Greatest Hits Reviews

[michelej1]

[As more old news articles go digital, I want to post the ones that haven't been online before]

Dallas Morning News

January 8, 1989

Fleetwood Mac, Greatest Hits (Warner Bros.) -- For anyone with a sense of history, the title is patently misleading: Fleetwood Mac has been around, with various personnel, for two decades, but this album only contains hits after 1975, when singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks and guitarist-producer Lindsey Buckingham joined the group and, consequently, when Fleetwood Mac came into its own as a commercial heavyweight. So, from Rhiannon to You Make Loving Fun, all their best, bounciest hits are here, as well as two nondescript new songs, No Questions Asked and As Long as You Follow. Ultimately, you'd do better to buy the band's two best albums, Fleetwood Mac and Rumours.

[michelej1]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), December 9, 1988


Section: EVERYDAY

MAC IS BACK WITH GREATEST-HITS ALBUM
Steve Pick


WHEN Fleetwood Mac began making records more than 20 years ago, it featured a blues guitarist named Peter Green who could play rings around most of the better-known white blues guitarists of his day and another pretty good guitarist named Danny Kirwan, who served as a nice foil for Green.

That Fleetwood Mac - which, as always, included Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass - is well-documented on a great two-record import set titled "The Collection," which is pretty easy to find in stores.

After Green and Kirwan left, the band shifted to a slick rock mode, with Bob Welch and sometimes Christine McVie the focus of attention on vocals. That version of Fleetwood Mac had its moments, but you have to seek them out on the individual albums, because no compilation has surfaced, nor is one likely.

Welch left, Christine McVie stayed and two new singers, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, joined her, shifting the music to a distinctly pop style. That Fleetwood Mac sold more copies of one album, "Rumours," than almost any record in history, and, incidentally, made some of the greatest pop singles of the last 15 years.

To much of the public, this last version is the only Fleetwood Mac. It thus makes commercial and musical sense to limit the new "Greatest Hits" album to songs from this period.

Side One strings "Rhiannon," "Don't Stop," "Go Your Own Way" and "Hold Me" one right after the other, and all four sound as fresh and exciting as they did when they first appeared. Aside from the digital remastering that improves already good sounds, the recipe for this is pretty basic.

Take three engagingly melodic songwriters (Nicks, Buckingham, and C. McVie) who happen to have three distinctive yet blendable voices, add a rhythm section unequaled at delivering a solid tempo with few distractions, and give them arranger (and eventually producer) Buckingham, who creatively made use of all the aspects of these musician's talents. Then all you have to do is put them in the studio to create delectable ear candy. Of course, they were prone to staying in there for years at a time, and spending millions of dollars to do so, but with results this sweet, why worry?

The package includes a failed experiment, "Tusk," from the mixed-bag LP of the same name, as Buckingham's second songwriting contribution after "Go Your Own Way." He wrote many better songs, but his tunes never were as popular as those of Nicks or McVie. Two new songs, which feature Buckingham's guitar replacements Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, show the magnitude of his loss to the band. McVie's "As Long As You Follow" is a minor delight, though the arrangement is much less inventive than we've grown used to. Nicks' "No Questions Asked" does have some neat vocal arrangements, but otherwise sounds like an outtake from one of her lukewarm solo albums.

But we're not supposed to quibble here. This album exists to (a) make a lot of money, (b) sum up the career of a very popular pop music force at a crossroads and (c) improve on the original through the wonders of digital technology. Fleetwood Mac has been, from the beginning of its third phase, a money-making machine. When it entertained artistic pretensions, as on "Tusk," the result was a commercial and critical failure.

Buckingham's production and arrangement skills often have been compared to those of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Though they have distinctly different approaches to their craft, they share a wide-ranging vision as to what could be done within that craft. By remaining open to all possibilities in the studio, they created three-minute masterpieces.

The best songs by Fleetwood Mac - heck, even some of the lesser efforts, such as "Everywhere" or "Little Lies" from the disappointing "Tango in the Night" - cannot be taken apart and analyzed. Yet, each time one listens to them, new and often surprising details are revealed. That's what made this version of Fleetwood Mac so great, and why its "Greatest Hits" album is so good.

[michelej1]

Palm Beach Post (FL), April 7, 1989

Section: TGIF

TERRY ATKINSON, Entertainment News Service

FLEETWOOD MAC: GREATEST HITS Fleetwood Mac, Warner Bros. If you always preferred the sound of the two women in this superstar act, then you'll like the way Greatest Hits was put together. The 641/2 minutes of the CD (including the bonus song) emphasize the vocal/writing work of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. The loser? Guitarist/writer/singer Lindsey Buckingham. Could this have anything to do with Buckingham's flight from the group last year? Nobody's saying. Despite this imbalance, Greatest Hits, spanning 1975-1988, is great.

[Sanne2]

Originally Posted by michelej1

heck, even some of the lesser efforts, such as "Everywhere" or "Little Lies" from the disappointing "Tango in the Night" - cannot be taken apart and analyzed.

What the hell....

[michelej1]

Fleetwood mac: Greatest Hits
Mat Snow, Q, January 1989

A GREATEST HITS without 'Oh Well'? 'Man Of The World'? 'The Green Manalishi'? A Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits without, for goodness' sake, 'Albatross'?!? Apart from record company wrangles over F. Mac's early back catalogue, there is a good argument for saying that the Fleetwood Mac most of us know and love only started in January 1975 with the recruitment of a pair of hippy refugees whose musical career had started in a group called Fritz back in the same year that the very first Mac line-up trod the boards, 1967.

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks transformed the British blues-rockers from an unstable outfit upon their ninth line-up and fast hitting the skids to a solid corporation who sold wispy Californian dreamin' to the world.

Upon Buckingham-Nicks joining the Fleetwood Mac core of Mick Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, the group announced their fresh start to the world with an album simply titled Fleetwood Mac; from it, the single 'Rhiannon' was an overnight sensation, airbrushing the siren harmonies of Grace Slick's Jefferson Airplane for AM radio consumption and introducing an intriguing whiff of chiffoned Celtic mysticism to the charts (a dippiness which has remained with Nicks ever since, for better or worse).

What 'Rhiannon' also did was define the thrilling contrast which the band's new alchemy had produced; a crescendo of emotion, nay, hysteria, reined back by a discreetly controlled rhythmic pulse. The only exception to this formula lies in the 1982 hit 'Oh Diane', a falsetto tribute to the early '60s likes of Neil Sedaka. It belongs to the iffy phase which succeeded the global success of the 1977 album Rumours and lasting through to the brilliant come-back of Tango In The Night last year. The addled double-album Tusk, various self-indulgent solo projects and a great deal of personal misbehaviour characterize this era. Yet, apart from the resignation of Lindsey Buckingham, the tenth and most successful line-up of Fleetwood Mac survives to this day, and these 17 tracks (less four on the vinyl format) is a delightful resumé.

[michelej1]

Geeks of Doom by Empress Eve, December 28, 2013

http://www.geeksofdoom.com/2013/12/2...-greatest-hits

As part of the monthly MP3 deals over at Amazon, Fleetwood Mac‘s Greatest Hits is on sale for only $5 in MP3 format.

This hits album from the band’s Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham era (yes, there were other incarnations of the band!) has 16 tunes, including favorites like “Rhiannon,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Gypsy,” “Dreams,” and “Don’t Stop.”

The album is also available on CD for $9 and is an AutoRip, which means with the CD purchase you’ll also get a FREE MP3 download of the entire album.

Browse all 100 albums on sale this month for only $5 each.



Speaking of Stevie Nicks, a 16-track hits collection of her music –
Crystal Visions…The Very Best Of Stevie Nicks — is also on sale for $5 in MP3 format. This collection includes her solo material like “Edge of Seventeen” and “Stand Back,” her duet with Tom Petty “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” and live versions of her Fleetwood Mac tunes, like “Rhiannon,” and much more. (Also available as an AutoRip CD for $9).

Track Listing

Fleetwood Mac — “Greatest Hits”

1. Rhiannon
2. Don’t Stop
3. Go Your Own Way
4. Hold Me
5. Everywhere
6. Gypsy
7. You Make Loving Fun
8. As Long As You Follow
9. Dreams
10. Say You Love Me
11. Tusk
12. Little Lies
13. Sara
14. Big Love
15. Over My Head
16. No Questions Asked

MP3 Purchases: When you purchase MP3s through Amazon, it stores your purchases to Amazon’s Cloud Drive; from there you can stream the music right from their online player. Also, if you have a Kindle Fire, your MP3 purchases will automatically be available for you to stream on your device. All your purchases are backed up and available for you to download at any time. You can download the files to your computer to load to an MP3 device and to your iTunes account if you have one. If you’d like to gift these MP3 purchases, you can – just click the “Give album or song as gift” button on the right on the product page. From there you enter the recipient’s email address and then select either specific songs to gift or the entire album.

CD AutoRip Purchases: After you complete a purchase of an AutoRip CD, a free MP3 version of that album will be added to your Amazon Cloud Player library and will be available on your PC/Mac, Kindle Fire, Android phone, iPhone & iPod Touch, and iPad. Albums eligible for this offer are marked on Amazon.com with an AutoRip logo. If you do not yet have a Cloud Player account, you can activate one for free. Available to US customers only.

[Neal]

Originally Posted by michelej1

The best songs by Fleetwood Mac - heck, even some of the lesser efforts, such as "Everywhere" or "Little Lies" from the disappointing "Tango in the Night" - cannot be taken apart and analyzed.

Um, what?

Originally Posted by michelej1

Palm Beach Post (FL), April 7, 1989

Section: TGIF

TERRY ATKINSON, Entertainment News Service

FLEETWOOD MAC: GREATEST HITS Fleetwood Mac The loser? Guitarist/writer/singer Lindsey Buckingham. Could this have anything to do with Buckingham's flight from the group last year? Nobody's saying. Despite this imbalance, Greatest Hits, spanning 1975-1988, is great.

Maybe, maybe not. In all fairness, what other LB songs could they have included on this album that charted as high as some of SN/CM's tunes?

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by Neal

In all fairness, what other LB songs could they have included on this album that charted as high as some of SN/CM's tunes?

Agreed. They stayed true to the "greatest hits" title, with every track (aside from the two new ones) having been a Top 20 hit in the US.
As it was, they left off two other songs of Christine's & Stevie's that were also Top 20 hits -- "Think About Me" and "Seven Wonders."

[SpyNote]

Originally Posted by Johnny Stew

Agreed. They stayed true to the "greatest hits" title, with every track (aside from the two new ones) having been a Top 20 hit in the US.
As it was, they left off two other songs of Christine's & Stevie's that were also Top 20 hits -- "Think About Me" and "Seven Wonders."

Nice to see you posting, Brian!

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by SpyNote

Nice to see you posting, Brian!

Thank you, Daniel! I'm really happy to see you posting, too.

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by Johnny Stew

Agreed. They stayed true to the "greatest hits" title, with every track (aside from the two new ones) having been a Top 20 hit in the US.
As it was, they left off two other songs of Christine's & Stevie's that were also Top 20 hits -- "Think About Me" and "Seven Wonders."

I wonder if CDs had been able to carry 80 minutes back then if those would have been included. As it is, I really hate the running order of the GH CD.

[Stormwind]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Palm Beach Post (FL), April 7, 1989

Section: TGIF

TERRY ATKINSON, Entertainment News Service

FLEETWOOD MAC: GREATEST HITS Fleetwood Mac, Warner Bros. If you always preferred the sound of the two women in this superstar act, then you'll like the way Greatest Hits was put together. The 641/2 minutes of the CD (including the bonus song) emphasize the vocal/writing work of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. The loser? Guitarist/writer/singer Lindsey Buckingham. Could this have anything to do with Buckingham's flight from the group last year? Nobody's saying. Despite this imbalance, Greatest Hits, spanning 1975-1988, is great.

Oh well, it was a "greatest hits" collection for sure.

[Neal]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

I wonder if CDs had been able to carry 80 minutes back then if those would have been included. As it is, I really hate the running order of the GH CD.

Ditto.

In particular, I'd have put the 2 new tunes back to back, either at the beginning or the end. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

[ChickenStu]

I bought this the same day I bought my first copy of Rumours. Can't say I ever really stick this one on. I think I only got it cause I quite liked Everywhere and Big Love growing up (of course, I realised soon after it probably would've served me better to just get a copy of Tango In The Night)

I own all of the band's studio albums now, but I do keep Greatest Hits in the collection simply because of the exclusive two tracks that were done for it.