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Old 11-12-2019, 01:25 PM
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Originally Posted by David View Post
In formalistic terms, is Tusk completely successful — does it achieve or even exceed all its aesthetic goals? Or does its greatness lie at least in part in its folly: in its excesses, its miscalculations, its exhausting grandeur? (The critics at the time hinted at this by comparing it, as you know, to the Beatles’ fractious 1968 studio album The Beatles.)

To me, the link between form and content in Rumours seems insoluble. There is no loose formalistic thread whose teensy bit of unraveling subverts the album’s content. Even the botched production treatment of “Songbird” doesn’t undercut any of the album’s statements (I say it’s botched because, taken by itself, it sticks out sonically like a sore thumb — it lacks the tight compression of the hermetic studio environment and the Appalachian mountain music alchemy of the multitracking, yet it’s still weirdly and entirely of a piece with the rest of the album).

But in Tusk there’s a distracting tension between the work itself and the maze of incompatibilities feeding our aural, visual, and intellectual sensibilities (most often attributed to the differences among the three writers and their aging voices). Does the album’s greatness as a cultural artifact lie in its boastful display of incommensurates? Tusk feels like a folly — many of rock’s most influential works are glorious follies that push the borders of the art outward. And should “Not That Funny” have been . . . well, funnier?

Say, this is fun!
True, dat, as the kids [used to] say.

Rumours achieves a remarkable coherence through synthesis. The various parts come together. And yes, "Songbird" is sonically different from all the rest, but its placement directly after the album's most raucous, bombastic moment feels deliberate...

By contrast, Tusk achieves fragmentation through fragmentation. The various parts are adjacent but not in conversation. The result is one jarring juxtaposition after another, the story of how these five very different people, and specifically the three songwriters DON'T organically fit together. THIS is Tusk's aesthetic goal. The result is fascinating and, oddly, enduring.

Contemporary reviewers noted similarities with the Beatles White Album but were often careful enough to recognize Tusk was lyrically superficial by comparison. On the other hand, the individual writers on the double Beatles album manage to forge a unified sound--one that is grungier, simpler, and spacier than their previous masterwork. With Tusk, you have different sonic approaches: proto-punk bathroom concoctions; Brian Wilson tributes; L.A. studio sophistication worthy of Steely Dan. It's all over the place...And I love it because of this.
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