This is all just my opinion too.

I broke down the songs among the songwriters since others in this thread did so also.

I think that the women's songs on Tusk are primarily their own and that Lindsey just added his touches.

I don't hear a strong Lindsey influence on "Think about Me," "Angel," "Beautiful Child," "Never Forget," "Over and Over" or "Brown Eyes."

And I still say (and many others agree) that "Not That Funny" is just a bad song and therefore not the linchpin of "Tusk," but rather its worst song. It also was the nadir of the "Tusk" shows.

"Angel" & "Think About Me"? Are you kidding?! Those two have Buckingham's arrangement, production & presentation ideas all over them.

I've discovered over the years that the fans who love the old performances of "Not That Funny" are either musicians themselves or LB ladies: in the case of the former, they loved hearing the band open up & jam in that off-kilter way of theirs, & in the case of the latter, they loved watching Lindsey's pants jiggle while he moaned & groaned at the mic.

My opinion is that late 1980 performances of "Not That Funny" constitute the high point of that incarnation's live shows. In a typical "Not That Funny" jam, you could hear each of the four member's strengths & idiosyncrasies as a musician more clearly & forcefully than in virtually any other single number.

Boy, I guess we each love FM for very different reasons.

Definately.

Thank you for hearing the same as I do:laugh:
Also In a lot of songs the harmonies must have been arranged by him, to GREAT succes...like in honey hi and never forget...

Well....I'm not a musician and a "straight" male (maybe i like LB-ladies:laugh: ;) ) but I just love plain, pure belted out rock and roll....and that what he did...in a very raw way.

NTF live...
 

Although it's a bottom lister for me, I do love NTF live, especially watching him sing it on the Mirage video!! That song is kin to Rhiannon in that he has a sort of "exorcism" during it. :laugh:

Exactly :nod:
And that's why I've always said that, from their earliest recordings in 1967 to this very day, Fleetwood Mac really has something for everyone.
Folks just need to get past preconceived notions of what "Fleetwood Mac" is. :)

To this day, the album still kicks butt!!

"I Know I'm Not Wrong", "Never Make Me Cry", and "Angel"!! :thumbsup:

I like it tons better than SYW.

I could stand it if it weren't for the screaming at the end. It's absolutely gawd-awful. An embarrassment, not IMO, but fact.:eek: He had to be on something.

If this band ONLY was in "control-mode" they would have never appealed to me this much. I actually think I got overexcited when I heard 1980-live-album. Not only in the studio (on Tusk) but also live they gave the band the edge that made me a fan for life. Lindseys screaming on Come, NTF, the end of the chain-with stevie (mirage video) sometimes GYOW, Tusk, etc just adds the rock-and-roll animal-feel that made FM a pop-ROCK-band.

If you are embarrassed by that, think about getting loose sometime....or, if you can't, get on something.

And that's probably not a fact, either.:D

PS When lindsey "lets it go" (WMYTYTO-live, Go insane-live, even Big love-live, Come, etcetera he does not need anything. It's a given thing. You just have to dare to let it out. That's not embarrassing, it's honest, cool and vulnerable at the same time.

Fact?:laugh:

Whatever, I'm loose. :laugh: I know most of the negative remarks I've read about the Mirage video are about NTF. For the record, I LOVE the album version! Unfortunately, I was around when the video came out, and, my casual FM fan friends were freaking out about getting me to fast forward through NTF. I know Lindsey was on his punk kick, but this screaming did NOT belong of a FM concert tape. I enjoy it until the ooh ooh arrrrrrrrrrgghhhhhh, ooh ooh arrrrrrrrrrrghghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh part.
"Taste stepped out the door"

Wow! that makes two of us on this board, Homer!! :laugh:

Okay, got ya. When you pronounce it so perfectly, you must have a karaokemachine. Admit it: you practise when nobody watches!:cool:

Well...I then I think it stepped out of me when I stepped into life

:eek:

G.:wavey:

I loved it because I thought it was funny! Plus, I loved hearing the band break it down & then vamp it up. You often got to hear some of Mick's best, most solid drumming on "Not That Funny" in those days.

I'm on record as saying that I think it's the best thing Fleetwood Mac ever recorded. People just thought I was nuts, but I did say it.

Did you ever hear any of the performances from Japan in early 1980? I've never heard anything so funny from a rock band -- it's even funnier than Zappa. Rather than the simulated orgasm effect, it was more of a head-pops-out-from-behind-a-tombstone effect in the Haunted Mansion.

sorry I missed it. But for now: I embrace your taste. maybe you are nuts. would you welcome me to your club?:laugh:


gerald

LMAO!!!
 

David, I think I downloaded a NTF not too long ago and I was rollin' laughing at the screams!!

You hit the nail...Haunted Mansion-like screaming, indeed. :lol:

Ooh, I wanna join the nutty club too!! :D

LOL

Well, I haven't. your description totally attract me. Who in the world can be funnier than Zappa? The MAC??? I would love to hear it. If anyone has it and is prepared to share:

[email protected]

sounds like heaven....:laugh:

gerald:wavey:

Re: LMAO!!!
 

If I'm allowed and may invite one....you're on!!:laugh: :wavey:

I'd like to join the club too. As a showcase for the rhythm section and LB "NTF" was pretty much flawless. My musician friends have described the duel between Lindsey and John in the Mirage concert video as "spastic". I think that's an understatement. ;)

I am haunted by those vocal noises too. I guess when the arrangement got expanded they started out as a Talking Heads-type scarefest and then later turned into this horny moaning.

If anyone thought Lindsey was being completely serious there then I would disagree. It is so over the top and so utterly idiotic and macho-like that it can't be but another parody, like "Come" but with a totally different approach.

I do. Sorry. That song never did anything for me. Stevie sounds great and the arrangement is gold, but I can't listen to it. I find it utterly dull.

:laugh: :laugh: I see, you're a joker. Can you honestly even imagine Christine bringing a song to Fleetwood Mac strictly based on the acoustic guitar, as in "Never Forget?" Please, if you can think of any other instance before Tusk, share with us. "Beautiful Child" has no strong Lindsey influence!? So you think that all those guitar parts and harmonies were thought up by Stevie? Not that she couldn't mind you; it's just that the whole treatment of the song is very Lindseyesque. Or "Angel." Did you watch the Making of Tusk video?

About the only song on your list that does not sound very Lindseyesque is "Brown Eyes." But guess what, do you think Christine would have brought it to the studio and have it produced that way if not for Lindsey? That minimalism has Lindsey all over it; even though the song doesn't sound very Lindsey, it still has his fingerprints.

Nothing on Tusk doesn't have a lot of Lindsey, even when a lot is just a little by design.

well of course it's going well with the lyrics, and i don't think he's serious on the content here, but he definately sound and looks deadserious in the delivery here. It's not that he's taking much distance ....

gerald

amazing...for me that song has- like you can read in the marchnumber of uncut- a Gram and Emmylou with a popsheen-quality.

(Nice review of earls court in uncut: it's on burnish.net

Thea rocks. she typed it up.)

gerald

CarneVaca:

I resent you calling me a joker. You have every right to believe that Lindsey is the chief architect of all FM songs, as you seem to do.

I choose to believe the reality that Christine and Stevie are great songwriters, often better than Lindsey, and that they have a major say in what THEIR songs sound (ed) like.

Yeah, the Tusk documentary shows Stevie and Lindsey working on "Angel" vocals together. So what? When (if ever) has Lindsey ever recorded a song as funky and as un-soupped up as "Angel?" Surely, Stevie's initial vision of the song had to be its main ingredient.

Lindsey's handprints are all over his songs on "Tusk." The brilliance of Stevie and Christine come out on THEIR songs on the "Tusk" album, and they were both in better than usual form. WIth the exception of the title track, it's the women's songs on "Tusk" that have stood the test of time.

Forgive me. I thought you were being funny. I didn't make any statements about Lindsey being the "chief architect of all FM songs," but it's well documented that Tusk was primarily a Lindsey project. It was Lindsey, and to some extent Mick, against the rest of the band. So much so that when the album was perceived as a commercial flop, Lindsey suffered recriminations from the rest of the band. Surely that reaction would not have happened if he hadn't been the primary architect of the Tusk sound, don't you think?

The songs sound the way they do because of Lindsey. There's no way around that. As I said, even "Brown Eyes," the song that would seem to have the least Lindsey in it, betrays Lindsey's influence in its minimalist production. No way would Christine have done that on her own or with another producer. And no way would she have done Honey Hi and Never Forget as acoustic folk numbers.

As for Stevie's songs, she herself has said many times that Lindsey shaped the songs into the way we know and love them. Again, it's all well documented.

"Brown Eyes" is highly reminiscent of the Peter Green-era of FM, it sounds very much like "Sun King" off the Beatles' Abbey Road, which John Lennon said was very influenced by the then current Fleetwood Mac. It also sounds more like a Bob Welch song than a Lindsey song. And Christine was a bandmember of both Green and Welch. Lindsey was not.

It's also well-documented that both Christine and Stevie resented the "credit" Lindsey kept taking for their songs during his interviews of the late '80s and early '90s.

Lindsey was not a member of the band when Bob and Peter were. And they were not members when Lindsey was, which is when the song was produced and released. So what's your point?

My point is that Christine could very well have been influenced by her past FM work with those other guys.

Granted, but that doesn't change the fact that the album sounds the way it does because of Lindsey. Neither Bob nor Peter were there in the studio telling Christine, "Let's record a song with just you and the keyboard." Ken Caillat himself said that the band had done all these elaborate arrangements and that Lindsey pulled down the sliders and said this is how he wanted the tunes.

True. I believe he has a very strong male aggression/dominance side in him and that’s why he looks dead serious in there. But it’s not like he could not be intentionally exaggerating or smirking at himself in there just a little. :)

But LB isn’t necessarily often focusing on the songwriting itself. For the record: I think that in terms of “classic” songwriting (the school of Tin Pan Alley and the Beatles etc.) Chris beats Stevie and Lindsey easily. But then again SN and LB need not be as great in that area because Stevie covers her weaknesses up in performance while Lindsey puts his focus on the overall arrangement. He isn’t just speaking through the songwriting in there, he’s speaking to us through his guitars and every little bit of music he puts to the track.

That I agree with. But I certainly don’t think that neither of them suggested Lindsey what to play because they are unable to imitate his playing skills. It’s Buckingham’s interpretation that seeps through in the end and he said a lot in all of the Tusk songs.

Really? I don’t hear that; all I hear is the similarity between “Albatross” and “Sun King”. And Chris wasn’t a band member yet during the first success run of “Albatross”. That song (which is supposedly Shadows-influenced) sounds almost like an anomaly in the FM catalogue.

For me the main focus in the arrangement of “Brown Eyes” are Lindsey’s guitar parts and the vocal harmonies. Those harmonies have gone through Buckingham’s hands in the mixing board. You could state that Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut helped there too, but the overall vision to me seems to be Lindsey’s. There’s this quote from the sessions. I’m paraphrasing Sodascouts but here goes:

Now of course I partially disagree with what she wrote but you get the point, I hope. ;)

It’s Buckingham’s show all along. If you feel the repetitive piano riff of “Sara” or “Beautiful Child” represents a unique artistic vision then fine. For me it sounds like Stevie’s demos, although a bit more polished. The magic comes in when those guitars and the voice treatments enter the track. It isn’t just Stevie’s and Chris’ personality expressed in there, it’s Lindsey’s too. His guitar speaks through these and offers other points of view to the topic. He supports the ladies all the way on Tusk.

That I believe is just the band members’ unwillingness to attest much weight to Lindsey’s contributions. They still had a band to run and they still wanted to be successful; they didn’t want to admit that a large part of it may have come from a member who left them under bitter circumstances. It wasn’t yet the time to speak what they might have felt, it was time to colour it a little.

Hey snwriter,

why so defensive? i think Carne is right and saying-much better articulated-what I said before today. I also think that Chris and Stevie wrote the best material they ever did on Tusk. As a songwriter, they maybe even overrule lindsey on this album. But: to make an outstanding, businesswrecking, f*cking great and daring album: you just must have a vision. Lindsey had the vision. he worked it through like a real jerk and butthead but with a tremendous amount of taste and respect towards the compositions of the ladies. And on his own songs he went all the way: sometimes against the edge, sometimes on the edge and sometimes over the edge, but constantly on the ledge.:eek: Just give him the credit for that and admit that you can't fikkin name a few songs that you don't like on the album and then say: his contributions are overrated. Because in THAT case: I think you are missing the point.
:wavey:
gerald

okay, this post was written at the same time as Faces'....

man those fins write fast....

:laugh:

I see the point of all those who give Lindsey the bulk of the credit for the "Tusk" album. What a lot of Lindsey-philes (who think he is "it" when it comes to FM records of the Rumours lineup) miss is that he had great basic songs to work with--often from Christine and Stevie.

That's what I said...



And i am a Fleetwood Mac Fan. I was in the USA this year to see two shows. I saw one in Germany and one in London. Everywhere the same: 70% is coming for Stevie. I acknowledge that. So we Lindsey-philes are a minority.

But when it comes to Tusk: That is his album. Everyone of the band wanted a rumours 2, commercially speaking. He resented that and fought the battle. Now, for the last time I ask friendly:

don't overlook or ridicule that...it hurts me:laugh:

gerald

I don't want to hurt you....okay:)

25 Years of Fan-tastic Musical Karma!!!
 

:cool: Lindsey Never... took The Credit where it
was not DUE!!! Christine and Lindsey were
Musical Soulmates!He could play guitar around
her piano and altho' he wasn't a professional
musician as Christine was...they liked to work
to-gether!!! Stevie did chose to be the twirling
dervish/ look at me/ center stage Star!;) She
definitely did succeed! Christine is gone and
only the "boys" remain who she knows how to
manipulate! She said something like: I Listen to
the ppl in charge...then DO MY OWN thing!:eek:
That sounds like The SYW cd to me!!! The three
part harmony and Chris's elegance are missed!
SYW sounds flat and contrived!Give us TUSK!!!:cool::)

IOHO: Agreement with David and CarneVaca &
shakin' up...if your a Musician you "Get IT!"!!!:laugh:
We won't scream at you if you return the FAVOUR!Sky;)

A few words about Christine:

I unfairly dismissed her Tusk songs as "yawners." I didn't mean all her songs in the album are that, but I see it came across that way. "Think About Me" and "Over and Over" are pretty good tunes. "Honey Hi" and "Never Forget" are really catchy folk numbers. I like "Brown Eyes" well enough but I have to be in the right mood for it. "Never Make Me Cry" is just plain dull to me. Sometimes I get "Never Make Me Cry" and "Brown Eyes" confused.

"Never Forget" has what I consider Christine's best lines ever: "What a wonderful night to be/The stars must be my friends to shine for me," which unfortunately are counterbalanced by the "cold/gold" lines. Still, there's an easy optimism in that song and "Honey Hi" that I find irrepressibly attractive. In general, Christine's songs in Tusk have an understated quality that now strike me as somewhat dull, now comforting. It really depends on my mood.

Before Tusk she had some real gems, including "Over My Head," probably my favorite song by her, and "Don't Stop," "Songbird" and "You Make Loving Fun." Before the Lindsey/Christine era, a lot of her songs feel like to me they are missing something, with a couple of exceptions, including "Why." What that something is may have to do with Lindsey's production, but I'm not sure. Maybe she just hadn't come into her own as a songwriter back then.

Christine doesn't inspire me all that much. A handful of her songs are excellent, but for the most part they strike me as OK or less. Her contributions to "Tango," however, were pretty damn good.

And they keep going, and going, and going, and going...and, going...and going........and going....

:laugh:

I don't think it really is a "production" issue. One of the things that Christine herself mentioned about her songs is that she used to sing in her lower vocal register. If you listen to her older songs ("Homeward Bound" & "Morning Rain" especially) she's singing really low. Around the Penguin album, she starts singing a bit higher, but it isn't until "Over My Head" & "Say You Love Me" until she starts using that upper register of her voice...and by Tango she's pretty much lost that lower register altogether. Although, that probably came due to Lindsey's influence...but, the trend had already started BEFORE Lindsey joined.

And I was about to kick your butt because of that!!! :laugh:

Anyway it's good that you come to those conclusions after an analysis and don't just throw the conclusions to the table before even remembering what those tunes sound like. In matters of tastes we can all have some differences, but there are some points in which we can't lose objectivity. :)


Song of the moment - The Ledge