The Problem with "Time"

[TrueFaith77]

The Rumours phenomenon was very much connected to its innovativeness. Here was this album, full of songs that were designed to stand alone, to be HITS, potential singles, perfect little units. Yet, here was this album -- a proverbial dessert platter -- that actually ended up telling a story: it's a collection of love songs sung to each other. It subverted the merely commercial dictates of the record medium. in that way, its title reflects how the album exemplifed the ways that vernacular culture (and its truths) enter the mass-production mainstream ("run in the shadows!"). I think that makes it a mighty achievement. In other words, the dictates of capitalism are subverted by the meaning-making of the band's use of the album medium.

I'm not sure how well I articulated all that.

Anyway, the challenge with an album like Mirage is that its themes are less concrete; it really does play like a dessert platter of perfectly constructed ditties. But each of the artists (even when making songs about each other, as with "Gypsy") seems disconnected in artistic pursuit and thematic concerns (Tusk is a complex matter for another day). I don't think that that sense of cohesion returned (entirely) to the Mac after Tusk until Say You Will -- the sound of which may have been primarily dictated by Lindsey, but the meaning derives from Stevie's belief that 9/11 changed everything.

And I'm not sure how to approach or define the thematic, artistic unity of early Mac. Green and Spencer shared a sense of spiritual crisis, for example.

I think Mick's LOVE subtly unites the farewell of Christine, the youthful hopefulness of Billy/Bekka's musical chemistry, the rugged perserverance of Dave Mason on Time.