I don't know from "best," but my favorite for a long time has been "I Know I'm Not Wrong." For no other reason than that it's just damn fun (lyrics notwithstanding). Love the drum beat, love that cymbal crash, love the "horns" (I'm sure they're not horns, but I've got no idea what instrument is actually making those honking sounds - anyone?), and love the way the "horns" give way to that great guitar coda. All of Lindsey's vocal manipulations and harmonizing with himself are also fantastic here.; that's really my favorite aspect of his music from this period.
Close seconds: Actually, if I start listing any, I'll end up listing 3/4 of the album.
I think one of the great accomplishments of the Tusk album is its deliberately disjointed nature. If the production of Rumours was all about taking the works of three decidedly different songwriters and giving them a single, unifying "edgy California pop" aesthetic, then it seems as though on Tusk, Richard/Ken/Lindsey set about purposefully fashioning three very different and distinct aesthetics for each of the three songwriters, and then mashing them all together. So you get "Over And Over" segueing into "The Ledge," "What Makes You Think You're The One" into "Storms," "Honey Hi" into "Beautiful Child," and on and on. You could separate the album into three EPs - one each for Lindsey, Stevie and Christine - that all sound like unified wholes, but it's the jagged contrasts of throwing all those songs and voices up against each other that makes Tusk such a masterpiece.
|