Tusk at 40: FM's defining record

[tabruns]

Just read GET TUSKED.

Interesting to get an inside view of how that album went down. Buckingham going back and forth between wanting to do his own thing and then back to a more band approach and back again was interesting.

Also Caillat saying at one point they had at least four tracked songs from each of the songwriters and they could have stopped there with a single album and more balanced input from each. I've always wondered what songs Mac would have gone with, had they decided TUSK was going to be a single album.

Apparently part of the reason Nicks has fewer songs on the album is because Buckingham wasn't interested in working on some of them ("The Dealer" presented as an example).

Other bits:

McVie thinking "Honey Hi" could be a hit. Also thinking "Storms" sounded "dodgy" when she first heard it.

"What Makes You Think You're The One" was a lyrical and musical slam on Nicks, down to Buckingham deliberately playing simplistic piano and doing a vibrato with his voice.

Caillat apparently thinking that several of Buckingham's songs would have sounded amazing if Buckingham hadn't insisted on "do everything 180 from where it should be".

J. McVie saying "Never Forget" "sounded awful" when they first worked on it.

Caillat's implied criticism that as the album grew into a double it skewed towards Buckingham, noting that none of Buckingham's songs were rejected, 1 of McVie's was (wonder what song that is?), and multiple Nicks songs were.

Combination of "TUSK actually sold well" and "here's why TUSK didn't sell well" presented: TUSK has sold 6.6 million and if you add in singles and "other formats" (?) sales are 9.2 million. Reasons/excuses why it didn't - Pushed out by Warners as a way too expensive double album; album played over the radio in its entirety before release; left-turn musically too much for some fans.

Overall I was surprised that the band comes off as more productive than has generally been understood, at least when they'd get down to tracking a particular song. I also thought there'd have been more in-studio viciousness presented than there was - but maybe Caillat just didn't dwell on that.