Thoughts on "Tusk" (Fleetwood Mac)

[Rudy]

I know we've discussed Rumours over the years, and quite frankly I've gotten so tired of hearing it that I can barely get through a few tunes before turning it off. (Radio helped burn it out--classic rock radio seems intent on beating it to death all these years later.)

Yet beside "Sara," you really don't hear much at all from, or about, Tusk. There is some gargantuan Deluxe Edition that was released today, which sparked my memory a bit. Eight discs! It's nothing I would buy, since it is typical of those sets that include the studio outtakes and live versions which I would likely play once and never touch on again. It is notable in having a 5.1 surround mix on the left-for-dead DVD-Audio format, and the original 2LP vinyl album, as released.

I still have my original vinyl copy. I don't play it too often. I find the music overall is calmer and less uptight than Rumours and find that it is usually the one Fleetwood Mac album I will grab when I want to give them a listen. As usual, I avoid most of the Stevie Nicks songs if I can (although "Sara" is listenable), and gravitate towards Christine McVie's, like "Over and Over," "Brown Eyes" and "You'll Never Make Me Cry." Lindsey Buckingham's tracks could get quirky at times (and some were recorded as demos at his house) but they are a good change of pace on this album. And there's no forgetting the title track, which is still one of the more puzzling tracks they've recorded.

I don't know if I'm in the minority for actually liking this album, but I know it does have its fans out there.

 

[AM Matt]

My mother loved the the title track to "Tusk" because of the USC Trojans marching band!! Some of the Lindsay Buckingham songs like "Not That Funny" & "That's Enough For Me" reminds me of Micky Dolenz of The Monkees singing!! Matt Clark Sanford, MI

 

[DeeInKY]

The one I always liked on there was "Think About Me." "Tusk" always struck me as odd with the marching band. Of course, then every marching band started playing it.

 

[Captain Bacardi]

It's funny that I just saw a documentary of Fleetwood Mac and they were talking about this album. Lindsey Buckingham was doing a lot of experimenting with multi-tracking at the time. As I recall the album cost something like $2 million to make - an outrageous sum of money for the time. I did like "Sara" and the title track, but this album did little for me. It's one of those situations where it probably would've been better to make it just one disc instead of two. But they were all so drugged up back then that it seemed to impair their judgement.

 

[Rudy]

I agree that it could be pared down to a single LP. I end up skipping a few tracks when I play it (some of the Buckingham tracks are like a continuation of each other). Overall though, I do prefer its quieter mood. It's one of those albums where I have to be in a certain mindset to play it.

 

[jfiedler17]

This might sound like an oxymoron, but I simultaneously think Rumours is a better album yet consider Tusk to be my favorite album of theirs and the one I reach for more often. (Does that make sense? ) Rumours is superb, but like you say, it's just much too overplayed on classic-rock stations, while Tusk gets virtually ignored in comparison. It's spottier, to be sure, and arguably could have been trimmed down to a single LP without sacrificing anything vital - but then, that's also true of most double-disc albums - but there's just something about it that makes it considerably more interesting, and the best cuts on there really strike a wonderful balance of being experimental while also still being catchy enough to be commercially accessible. "Sara" may be the most hypnotic song of them all in Stevie Nicks' body of work with or without the band, "Think About Me" is easily one of the most underrated singles Christine ever wrote for the band and should've been a bigger hit (and "Never Forget" might be the most immediately-memorable album-closer she ever wrote for the band, too), and Lindsey's stuff, as out there as it is, is just strangely compelling. ["Tusk," of course, is a terribly bizarre record in every aspect - from the song itself to the production (the drum break comes out of absolute nowhere) - but somehow it all just clicks and is a strangely addictive single, and for as utterly weird as it is, it's also no surprise that it went Top Ten, either. And "Not That Funny," "The Ledge," and "What Makes You Think You're the One," are all much too raw production-wise to have been considered for single release, but the songs themselves are as catchy as anything else Lindsey's ever done and Mick's drum work on all of them is really top-notch.]

 

[Rudy]

I think what works for me on the album as a whole is that it is so off-the-wall and for the most part, non-commercial. Rumours did knock it out of the park, no doubt about it.

In a way, Tusk is similar to Buckingham/Nicks, as a few of those tracks also have a demo feel to them. And hearing that album, I immediately heard what they would superimpose over Fleetwood Mac just a short time later.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Tusk is a mixed bag for me. I'm not a fan of most of the Lindsey Buckingham tunes. The exceptions are "I Know I'm Not Wrong" and "Walk A Thin Line," both of which I think are great. Most of the rest of his tunes -- I get that they're edgy and I like that he was doing some experimenting but I didn't like that he used a band record to debut "solo, recorded at home in the bathroom" recordings like "The Ledge" and "What Makes You Think You're The One." They were OK songs but they didn't sound like Fleetwood Mac songs to me, and they still don't to this day.

The title track is one of my favorite of his tunes, though. That was the kind of thing I would have liked to hear more of from Lindsey -- experiment away, but involve the rest of the band. You can hear all five of them on that song. I can't resist turning it up to mega volume when I hear it.

I agree about Christine's tunes being great on the album. The opener, "Over and Over" is one of my favorites of hers. Who am I kidding, I like almost all of her songs no matter what album they're from. She's my favorite female vocalist. (Lani Hall is right up there too, but I like her music from a certain era the best -- whereas every Fleetwood Mac album contains at least one Christine song that would make it onto my faves list.)

The Stevie Nicks tunes -- my favorite on the album is "Angel." Close behind is "Sisters of the Moon." That was released as a single and why it didn't do massive sales is a mystery to me. I love the guitar hook in the chorus. I never did like "Sara" very much - to me it's boring and rambling. "Beautiful Child" is OK if I'm in the mood for a Stevie Nicks ballad, which admittedly isn't too often. "Storms," I like the chorus but the rest of it is pretty bland.

I remember the release of the album vividly. Of course, I was in the thick of the music business at that time and you have to keep in mind that my first priority thought was, how is it going to sell? Rumours had done massive business in our store just like it had everywhere else, and anticipation for new Fleetwood Mac music was in the stratosphere; so naturally when Tusk was released I ordered heavy on it. The list price was $15.98, which was higher than any other double LP had been to that point. My initial order was 25 LPs, 10 cassettes and I think at least 15 8-tracks. (Which might not sound like a lot, but for us it was very big -- it remains the largest initial order I ever placed for one album.)

The shipment came in the day before it went on sale, so I took the album home and, just as I had done with Rumours, I listened to the whole thing on headphones. I remember being surprised that the first song was a ballad, considering the openers on all their previous albums had been fast rockers. But it was a really good song and Christine sounded great. Off to the races, I thought. Then up next was Lindsey's "The Ledge" and I was thinking "whaaaaaaat is going on here?" It seemed like a really weird song choice, something that might come near the end of the album instead of the prime, track-2 position (where "Dreams" had been). Then came "Think About Me" and I thought, OK, things are getting better. Then "Save Me A Place," another weird Lindsey tune that didn't have ANY of the catchiness or even any of the sound of his work from the previous two albums.

By the end of Side 2 I had pretty much given up on hearing anything resembling the Lindsey Buckingham we'd all grown to love. The Stevie Nicks tunes I'd heard were long and boring and lacked direction, I thought. And by the end of that side I realized we'd only heard two Christine McVie tunes -- even though she'd been responsible for more hits on the previous albums than Lindsey or Stevie were. Half of the songs had been these quirky Buckingham numbers that didn't have ANY of the Fleetwood Mac vibe.

Then came the one-two punch of "Angel" and "Sisters of the Moon" and I thought, OK Stevie, you're back on track now. But things never really took off from there; even Christine's tunes were pretty simplistic and didn't sound all that energetic. By the end of side 4 all I could think of was, I had almost $1000 worth of this expensive double album sitting on the counter at the store and how in the HELL was I ever going to move all of it, once people started to hear it? I didn't hate the music, but after all the months of being so glad to be getting a TWO record set of Fleetwood Mac, and having a huge part of the final album not even sound like Fleetwood Mac, I was severely disappointed -- and worried.

Then the reviews came out. Some were ecstatic - Rolling Stone in particular gave the album high praise and I started to like certain things a little better. "I Know I'm Not Wrong," in particular, fungused its way into my consciousness and stayed there. But a lot of reviews were of the "what were they thinking?" and "This cost HOW much?" variety.

So the album was a hard sell. I don't think I ever did any reorders on it, and while I love parts of it, overall it remainss very much a mixed bag for me. However, if I was to find out that the above-mentioned gargantuan 8-disk release contains the original mix of "I Know I'm Not Wrong," I might be in the market for it. (They also inexplicably wrecked a good Nicks song, "Straight Back," from Mirage, by doing a bad remix on that.)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Update - I just checked out the sample on Amazon and it sounds as if the above-mentioned remix of "I Know I'm Not Wrong" has been finally replaced with the original version, or at least something more resembling the original. And I also found that this souped-up version of the album is available as a 3-disk set. (including the live cuts, but leaving out the DVD and (of course) the LPs). Nice!

 

[Rudy]

I wasn't aware of a different mix on any of the tracks, but, all I have are the HDTracks 24/192 version, the originally released LP, and the first CD release from the late 80s or so, with the edited "Sara."

As for Rumours, I don't know why some rocket scientist at Warner decided to extend Lindsey's guitar riff (on the fade-out) of "Second Hand News" on CD for all those years. It's like any revisionist tinkering: there was nothing wrong with the original.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

As for Rumours, I don't know why some rocket scientist at Warner decided to extend Lindsey's guitar riff (on the fade-out) of "Second Hand News" on CD for all those years. It's like any revisionist tinkering: there was nothing wrong with the original.

That same thing happened to "Gold Dust Woman" on one of the reissues, I forget which. There is a slight bit of in-studio noodling and a muffled Lindsey yell that leads into the opening. I kind of like it though.

I wonder if they do these kinds of things on purpose, with the idea being the "main" work is not messed with but there are a few seconds extra of a song, thereby exciting the fans on social media which might lead to more sales. (Hey it could work!)

I wasn't aware of a different mix on any of the tracks

On "I Know I'm Not Wrong," there was an extra bed of backing vocals (likely Linsdey multiplied x 12 or so) behind the choruses, among other things. It just wrecked the song for me.

 

[Rudy]

With "Gold Dust Woman," I believe the originally released LP had the song faded in. Then at some point, it had a "cold" start to it, and that might have included some studio patter as well. My Hoffman/Gray mastered 45RPM Rumours has the studio patter on it. But other than that, at least the song itself is not remixed or otherwise tampered with. Steve Hoffman has done that on a few of his releases in the past--he'll have one track where he'll insist on leaving a few seconds of in-studio "noise" which is like adding a little perk, plus it is a quick glimpse of something most of us will never hear.

On "I Know I'm Not Wrong," there was an extra bed of backing vocals (likely Linsdey multiplied x 12 or so) behind the choruses, among other things. It just wrecked the song for me.

I probably don't have that on any of my versions. I'm pretty sure the HDTracks versions have reverted to the originally released state of all the tracks, but I would have to check to be certain.

That's the thing, too. I would prefer the original album be left untampered with. But if someone were to want to sweeten those tracks at a later time and keep them separate (such as Herb Alpert did with the Lost Treasures tracks), that IMHO is fine. At least the original work is not touched.

 

[jfiedler17]

I would have to agree that most of Lindsey's songs on this album would have sounded much more at home on, say, Law and Order (meaning, his first solo album, not the TV show ). He admittedly made really little effort on most of those songs to make them sound anything like Fleetwood Mac, and while I've never seen track-by-track credits for the songs on the album, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his songs on that album were cut by him and Mick alone. ("What Makes You Think ..." is one that certainly sounds that way.)
And I agree that Christine's minimal presence on the first disc really works against the album.
I'd certainly concede that it's an awfully flawed album - nothing on it is perfect (whether you're talking about the songwriting or the arrangements or the production or the engineering (and, boy, does "The Ledge" ever sound like a rush job from a recording standpoint - Lindsey doesn't even sound like he's consistently facing the microphone). But I do find it awfully fascinating just for the character of it all. It's kinda reminiscent in that way of Exile on Main Street to me (it's certainly got a similar rawness to it), if not quite its artistic equal - Exile isn't the best set of songs the Stones ever wrote, the playing's a bit sloppy at times, and it's certainly nowhere near being the best-engineered-or-mixed album they ever made (if you didn't have a lyric sheet in front of you, you could be forgiven for not being able to make out anything Mick's saying on half of those songs), but the album's just got a lot of character to it.

And I agree about the revisionist tinkering - I can't stand it when artists go back and make really noticeable changes to the mixes of songs. My least favorite example of revisionist tinkering is definitely the two volumes of Robert Palmer's Addictions hits packages, where they went back and altered all the original drum tracks on his late-'70s material to make the tracks sound more modern. It completely destroyed the essence of those tracks, especially the more heartfelt tracks like "Every Kinda People" and "Can We Still Be Friends."

 

[Rudy]

How about Ozzy (or actually, Sharon) replacing the bass and drums on Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman on the 2002 reissues, just because he had a tiff with them?

Or, what about Nick Davis's "remasterings" that essentially remixed all of the Phil-era Genesis albums so that they are completely "smashed" sonically? (I only hate to think what Phil's newly "remastered" albums will sound like...he even "remastered" the cover art!)

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I don't think Mick Fleetwood and John McVie get the credit they deserve for the sound of Fleetwood Mac. I was listening to "Tusk" (the song) last night and I had the thought that the real genius of that song and what makes it great is not just the lyrics or the singing -- it's the drums and bass. The bass drum in particular. Every now and then, and you never know when, the bass drum misses a beat, rather than just going thump, thump, thump, thump through the whole song. And then when the electric bass kicks in midway, it really throws it into gear. I remember reading somewhere that they constructed the drums on that song by splicing a loop of tape together.

I also read somewhere that "Go Your Own Way" was originally conceived as a straight-up rock song, and that it was Mick Fleetwood's idea to have that unique drum pattern in the verses, and just break into the steady rock beat in the choruses. If not for that, the song would have been far less successful in my opinion.

Anyway, it just seems like Lindsey always gets all the kudos for being the innovator in the group but I think Mick and John are just as talented as he is.

He admittedly made really little effort on most of those songs to make them sound anything like Fleetwood Mac

Some of his songs have the opposite effect. If you haven't already, take a listen to "Doing What I Can" from his solo album Out Of The Cradle. That would have fit nicely on a Fleetwood Mac album.

 

[Rudy]

Someone elsewhere drew a comparison to the Beatles White Album, in that it ended up being more of a collection of individuals' songs vs. being a major group effort. (I'm saying the idea is such that Christine, Lindsay and Stevie were using Fleetwood Mac as their backing band.) I can see that argument being valid. After having such an artistic and commercial high, doing something low-key and personal might have been what they felt was needed at that point. Sort of like how Sgt. Pepper was this "big deal" and was over-the-top in many ways (with Magical Mystery Tour being an extension of that), and then the White Album having a plain white cover and highly-personal songs as the focus.

I agree, too, that McVie and Fleetwood were often overlooked in the grand scheme of things, but they have always been the constant over the decades while the band changed around them. The average Rumours buyer out there probably wouldn't even recognize "Oh Well" or "Hypnotized"...

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I really like both of those songs. "Hypnotized" in particular is great. They should do that in concert. Once Christine joined, the earlier albums almost all had at least several really good pop songs on them. I made a compilation of pre-Buckingham/Nicks FM which is one of my favorite CDs to listen to.

I have a version of "Oh Well" by the Rockets which is more of a straight-ahead rock version, which is my favorite. Not quite as weird as the FM version. The new issue of Tusk comes with a live version of that tune which I'm anxious to check out.

 

[Rudy]

I have a version of "Oh Well" by the Rockets which is more of a straight-ahead rock version, which is my favorite. Not quite as weird as the FM version. The new issue of Tusk comes with a live version of that tune which I'm anxious to check out.

Wasn't the Fleetwood Mac Live 2-LP released just after Tusk? If so, I would think any live tracks on that new set might be the same tracks, or at least from the same tour but from different nights. That was the last FM album I bought for many years. Not until the DVD-Audio reissues did I get Mirage and the later ones.

The only things I have pre-Buckingham/Nicks era are a 2-LP set of the early years, and Mystery To Me. (I like some of that album--it has some good tracks on it!) They are on my list of artists to expand my collection of.

 

[Dave]

Made sense for a double Live album to recapitulate this group's career--and following Tusk w/ a double-Live was a great move, if for no other reason than to absorb the effort made on its predecessor, which as we've stated, amounted to much indulgence... ("over"-indulgence, even!)

The reason for the over-play that Rumous got (I've had the T-Shirt but other than a '45' here and there, never bothered w/ the actual album; and turned down many a chance) on every station, from classic rock radio, to MOR could have just been the deliberately commercial sound that the band invested in each of the songs (it was their Dark Side Of The Moon) and don't the behind-the-scenes liasons w/ one-another seem to haunt the band members enough, that there could have been a playful tag that DJ's seem to endlessly trade on, as this minor speculation, became interestingly and candidly public, although equally growing more moot over the years?

A follow-up to--well, all that--, that in Mirage, then put things at a more sensible pace... Showing much had been "corrected" over the years, in the case of Rumours, gave things a bit of a refreshening, if it followed Live, and of course, keeping the proceedings to one disc was almost everything Tusk should have been, even if retrenching to the decidedly commercial offerings, you then could easily point back to Rumours and efforts which were its predecessors, such as Mystery To Me and perhaps, Bare Trees, though largely on a very updated scale...


-- Dave

 

[Mike Blakesley]

Wasn't the Fleetwood Mac Live 2-LP released just after Tusk? If so, I would think any live tracks on that new set might be the same tracks, or at least from the same tour but from different nights.

That's correct. I think they must have recorded that whole tour, because tracks from different venues have shown up on the previous releases of the white FM album and Rumours. I don't have the Live album on CD but I seem to remember the LP liner notes listing a different venue for almost every song.

Some of those live tracks are pretty rough, especially Stevie's -- she was starting to skip the high notes on "Rhiannon" during that tour.

The only things I have pre-Buckingham/Nicks era are a 2-LP set of the early years, and Mystery To Me. (I like some of that album--it has some good tracks on it!)

The early albums were all pretty good in their own way. The earliest one I have is Future Games, which was the first one to have Christine as a fulltime member. Some of the songs on that tend to be too long -- they were like a blues-jamming pop band at that point. They really hit their stride with the next one, Bare Trees, which contains some great Danny Kirwan tracks and also has Christine's "Spare Me A Little of Your Love" and Bob Welch's later-hit "Sentimental Lady" (by far a better version than his solo version). There are excellent tunes in all the subsequent LPs up until the self-titled album.

 

[Rudy]

I have a version of "Oh Well" by the Rockets which is more of a straight-ahead rock version, which is my favorite. Not quite as weird as the FM version. The new issue of Tusk comes with a live version of that tune which I'm anxious to check out.

I was just skimming down the track listing. 5 CDs. The first is the album. Disc 2 has five single remixes/edits, and then the rest of Disc 2, and all of Disc 3, are studio outtakes. Discs 4 and 5 are the live recordings, the bulk from Wembley with a few thrown in from Tucson, St. Louis and Omaha. Not sure if they'd be redundant with the Live album but I see no repeats among the two discs.

Christine's solo album from the mid 80s was pretty good also. I need to play that one soon--it's been years.

 

[jfiedler17]

Yeah, I like that solo album of Christine's. It's been somewhat forgotten over the years - I can't remember the last time I heard anything from it on the radio, anyway - but it had a great supporting cast (Fleetwood & Buckingham, Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, etc.) and a pretty excellent group of songs. "Got a Hold on Me," of course, is a pretty top-notch single, and why "Love Will Show Us How" didn't chart higher than it did, I'm not quite sure; I like that song every bit as much.

The Rockets actually fared much better with "Oh Well" than Fleetwood Mac did (at least in the U.S. - the Fleetwood Mac original stopped at #55 whereas the Rockets' remake managed to crack the Top 40), but their version's also much more radio-friendly. Fleetwood Mac's version - especially in its full-length form - is admittedly pretty weird. (That full-length version sounds like two separate songs that don't really logically fit together.)

I've always been a bit befuddled by the way Warner Bros. has overlooked that earlier part of the Fleetwood Mac catalog it has the rights to (basically everything from Then Play On to Heroes Are Hard to Find). None of the greatest hits packages that Warner has ever put together has bothered to include anything from any of the pre-Buckingham Nicks lineups, not even "Oh Well" (which, as I said, did still manage to get to #55 in the U.S. and earn them their first American chart placement on the singles charts) or "Hypnotized," which got quite a bit of FM play in its time, or the original version of "Sentimental Lady," which was ultimately a Top Ten hit when Welch re-recorded it for French Kiss. It may just be the case that they think the tracks might not blend in well with the band's later material and excluded them for that reason, but you would think they might've been tempted at some point (especially after Bob Welch passed away a few years back) to put a compilation together covering that 1969-1974 period to give people a sampler of the band's earlier records and perhaps entice them into checking out and picking up those earlier studio albums. Go figure. I myself quite like most of those '69-'74 albums. Mystery to Me is my favorite in the bunch ["Hypnotized" is naturally the highlight - such an underrated record - but there's no shortage of great cuts on there, especially "Emerald Eyes," "Forever" (love that bass riff), "Believe Me," and "Miles Away"] with Bare Trees a close second [even the instrumental interlude "Sunny Side of Heaven" is a real winner.]

I agree with Mike's sentiment that they should do "Hypnotized" in concert, but as far as I'm aware, the band's never done any of Welch's songs in concert since he left the group. [Although they did continue for several years after Buckingham and Nicks joined the group to play some of Christine's '70-'74 material as part of their live sets, and they did revive a couple of Peter Green songs with Lindsey taking over the lead vocal. ("Oh Well" actually remained a frequent part of their live shows all the way through the '80s, even during the short-lived Burnette/Vito lineup.)] Bob Welch did continue to collaborate, though - both onstage and in the studio - with Fleetwood Mac for many years after he left the group (Mick Fleetwood was even Welch's business manager for much of his solo career, actually), and there's a very cool concert video called "Bob Welch & Friends: Live at the Roxy" that was recorded in '82 that features Welch playing a full show alongside quite a few special guests, including most of the then-current Fleetwood Mac lineup, and they naturally break out both "Sentimental Lady" and "Hypnotized" during the show. (Christine and Stevie also get turns at the mike, getting to play "Believe Me" and "Gold Dust Woman," respectively, with Welch.) It's a very fun concert film to watch.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

None of the greatest hits packages that Warner has ever put together has bothered to include anything from any of the pre-Buckingham Nicks lineups,

There is the now-out-of-print 25 Years: The Chain box set which gives a too-brief nod to that era. It includes "Albatross" and "Hypnotized" and few other earlier tracks. But they are a group that really deserves three box sets, one each for the "blues years," the "pre-Stevie/Lindsey pop years" and the "smooth L.A. pop years!" If only box sets weren't basically dead...

"Hypnotized" is naturally the highlight - such an underrated record - but there's no shortage of great cuts on there

I think the whole side 1 of that album is dynamite. "Emerald Eyes," "Believe Me," "Just Crazy Love," "Hypnotized," "Forever," "Keep On Going." Not a bad one in the bunch. The last three songs, in particular, just a great one-two-three punch. Side 2 is weaker, but "The Way I Feel" is one of Christine's best ballads. It's not quite the level of "Songbird" but it's close.

 

[Rudy]

The sad part about marketing is that in order to sell compilations and box sets, they have to load it up with the hits. I don't think anyone would buy a 3-disc set where they didn't know anything on the first two discs. Not that diehard fans don't appreciate the effort, but to move volume and make releasing a set worthwhile, they have to get the "average Fleetwood Mac fan" (meaning, anyone who never knew they existed until Buckingham and Nicks joined up) to buy it. I agree that they could use a separate anthology for each of those eras, and to be honest, I would probably buy those just to get an introduction to it.

Yet, they will release a set with two discs of outtakes that most listeners will play once, if that.

 

[lj]

The title track Tusk is truly a classic. Exciting and hypnotic. Truly a stroke of genius to include the Trojan Marching Band. The band really nailed it. Someone once asked the late jazz great Woody Herman, when will the big bands come back? He said they come back every fall at halftime!