Rank the top 5 music videos
 

My ranking is based on the over all feel and visual.

1. Seven Wonders
2. Gypsy
3. Hold Me
4. Little Lies
5. Big Love

Gypsy- it's like a movie, and they all look so great.

Little Lies- again, they all look so great, and extra points for the way it seems to foreshadow Lindsey's departure. I also love the way they show the members in various groupings (Lindsey and Christine, John and Stevie, etc)

As Long As You Follow- again, they look so classy. Plus I love the plot, though I don't know that I completely understand it LOL!

Big Love- crazy mind trip.

Gypsy - its like a classic black and white movie
Skies the limit - love the live clips
As Long as you follow - love the romance and the snow falling outside
Hold Me - love finding all the guitars in the desert. Chris and Stevie are so hot in this video
Save Me - love the tribal theme and Stevie's big cross necklace

Love will show us how is still my all time favorite video of the band including solo work

1. Little Lies - If it weren't for the video, I probably wouldn't have become a fan.
2. Big Love
3. Gypsy
4. Hold Me
5. Seven Wonders

This band only has about 5 videos to begin with. :laugh:

1. Little Lies
2. Gypsy
3. Big Love
4. Everywhere
5. Hold Me

Going out on a limb and guessing “In The Back Of My Mind” won’t be getting any love.

:laugh: :lol: That one looks like it was made In The Back Of My Garage.

The video for Paper Doll is a shambles as well--fancy re-using Rumours era videos like that! And Stevie clearly wanted nothing to do with it.

1) Gypsy
2) Hold Me
3) Big Love
4) Little Lies
5) As Long as You Follow

Worth a mention: Love Shines, Tusk

A little off topic but I have always wondered why MTV never aired the Everywhere and As Long as You Follow video.
Everywhere was a big hit and I used to watch MTV expecting to see a video from the song. I never thought there was a video until not that long ago when I saw it on YouTube. Back in 1988 VH1 played soft rock, classics, and adult contemporary songs and played As Long As You Follow in heavy rotation. However, MTV never played the video. I always wondered why this was the case. I would watch all day and record on VCR and the videos never aired.

Big Love is really quite impressive. Gypsy is nice because it's a big budget video, the "oh, we tell a story in a song" type, but it doesn't have the "wow" factor of Big Love. Perhaps the best video any of them has done is Christine McVie's Love Will Show Us How, which features b-movie artist Paul Bartel and is a genuinely funny send-up of music videos—much different than the way Big Love's surprising structure and effects really enhance the song experience—but definitely smart and silly and came in the first three years of MTV, to boot!

Stevie Nicks looks great in that red dress in the desert and the Surrealist stuff is great in Hold Me, too (smashing the mirror, the Magritte paintings). Other than those examples most of the videos from any of them are pretty "basic"... LB's Trouble is interesting in the way they use all the people do imitate a video special effect and then it's also this big party of associated musicians. And of course SN on the treadmill is "iconic" but, like, you know, it looked kind of ridiculous 35 year ago LOL... SN's commentary on her videos is great! Hilarious!!

Gypsy

Hold Me

Tusk

Love Shines

Big Love

Stevie’s commentary is hilarious. My favorite is If Anyone Falls when she says “...my friend Sandy Stewart, because we wanted her to be in it. Oh, she actually wrote half the song, that’s why she’s in it!”

Gypsy

Little Lies

As Long As You Follow

Hold Me

Seven Wonders

Wow, never knew there was a video for Paper Doll.

That part's a riot! And I LOVE when she says "don't take my baby" during Rooms on Fire...

That part's a riot! And I LOVE when she says "don't take my baby" during Rooms on Fire...

Gypsy
As long as you follow
Tusk
Seven wonders
Big love

Hold Me
Big Love
Little Lies
Seven Wonders
As Long As You Follow
Love Shines
Gypsy
Sara (live)

Top Five:

1.) As Long As You Follow

2.) Gypsy

3.) Seven Wonders

4.) Big Love

5.) Little Lies

The Rest:

6.) Save Me
7.) Hold Me
8.) Skies The Limit
9.) Sara
10.) Love Shines
11.) Tusk

Anything else is probably best left unmentioned... ;)

1. Gypsy (absolutely epic)

2. Hold Me (clever and funny; Stevie is gorgeous)

3. Little Lies (interesting visually and effectively creates a mood)

4. Seven Wonders (it's not as good as anything above it, that's for sure, but I prefer it to Big Love. I know that's an unpopular opinion so I'll explain: It doesn't weird me out like Big Love with its bad special effects; plus, they look good in this one unlike Big Love where everyone looking awful; finally, this has a couple Stevie/Lindsey moments whereas Big Love just has weird brunette girl doing "oooh ahhhh" across from Lindsey)

5. Big Love (it's not as good as anything above it, but not as bad as the others that didn't make the list)

Does anyone know where the Little Lies video was filmed?

I just realized that although I always assumed it was the English countryside for some reason, it would make more sense if it was somewhere in the US.

Amish country?? :laugh:

It's not an "official" video, but my #1 is this live one of "Everywhere" from 1987:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KrfOspHdVM

Then, filling out the rest of my top 5:

2. "Skies The Limit"
3. "Little Lies"
4. "Hold Me"
5. "Seven Wonders"

Top two
 

Being of the early MTV era, Hold Me is the one that made me wonder who the band was and Gypsy was the one that galvanized my fandom.

"Sara" Video
 

Is this the studio version or a live version?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bWGy0K5VF0

That is definitely a live version.

Thanks.

With Tusk I really think they chose the wrong songs for singles.

"Angel" "Sisters Of The Moon" "Over & Over" and maybe "Walk A Thin Line" would have been my choices.

One thing's for sure: There is no "Dreams" or "Go Your Own Way" on the album, so under no circumstances would it have sold anywhere near what Rumours did.

Sara was a big hit and still has legs in pop music. Great single choice. Same with the title track, Tusk.
Sisters of the Moon was a single (wouldn't be my choice though).

But this thread is about videos. Is that what you meant?

No, I was getting off the topic a bit after watching the "Sara" video.

Yes "Sara" was a hit, and it's a good enough song that I can see why they chose it as a single. Still wouldn't have been my choice for one. It lacks a dynamic hook from verse to chorus.

I've never been a fan of the song "Tusk," and really don't get how it became a hit. Produced for radio, I think "Over & Over" would have been a bigger one. "Sisters Of The Moon" needed ballsier production to be a hit, but would have been one – and, man, what a great song.

Hold Me. The Magritte stuff is pretty clever, and I still get a kick out of it.
Gypsy. The production got too big for that director to manage, and continuity and other mistakes abound (like the street choreography, which possibly wasn't rehearsed sufficiently). But the combining of multiple sets with such variety (the Nicks boudoir in gauzy soft focus, the Forgotten Man and soup line themes in the black and white sections, and the saturated Technicolor cloning of Arthur Freed musicals in Stevie Fantasy-land) still appeals.
Tusk. Just some casual footage from Dodger Stadium in June 1979 with Fleetwood Mac all looking trim, tan, and healthy is all that song needed.
Love Shines. Billy, Chris, Mick, and John in a "natural" street setting. It works for me.
Big Love. Has some dumb things in it—like Stevie swooshing her skirt the entire time and the others doing an awful job of lip syncing (they all usually did)—but it's kind of clever to throw everything into reverse with perfect timing. It feels like a refreshing plunge down Splash Mountain. Kimberly Crest always makes for a great set, too, even though it was someone's harebrained idea to film only at night.
Little Lies. It's only moving in retrospect. But if Lindsey hadn't left that summer, I wouldn't think the video was anything particularly compelling.

I agree that no song on the album was a good "clear cut single". Most of the songs on there just aren't radio songs, they lack the musical/lyrical/structural hooks that you'd need to be a successful hit/proper ear-worm.

That being said, I completely agree with their choices for singles.

Of Lindsey's songs, "Tusk" was probably the best choice. His songs on the album have such "out-there" music and his vocals take some getting used to. He definitely is not as easy to listen to on Tusk as he was on anything before with his strange yelping-whispering vocals. "Tusk" has these issues as well but they are not the focus, they instead take a backseat to that absolutely INFECTIOUS beat. From that standpoint, it was a good way of forcing listeners to get used to his style with a catchy number. I think "Walk a Thin Line" and "That's Enough For Me", and all the others would have done HORRIBLE because of how much emphasis they place on his strange vocals and production. If they come up in my rotation, most of my friends request they be skipped while saying "what was that crap?".

Christine's songs have the issue of being too alternately too light or too heavy in tone. "Honey Hi" is beautiful, but it was destined to be an album track. It's so fluffy it'd drown your ears in sugar. "Brown Eyes" has the same issue on the other side of the tonal spectrum, there's not enough to it. "Never Forget" is similar in a much more muted way. It would not have been a BAD choice for a single, but there's not enough of a hook to the lyrics or the music to make it especially memorable (though it is the perfect closer). "Over and Over" and "Never Make My Cry" are so dour and draggy on initial listen that they are practically inaccessible. "Think About Me" is the clear choice as it's her catchiest and ballsiest number on the album, even if it has issues that justify it not being a smash hit upon release. The interplay between Chris and Lindsey (which I normally love) took some time for me to warm up to personally and the guitar is pretty harsh to the ears.

Stevie's songs are dense as hell on this album. "Sisters of the Moon" is one of my favorite songs of hers but I cannot understand why it was chosen as a single. It's long, intense, has completely thick/un-relateable lyrics, and no chorus, just a memorable guitar riff and bassline. It's also mixed strangley with her vocals behind the music. "Angel" has some similar problems. It has kind of a fun beat but it's long, the lyrics are still thick af, and the chorus really isn't as catchy as it should be upon initial listen. It's a good song but it won't have you humming to it anytime soon. "Storms" and "Beautiful Child" are GORGEOUS and are RIPE with emotion, but they're also a little intense for radio in 1979. The sparse musical arrangement/lyrics on BC and the thick atmosphere/lyrics on "Storms" don't help either. "Landslide", while overplayed, makes for a better radio song IMO since it strikes a good balance between personal/relateable lyrics, touching vocals, and a more memorable musical accompaniment. "Sara" is not the perfect single either. The lyrics are as thick and barely relateable as any of her other songs, but the beat is practically hypnotic, the vocals are fantastic, and it really builds to a head by the end. Of her songs, it made the most sense.

(For the record, I LOVE most of Tusk, but it took me a while to be able to wade through it all to discover it's beauty, which is the basis of why I think that most of the songs are bad singles. It's amazing that "Tusk", "Sara", and "Think About Me" did as well as they did).

Hold Me video is the best.

Gypsy is a great video, but it should have featured the other band members more. There should have been more shots and scenes of Lindsey, Christine, John, and Mick.

I love the videos for Little Lies, Seven Wonders, and Big Love. They did a great job with the videos of each of the writers’ songs.

I'd never really noticed it before, but I love how in the Hold Me video Lindsey is trying to paint glamorous Stevie but can't put brush to canvas and just gives up; meanwhile Stevie is preening herself and doesn't realize that nobody's watching her anymore; then she ends up coming over to the canvas and painting herself.

How prescient. :nod:

1. Gypsy
2. Little Lies
3. Seven Wonders
4. Big Love
5. Hold Me