Fleetwood Mac Press & Clippings

[nicole21290]

PEOPLE. November 26, 1979

[nicole21290]

OAKLAND TRIBUNE. December 17th, 1979.



ROLLING STONE. October 30th, 1980.



UNICORN TIMES. November 1979.

[johnnystorms]

I'd LOVE to read that Unicorn Times article, but the clips are so truncated I can't make much sense of it. Thanks for turning me on to it , though.

[nicole21290]

Originally Posted by johnnystorms

I'd LOVE to read that Unicorn Times article, but the clips are so truncated I can't make much sense of it. Thanks for turning me on to it , though.

I've joined the pieces together for you, so hopefully that will help. It was too large to upload in the usual place (which is why I cut it in the first place) so here you go. Warning: it's VERY VERY big. http://i.imgur.com/TtWjSUW.jpg And a much smaller version: http://i.imgur.com/TtWjSUWh.jpg

And I've just typed it as well, in case the former method doesn't work sufficiently.

-

As we enter the ‘80s, one of the most important cultural questions is whether or not the best rock’n’roll can still be the most popular. Is there any chance that good music will once again be the magnet to draw large numbers into an alternative lifestyle? Or has the music industry - from the conglomerate-owned record companies through the tight turnover record stores - finally got an unbreakable grip on pop music? Has pop music gone the way of lowest denominator television?

If you got to a party and your loose-mouthed date lets it out that you’re a music critic, people will place the name. The average, casual listener will ask, “Hey, how can you put down Led Zeppelin when so many people like their records?” The fanatic specialist will ask you, “Man, how can you like the Rolling Stones when they’ve sold out to disco?”

The first questioner is one of those Nielsen-ratings populists; if lots of people like a record, it must be good. Unless the questioner is a total cretin, a quick analogy to Charlie’s Angels or the 1972 presidential campaign usually takes care of that argument. But the second questioner often belongs to a growing group of thoughtful people. They really believe that the American music industry has grown so corrupt that truly original music will never make it to the top of the charts any more.

Such a belief surrenders a key part of rock’n’roll. Rock and movies have been key American art forms because they were democratic art for the masses, proof that good art didn’t have to be elitist and proof that art could inspire broadly and deeply at the same time. A belief that top 10 pop and great rock’n’roll are now incompatible sentences rock to the fate of modern jazz - a great music that has no chance of major social impact.

I’m not ready for that pessimistic view yet. I still believe that not only can great musicians become popular, but popular musicians can become great. Great performers like Dylan and Hendrix forced their way into popularity, and so may Elvis Costello and Graham Parker eventually. Popular musicians like the Beach Boys and the Beatles pursued greatness after reaching the top, and so may Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Wonder.

In fact, I believe that a number of performers - Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, the Rolling Stones, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Funkadelic - have been combining aesthetics and popularity. The crucial challenge facing these and the other commercial superstars - Billy Joel, Heart, the Doobie Brothers, the Bee Gees, the Commodores, the Eagles, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin - is whether they will use their popularity to lead their audiences into more progressive music or to feed their listeners the narcotizing status quo.

Two new releases from two of the biggest groups offer two sharply divergent answers. Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk (Warner Brothers, 2HS 3350) is an ambitious risk that is bound to confuse snacked-out ears and delight hungry ones. The Eagles’ The Long Run (Asylum, 5E-508) is a tired defense of mellowness as a euphemism for mediocrity.

The current Fleetwood Mac is for all practical purposes a band that was founded in 1975. Tusk is only their third album. Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977) combined quality and popularity as no band had since the Beatles. Certainly no group since the Beatles could boast FM’s three songwriter depth. And no group in rock’n’roll has ever combined female and male sensibilities as well as Fleetwood Mac’s two women and three men have, a point ignored by most male critics. The British pub rockers like Costello and Parker form the vanguard of the blues tradition in rock’n’roll that runs through Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, John Lennon and the Rolling Stones. But Fleetwood Mac now forms the vanguard of the gospel harmony tradition that runs through the Drifters, Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and Paul McCartney. With Tusk, they push that tradition into a new territory of adult relationships and rhythms as harmonies.

Fleetwood Mac’s first two albums are easily compared to the uncomplicated joy of albums like Beatles ’65 and The Beach Boys Today. With its multiple image cover art and multiple texture songs, Tusk suddenly challenges the listener’s capacity to absorb and understand. Tusk represents as sharp a departure as Rubber Soul did for the Beatles

When you see Fleetwood Mac in concert, you notice how much rawer their sound is than on their single records. Mick Fleetwood is the most physical rock drummer since Keith Moon; you not only hear but feel his key accents. John McVie’s bass notes buzz and pop like short fuses. Lindsey Buckingham takes George Harrison’s understated guitar fill style to a level Harrison could never reach. Even Christine McVie’s rhythmical electric keyboard chords add a throbbing pulse to proceedings.

This strong instrumental presence is more present on Tusk. On almost every song, the drums and bass are mixed far above their usual level on pop records. The result is a sound more evenly divided among the quintet and thus a sound with more interaction. Buckingham’s overdubbed guitars are everywhere on the album. Buckingham’s skill and imagination rank him with Mark Knopfler as one of the freshest guitarists to emerge in recent years.

Buckingham’s “What Makes You Think You’re The One” opens with a trashy snare beat that gives way to a strong Fleetwood-McVie thrashing. Buckingham bleats out his challenge to self-absorbed individualism: “What makes you think you’re the one/That can laugh without crying…/That can live without dying/Everything little thing is here to see/Every little thing of you is more.”

One by one Buckingham’s intriguing guitar sounds climb on board. A synthesizer sounding like the bastard offspring of an accordion and clarinet picks up the bouncy Buddy Holly riff. The song ends in three voices scatting.

Buckingham again attacks “mature” detachment on “Not That Funny.” A punchy beat backs his Dylanesque gloating: It’s not that funny, is it?” A distorted guitar fuzzes up the bottom; electric piano highlights the top. Gradually all kinds of sounds are added: guitar like a siren; keyboards like a bagpipe; guitar like a calliope; keyboards like a harpsichord. The end recalls the tape reversal end of “Strawberry Fields,” only with a jumpier, happier personality.

Less experimental and more commercial is Christine McVie’s “Think About Me.” It has one of McVie’s typically catchy melodies and lusher harmonies than previously. But the bass and drums are mixed way up again, and Buckingham’s surly guitars are lurking just below the surface. Like all the songs on Tusk, this one takes a realistic look at love. McVie sings: “I don’t hold you down/And maybe that’s why you’re around.”

Just as the Beatles showed a certain courage in exposing their drug use and lifestyle changes, Fleetwood Mac betrayed a certain courage in exposing the painful romantic break-ups between Buckingham and Nicks and the two McVies. But they proved that ex-lovers can still have a productive relationship after the romance is over.

On Tusk, Stevie Nicks sings about the struggle to shed romantic love’s shackles on “Angel.” Nicks is as much a dramatist as she is a singer. She has a patented shudder that perfectly captures the shiver everyone feels in difficult situations. She captures both the tremble of fear and tensing of determination as she sings: “I try not to reach out/When you turn around to say hello/And we both pretend, no great pretenders/So I close my eyes softly/And become part of the wind/We all long for sometimes.”

The weakest moments on Tusk, however, are Nicks’. She only comes up with one strong melody, on “Beautiful Child.” But she manages to salvage most of the others with dramatic singing and intriguing lyrics. “Sara” is a strong affirmation of frienship between woman - “In the sea of love everyone would love to drown… If you build your house, please call me home” - a bulwark against romantic damage. It ends with a high scat solo by Nicks. “Sisters of the Moon” is an extension of the witch evocation of “Rhiannon.” “Beautiful Child” is a fascinating dream trip across generations.

Christine McVie has written the band’s biggest singles and here she writes the most commercial material. “Think About Me,” “Never Make Me Cry,” “Honey Hi” and “Never Forget” could all be hits. But now McVie has moved in ambitious directions. Recently married to Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, she pursues greater variety in the denser harmonies that marked the Beach Boys. The choir of voices on “Brown Eyes” all sound as if they had been blown in from a great distance. McVie herself holds each syllable of the enchanting theme tenderly and evenly. On “Never Make Me Cry,” she sings with serene confidence that she can love without getting trapped in romance. On “Honey Hit,” she proves how gorgeous a simple song can be, and then breaks it up into three over-lapping parts.

But the real triumph of the album belongs to Lindsey Buckingham. The album credit reads “Produced by Fleetwood Mac (special thanks to Lindsey Buckingham) with Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat.” Buckingham wrote 9 of the 20 songs on the album and had an obvious hand in roughing up the sound everywhere and multiplying the musical ingredients.

Buckingham wrote “Tusk,” a strange sound collage that was released as a deliberate provocation to waiting fans. It features a jungle drum solo mixed above chanting voices, howling wind sounds, a marching band, and random conversation.

“That’s All For Everyone,” by contrast, is a beautiful piece of refracted and diffused harmonies. Like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, this song takes a simple musical themes and shines it through a prism. Like waves lapping in over each other, the piano, xylophones, echoed lead vocal, congas hushed vowel choir and sparse guitar follow each other closely.

All in all, Tusk forces listeners to hear music as an exchange of sounds and to think of relationships as an exchange of perspectives. It cuts right across the grain of pop music’s current individualist stance, where one singer or instrumentalist dominates the song above the backing band while pouring out his or her own feelings with no pretense of hearing anyone else’s. Tusk is an album of dialogues and collaborations: lyrical, musical and otherwise.

[Macfan4life]

Thanks for posting these gems. Boy I wish I still had all my Mac stuff that I had as a teenager. I always liked the 1982 articles in Creem and Rolling Stone. The Rolling Stone "Happy at the top" article is pretty wild. I could never understand why it said that Stevie was not allowed to speak to Rolling Stone on the advice of her manager.
WTF?

[nicole21290]

SCENE. December 6-12, 1979.

[One line of text missing from between the two joined pages, sorry]



PR RELEASE. December 8, 1978.

[michelej1]

Sara is a strong affirmation of friendship between women.

These are great, Nicole. Thanks.

Michele

[nicole21290]

BILLBOARD.





MISC.





TIME. October 19, 1979.



UNKNOWN.





BILLBOARD. 1979.



UNKNOWN.

[nicole21290]

PRESS RELEASE. August 31, 1979.



PRESS RELEASE. January 11, 1980.



US. October 30, 1979.



LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER. September 2, 1980.

[nicole21290]

LA TIMES. September 2, 1980.



LIVE PHOTOS

[sanders8323]

It's funny how that Scene article mentions that the band did "Storms." I didn't think that was ever performed, not until the Unleashed tour in 2009. Perhaps they mistook that for Angel??

[Sanne2]

I love this old stuff, thanks for sharing!

[Montclare]

Thanks for these! I always wondered when the Tusk video was recorded;glad to have an answer!

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by nicole21290

BILLBOARD.





MISC.





TIME. October 19, 1979.



UNKNOWN.





BILLBOARD. 1979.



UNKNOWN.

The first "unknown" article appears to be the New York Times. Rockwell wrote for them, the font is their signature font, and the use of "Miss Nicks" "Miss McVie" and "Mr. Buckingham" is their traditional style.

Boy it's always interesting to see how so many of the male critics just never got or liked Stevie.

[nicole21290]

LOS ANGELES TIMES. 13th October, 1979.



LOS ANGELES TIMES. 2nd December, 1979.



WB PRESS RELEASE. Making of Tusk.