintsinthesand Reasons to be cheerful part 1

    Location:
    Dutch mountains
    Tusk has become one of my favourite albums to play in recent times since the truly excellent 5.1 mix. Never skip a track, they're all great.
    In the past I only had it as a needledrop on cassette since release, but didn't play it much, which is puzzling now. The front cover must've hurt its popularity, plus the length to hit single ratio. In hindsight this album could have and should have at least produced as many hit singles as Rumours.
     
  18. 7solqs4iago

    7solqs4iago Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    after getting bombarded by the super-album, i realize i have never heard more than 2 songs from Tusk
     
  19. Lynd8

    Lynd8 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York
    Please take care of this problem right away and report back to us LOL.
     
  20. 7solqs4iago

    7solqs4iago Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    i tried awhile back and youtube blocked it off from my free appreciation

    i promise to give it a spin over the next month, if i can for free
     
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  21. Wildest cat from montana

    Wildest cat from montana Humble Reader

    Location:
    ontario canada
    I didn't want the follow-up to'Rumours to be ' Rumours 2' and my wish was granted.
    'Tusk ' is a great double album like all the great double albums. It let Fleetwood Mac stretch out.
     
  22. Lynd8

    Lynd8 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York
    Side 1 Track 1 - "Over & Over" - Christine McVie

    Could you ever need me
    And would you know how, yeah
    Don't waste our time
    Tell me now
    All you have to do
    Is speak out my name, yeah
    And I would come running
    Anyway


    And I said
    Could it be me?
    Could it really, really be?
    Over and over
    Could it really, really be?
    Over and over


    Don't turn me away
    And don't let me down
    What can I do
    To keep you around

    Over and over


    Here we go - individual songs!

    In the liner notes of the 2015 reissue, Lindsey Buckingham explains "By the time we got to this, we knew we had an album that was not by the book. When it came to sequencing, we felt this song had a certain familiarity to it, something that people were going to be able to latch onto on one level and yet set them up for some of the other, more untraditional things. Where this got untraditional was leaving it in a fairly raw state, not too glossy in the production".

    I have to agree - Tusk starts with something not completely different than some earlier Christine songs (I'm thinking "Warm Ways" etc.). It likely would have been extremely jarring to have the album start with something like "I Know I'm Not Wrong". So, the listener is kind of eased into this new-fangled Mac with a classic, smooth, Christine track. I think it's a nice song - nothing too fancy, basically a few lines summed up mostly (I think), by the line "what can I do to keep you around" and something that a lot of people have been through where you think "are we doing this or not?". Many people I'm sure, have had that spot in a relationship that they still want it to work and move forward and feel a certain pull away by their partner and question themselves - "could it be me?".

    Lindsey's slide guitar work on this track is really good and live this song even had a little more punch to it. It's featured on the 1980 live album (recorded in Oklahoma City) and Christine introduces it as the first song from Tusk that night. Stevie and Lindsey add some nice background singing and Mick and John - as always, lay down a good bass/drum for this track.

    The alternate version found on the 2015 boxed set (subtitled 4/1979 version) features a slightly different guitar take but Christine's part is pretty close to the master. The organ is more pronounced in the middle of the song and the backing vocals are seemingly only Christine and were likely used to demo what she was looking for from her bandmates?

    A second live version was included in the 2015 box from St Louis, 11/5/1979.

    So what are your thoughts on this first track? Great track? mediocre? Was placing number one the right choice? Any insight you can add to this one?





     
  23. skyblue17

    skyblue17 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Christine's songs are always inherently comforting to me and "Over and Over" is no exception. I think it's a great first track to ease into the album, and I'm generally pretty pleased with the sequencing of this record. I can't imagine any of Christine's other tracks playing that role here, can't really think of any other of the songs really fitting any better either, so it's a natural and good choice.

    I really like the live version of the song from the Live album. Stevie and Lindsey's background vocals and harmonies are great here, in a way that's different and more present than on the studio version.

     
  24. The Gomper

    The Gomper By Your Side?

    Location:
    Missouri


    Actually, that album was compiled from shows from 1975 through 1980 - namely, Passaic 1975 (Don't Let Me Down Again) and a Paris soundcheck from 1976 (Dreams and Don't Stop - you can hear Christine say to Lindsey "you broke a string, didn't you?" as Don't Stop fades out and the crowd noise fades in...)
     
    Lynd8 likes this.
  25. The Gomper

    The Gomper By Your Side?

    Location:
    Missouri
    I also really like the version from the 1980 live album. Has a bit more muscle.

    "Over and Over" is a fantastic track, and one im really feeling right now, personally...
     

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