Behind The Mask
 

I have read that Lindsey cringes at the mention of this album but I gotta be honest, I have always loved it. Given that Chris and Stevie are on there, I sorta viewed it as it's on project away from MAC.


There are some great songs on it and it captures that FM mystique alittle.


When I listen to it now, it's sort of nostalgic.

I think Lindsey probably meant the TIME album, not Behind the Mask.

oh, well in that case--the comment was warranted! haha

Actually, it's my nature to see the positive in everything and I'll say that although TIME didn't flow well, it had some redeeming songs.


I wished WOC had been recorded by Stevie, the song woulda been letter perfect for her although she didn't write it.

No, he cringes at both. Actually, with TIME, he thought the band had some potential. Lindsey was a fan of Dave Mason, and was more than aware of Bekka Bramlett's potential. Then again, Lindsey talks out of both sides of his ass, so who knows. Pretty much across the board, Lindsey feels that anything he's not on is inferior.

But he was on BTM, he played on the song BTM.
It was him, he made the entire album work.

The only thing he's ever said about it, to my knowledge, is that it's "generic." And in terms of the formalistic elements (sound construction, arrangements, etc.), many people feel he was right. Lindsey respects & responds to a certain amount of weirdness in conception & execution, & one would be hard-pressed to identify any weirdness (what Rolling Stone once called "pop rococo" -- quick! Google it!) in MASK. That's what he meant by "generic."

My guess is that, if he thought the TIME project had any potential, it was owing to the fact that Dashut was involved (along with the three Brits, of course).

Find the exact quote & let's examine that putative admiration again. Let's try to put it into some sort of believable context (for example, Lindsey liked a very old Mason album that predated TIME by about 20 years).

Did I miss something, or are you conjecturing?

Well, yeah, he does that. But after all these years, you (of all people) should by now have a pretty good idea of what sort of music & production he gravitates toward.

Yeah, I love the album too, although I am not too fond of Rick Vito's country songs.....But Stevie is great. :nod:

I would be shocked if he didn't like In the Back of My Mind. It sounds like a distant cousin of Tusk...:shrug:

I like the songs that were put on 25 years The Chain, and Skies the Limit.
The rest is just...bleh to me.
Stand on the Rock is the biggest 'wtf' moment for me...
I just don't like Rick and Billy though.

Well, does the fact that he played on her song indicate any type of support?

Michele

Hanging out a bit with old friends? A gesture (a cameo with one's old band isn't exactly unheard of in the record business)? It seems to me that more is often made of these guest shots than they sometimes warrant. Like a million other people, Lindsey has laid down some guitar tracks for dozens of acts. I don't think it always means that he has deep musical admiration for all those acts -- maybe he did, I don't know. But I think it's generally more casual than that. Did he love Dream Academy? Josie Cotton? Does anyone think Stevie Nicks has given that red-haired nobody she once sang a song with a second thought since then? Steve said Lindsey was aware of Bekka's potential. What does that mean? Potential for what? I thought Lindsey might have mentioned Bekka in some old interview that I don't remember seeing.

I'd be shocked if he did. My hunch is that he considered it (if he heard it at all) ponderous & art-rocky. But we could always ask him about it for the next YouTube Ask Lindsey! ;)

Yes, STAND ON THE ROCK is cheap cock-rock. It's designed for people who order chili dogs at the monster truck rally, except that they'd probably rather hear Bon Jovi or Whitesnake. When Ratt writes a catchier hook (ROUND & ROUND) than Fleetwood Mac, trouble is afoot.

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/...4429/mac_daddy

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http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/articles/FMart110.html

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http://www.nicksfix.com/sfchronicle1.htm

what did you mean? the entire album work? He just played a part on the song BTM.

I could be wrong, but I suspect that was sarcasm...

It was.
Sorry for the confusion. I should take greater care in posting.

You should.
















:D

judging by his latest effort... boring music...

What?! No way. As far as Behind The Mask goes, it's one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac albums and the BTM lineup might be my favorite of all the Fleetwood Mac lineups. In my view, Christine's songs are some of her best ever and they collectively might be the strongest she has on any Mac album. Billy's songs are top notch too, in particular Hard Feelings which is among my all time favorites. I think Rick got the short end of the stick with Walk Another Mile and Got No Home not getting on the album. Stevie's would have been better off not even been on the album since Freedom is the only song that's worth listening to, which is another one of my all time favorites.

Matt

I love behind the mask... I was talking about Under the Skin... I heard some of the demo's and Bsides that chili gave me and a long time ago.. and loved it even more...

But an album is more than the songs, is it not?

That is indeed my problem with Say You Will... and somewhat Behind the Mask... although BTM has more of a band feel to it...

Some of the songs are good... but neither feel like an album....

Now Mirage.. .that feels like an album... felt like Christine and Lindsey really worked a lot on the arrangements together.... Tango too...

I'm not really a fan of the music on Behind the Mask, the only Mac album I refuse to buy. I love Save Me--and that's it. The rest seems to me, in Lindsey's word, generic. It was a real come down for me when I first heard this. I felt deflated. The band was certainly working as a unit here, but to me the ideas were tired, the production too glossy, and the magic was gone.

On the other hand, Say You Will has a number of strong songs and fine performances but--as mentioned by jbrownsjr--it feels more like a set of loosely assembled songs than a coherent album.

By the way, I have always preferred Time to BTM. Though I hate Dave Mason's two songs, the rest of Time is well produced and performed.

Well, I love BTW and SYW! Mask will always be one of my favourite Fleetwood Mac albums. Don't ask me why - but I love it. As far as 'Time'...well, for me, that might as well not have been recorded. I have it, but I don't listen to it. SYW, imo, would've worked better as a Lindsey solo album and a Stevie solo album. I have made a Stevie solo album out of her SYW tracks and a few others:

My Heart
Illume
Thrown Down (Wall of Sound mix)
If You Ever Did Believe
Crystal (solo)
Say You Will
Smile At You
Running Through The Garden
Silver Girl
Everybody Finds Out
Not Make Believe
Destiny Rules
Goodbye Baby

Try it. It works so much better.

How do you feel about Dave Mason's solo material overall?

And, if you listen to Dave Mason, you'll see that the material he's written through the years is pretty much the SAME in 1994 as it was in 1970 (or earlier). And, the fact that the two biggest hits we performed were songs written by someone else ("All Along The Watchtower" by Bob Dylan via Jimi Hendrix; and "We Just Disagree" by his bandmate Jim Kreuger)...his actual biggest hits were hits by other people covering his songs: "Feelin' Alright" by Joe Cocker and "Only You Know & I Know" by Delaney & Bonnie And Friends.

If you listen to Dave's own albums, his two songs on Time aren't radically different from his previous material in the least...and one song ("I Wonder Why") lyrically, quotes quite a few earlier Dave Mason songs. Either of those two could've fit comfortably on ANY Dave Mason album.

I think that Dave's writing always had a trite quality to his lyrics (same goes for Christine, BTW), but he was able to pull them off much better during the Traffic/Alone Together era. After that, it was really hit or miss. Sometimes there were wonderful songs, other times the lyrics could get painful. I think my biggest objection to his Time songs is that he seemed to focus more on being a hard rocker than the AOR legend he had once been. Now, I loved the Soccer Rocks The Globe version of Blow By Blow. That WAS classic Dave Mason. But then they decided to make it hard rocker, and it just didn't work.

Behind the Mask is one of my favorite Mac albums. Christine shines, Billy is a more than adequate replacement for Lindsay, and you can tell Stevie worked hard on this album, probably as a way of showing Lindsay the band could make a good album without him. I was disappointed Save Me and Skies the Limit didn't do better on the Billboard chart. Compared to Say You Will, BTM is a masterpiece. And I like Say You Will overall, but it's not cohesive.