Quote:
Originally posted by Les
Thanks for the review. I'm looking forward to this. David, have you gotten yours yet? Thoughts?
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I just talked to some friends at work, where I had my copy of "Tusk" shipped. They said it arrived yesterday, but since I've been out sick with a sunburn for two days, I won't get to hear it until tomorrow.
I was telling somebody on the mail list I'm on that, as far as these Fleetwood Mac cover projects go, I like them when they're quirky & charismatic & even subversive; I don't want to hear somebody try to be Fleetwood Mac any more because I've heard a lot of people try to do that & none of them has succeeded. So the next best thing is to bring a sense of tribute to your cover through your idiosyncrasies & your savvy. When Elton John puts together a turgid, synthesizer-filled mess & calls it "Don't Stop," that's not a tribute to anything but Elton John's inchoate & inaccurate sense of who Fleetwood Mac is. He comes across as a boob -- the Ed McMahon of rock -- for all the lack of conviction & personality in his "Don't Stop."
I'm bound to enjoy this CVB project because there's a genuine tribute in their subversive approach: it doesn't reek of corporate-think & record company corruption. However, bands who set out to subvert Fleetwood Mac & simultaneously pay homage to the original's style run the risk of losing listeners' benevolence if their musicianship is wretched. That's the only problem with the "Patron Saints of Pop" project a few years ago: the level of musicianship on some of the tracks was far below the level needed to carry out avant-garde musical ideas. There was just an almost total lack of technique on some of those covers (like Jumbo's "Tusk") & the cacophany a band like Jumbo created made you aware only of their amateurishness instead of their creativity. The technique has to be there in order to make any sort of statement or create any sort of lasting vibe. Lindsey isn't great because he banged on a box of Kleenex; he's great because he created something stark & unusual & interesting by banging on the Kleenex box & because his subversive idea contained all his frustration & disgust with conventional music-making, which had a stranglehold on pop.