Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...-play-20130507

By Will Hermes May 7, 2013

"We fall to Earth together/The crowd calling out for more," goes a couplet on this four-track EP by the remaining Macs (Christine McVie sits out). Note to band: That doesn't mean y'all have to answer. But if their first release of new music in a decade isn't replacing any classics, the voices of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks can still bring chills. The gem is "Without You," a breezy Nicks-written folk rocker from the couple's pre-Mac project Buckingham Nicks: Largely acoustic, with twined harmonies, its chords twist and resolve like a sun-dappled mobile on a breezy day. And we confess: Hearing the ex-lovers put words in each other's mouths remains as fascinating as ever.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/al...#ixzz2SacTSnFc
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Fleetwood Mac Has Four New Songs Out (It’s a Secret…Shhhhh….)

Fleetwood Mac, a group I listened to with great interest in 1975, has a new album out. Or rather four songs they’ve put on iTunes. You can hear them on Soundcloud and iTunes. They released these tracks themselves, bypassing their old label Warner Bros. Records. If they used a publicist, it was probably Stealth PR, the same company that’s handling Rod Stewart. So shhh…. Maybe they’re just counting on everyone to find the songs. I really like “Sad Angel.” If radio still existed, this very nice Lindsay Buckingham song would be a hit.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/05/07...-secret-shhhhh

Stevie Nicks Says New Fleetwood Mac Songs "Came Out Great" 8 May 2013
 

Last week, Fleetwood Mac released their first new recordings in almost a decade — a four-song digital EP titled Extended Play. The collection features three new tunes written by singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham — “It Takes Time,” “Miss Fantasy” and “Sad Angel” — as well as a Stevie Nicks-penned track called “Without You” that dates back to her and Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac days, when they performed as a duo.

Nicks recently chatted with ABC News Radio about the new songs, and revealed why the band decided to release just a few songs rather than a full-length album.

“In this day and age, nobody really wants an album anyway, [and] we didn’t have time to do a record anyway, because we were all working all last year,” she explains. “And…when you do a record, especially a Fleetwood Mac record, that means you rent a house and you’re working for almost a year. We didn’t have that year. So, this way, we have new songs.”

Nicks also told ABC News Radio that Buckingham’s new tunes were written in early 2012, and he initially recorded them with just drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie.

“I didn’t go because my mom had just passed away, and I really just couldn’t go into the studio,” she points out. “So they went in basically without me, and that was fine.”

Stevie adds that, although she didn’t participate in the early sessions, Lindsey made an effort to come up with material that was well-suited for her. “Lindsey just tried really hard to see through my eyes,” she notes. “He certainly knows me well enough to do that.”

Nicks finally got the chance to add her voice to the new tracks late last year when she visited Buckingham at his home studio. “He and I picked…two songs out of the several songs that they did that I like very much, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to sing on them,” explains Stevie. “We did them, and we finished all the vocals and they came out great.”

Nicks also brought in her old song “Without You,” which she reportedly had rediscovered after coming across an old demo that had been posted on YouTube.

“We can’t figure out for the life of us why it didn’t go on the Buckingham Nicks album,” says Stevie, referring to the 1973 album she and Lindsey recorded as a duo. “But it didn’t and it’s just this amazing song…So we rerecorded it and it came out great.”

Extended Play is available now at iTunes for $3.96. Fleetwood Mac has regularly been playing two songs from the EP, “Sad Angel” and “Without You” during their current North American tour, which is mapped out through a July 6 show in Sacramento, California. The band also has a European trek planned for the fall.

http://www.classichitsandoldies.com/...ame-out-great/

By Roger Friedman, Showbiz 411 May 7, 2013

http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/05/07...-secret-shhhhh

Fleetwood Mac, a group I listened to with great interest in 1975, has a new album out. Or rather four songs they’ve put on iTunes. You can hear them on Soundcloud and iTunes. They released these tracks themselves, bypassing their old label Warner Bros. Records. If they used a publicist, it was probably Stealth PR, the same company that’s handling Rod Stewart. So shhh…. Maybe they’re just counting on everyone to find the songs. I really like “Sad Angel.” If radio still existed, this very nice Lindsay Buckingham song would be a hit.

Consequence of Sound By Jon Hadusek on May 15th, 2013 in Album Reviews

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/0...ended-play-ep/

Fleetwood Mac are restless. After dozens of songs, albums, tours, and RIAA certifications, you’d think they would’ve reached a point of satisfied complacency, like when a star athlete hits the twilight of his or her career and admits, “I’ve done it all it’s time to retire.” Maybe Fleetwood Mac did, in fact, reach such a point after 2003’s Say You Will. The band announced an indefinite hiatus — its members diverting their concentration to their personal lives and solo endeavors. The Mac’s future was in question…

But if Michael Jordan wearing a Washington Wizards jersey taught us anything, it’s that you can’t keep The Best at bay while they still have the ability to play … and make lots of money. So in 2009, Fleetwood Mac reunited for a tour (which — just like Jordan on the Wizards — put asses in seats and made tons o’ cash). During the tour, Lindsey Buckingham dropped this nugget: “The time is right to go back to the studio.”

But for three years that promise went unfulfilled as Fleetwood Mac rode the nostalgia train all the way to the bank. Another world tour, TV appearances, and album reissues — no new music.

Until now.

Via a surprise press release last month, Fleetwood Mac announced Extended Play, a four-song EP of new material — their first since 2003. Expectations were high for these songs, considering Buckingham’s aforementioned statements and the subsequent lack of fresh studio material from the band.

By its own nature, Extended Play can’t meet those expectations. A quick-hitting EP simply cannot contain the songwriting force that is Buckingham/Nicks/McVie. ****, Rumours could barely contain ‘em (and Tusk overdid it). Instead, we don’t get that team at all. Just Buckingham. Every song on Extended Play is sung and written by him (“Without You” is a re-recording of an old Buckingham/Nicks demo).

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though it makes the EP feel more like a Buckingham solo project than a true Fleetwood Mac release. The songs play it safe, adhering to the midtempo rhythms that best suit his voice. Lead track “Sad Angel” opens with the familiar jangles of “Go Your Own Way” — a momentary callback before we finally hear this new, Christine McVie-less iteration of Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham’s fatalism is firmly in place: “My eyes saw the words / With a prayer and a curse / Your pain had to sleep/With a sword that it keeps.” They’re contemplative lyrics for an otherwise simple pop tune. Modern production techniques enhance Buckingham’s clean guitar tones and his vocal harmonies with Nicks. Even the compressed MP3s sound superb — magnifying every nuance, from the patter of Mick Fleetwood’s snare to the slight gravely tic in Stevie Nick’s voice (which proves that she is in fact 64, despite her age-defying looks).

The new version of “Without You” is a welcome rendition. It’s an acoustic duet between Buckingham and Nicks — the only real presence she has on Extended Play. Although it was likely written while they were madly in love with one another, the song emphatically contradicts that idea: “I’m so lonely babe/I can’t live without you.” The following track, “It Takes Time”, is a somewhat forgettable piano ballad, but Fleetwood Mac close strong with the hook-y power-pop of “Miss Fantasy”.

Extended Play is a short tease, but these tracks aren’t throwaways or an attempt at a quick cash-in. Lindsey Buckingham wouldn’t put his name on something like that. A known perfectionist, he co-produced the EP alongside Mitchell Froom, and the attention paid to detail shows. Sure, the songs don’t veer far from Fleetwood Mac’s mellow-rock wheelhouse, but why should they? Extended Play is hampered by its fleeting duration; however, for being an out-of-the-blue release that costs less than $5, Fleetwood Mac fans should be more than satisfied. Just know that you won’t be hearing much from Stevie Nicks or John McVie.

Essential Tracks: “Sad Angel”

^Thanks for that.


May 18, 2013, 10:00 a.m. Los Angeles Times by Mikael Wood

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,1952865.story


The four songs on the new Fleetwood Mac EP — which the legendary pop-rock outfit put up for sale on iTunes last month with little warning — arrive steeped in echoes of the past, in at least one case quite literally: "Without You," a strummy acoustic number overlaid with harmony vocals by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, reportedly dates to sessions for the singers' 1973 album as a long-haired vocal duo deeply opposed to shirts.

But the other tunes on "Extended Play," newly composed by Buckingham and co-produced by him and L.A. studio pro Mitchell Froom, feel no less rooted in earlier iterations of this on-again/off-again institution.

"Miss Fantasy" has some of the folky back-porch guitar action of "Never Going Back Again," while the stripped-down "It Takes Time" could be Buckingham's version of Christine McVie's big piano ballad, "Songbird." And opener "Sad Angel" shimmers with the glossy textures of 1987's "Tango in the Night." (Incidentally, if you want to get a sense of Fleetwood Mac's enduring influence on synthed-up young rock acts like Phoenix, go straight to "Tango" — it looms larger these days than the vaunted "Rumours" does.)

Nothing about this self-reference surprises, of course, especially given that Fleetwood Mac is amid a giant arena tour that will bring the band to the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday and Anaheim's Honda Center on May 28. Old hits are what the members are playing onstage — "Don't Stop," "Dreams," "Go Your Own Way," "Silver Springs" — so old hits are what the members are hearing in their heads.

And yet Fleetwood Mac's first studio output since "Say You Will" in 2003 doesn't sound stale or overworked; indeed, the songs have an impressive crispness that makes their familiarity seem less like evidence of a tapped creative supply than like proof that this is simply the kind of music Fleetwood Mac writes.

"I remember you," Buckingham sings over and over again near the end of "Miss Fantasy," and he might be addressing his own melody. But it's a good one. You'll remember it too.
— Mikael Wood

If you didn't know better, you would assume, by her quote, that Stevie is the keyboard player in the band.:confused:

Except for the fact that her quote clearly references writing songs (not playing in concert), which the article references as well in "making music".

My Digital Financial Chronicle

http://www.mydigitalfc.com/knowledge...ir-own-way-413

Going their own way By Abhinav Kaul, Ranaditya Baruah Jun 06 2013 , New Delhi

When I first heard Fletwood Mac, they were already way past their prime. Their glory years were long gone but it never showed when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham took the stage. Nicks’ voice has remained as sultry and phenomenal as ever and Buckingham’s mellow guitar licks have somehow managed to get cleaner over the years.

The British-American rock band was formed way back in 1967. The band has undergone numerous changes over the years, but most fans identify Fleetwood Mac with Mick Fleetwood on the drums, John McVie on bass, Lindsey Buckingham on the guitar and Stevie Nicks on vocals.

There is nothing in the music business that these rock and roll hall of famers have not seen. So, one might think after a 10 year break the band may have finally hung up their boots bringing an end to an illustrious career.

But putting an end to all such speculations, last month, Fleetwood Mac announced Extended Play, a four-song EP of new material — their first since 2003’s, Say You Will, which had reached No 6 on the UK album charts, and achieved gold sales.

However, fans must be warned that this album is more a solo project of Lindsey Buckingham than a Fleetwood Mac album, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as most songs play it safe, adhering to the mid-tempo signature rhythms that best define the bands music.

The lead track, Sad Angel, opens with the familiar jangles of Go Your Own Way — a momentary callback before we finally hear this new version of Fleetwood Mac. Like many of the group’s greatest songs, Sad Angel reflects on Lindsey and Stevie’s complex relationship. The track is a wonderful beginning to the record as Sad Angel is perhaps the most Fleetwood Mac-y on the album. It reminds one of the good stuff that the band belted out on record after record during their prime.

The new version of Without You is another welcome rendition. It’s an acoustic duet between Buckingham and Nicks — the only real presence she has on Extended Play. The 40-year-old track was most likely penned while they were madly in love with one another. Times have changed and both musicians have matured a great deal over the years but the song would definitely remind the old-timers of a more innocent time. The song was originally meant for a possible second Buckingham-Nicks album, before being dropped.

The following track, It Takes Time, is the only forgettable track on the album, but Fleetwood Mac close strong with the power-pop feel of Miss Fantasy.

Extended Play is a short tease, but these tracks aren’t throwaways or an attempt at a quick cash-in. Lindsey Buckingham wouldn’t associate with something like that. A known perfectionist, he co-produced the EP alongside Mitchell Froom, and the attention paid to detail shows. The songs don’t deviate far from Fleetwood Mac’s mellow-rock wheelhouse, and why should they? That’s exactly the kind of stuff that fans want from them.

Modern production techniques, which enhance Buckingham’s clean guitar tones and his vocal harmonies with Nicks, however seem too obvious at times.

Extended Play’s fleeting duration might be something fans would complain about. However, for being an out-of-the-blue release, Fleetwood Mac fans should be more than satisfied. .zz

Fleetwood Mac's 4-song EP 'Extended Play' hints of more good music to come (CD review)

http://www.cleveland.com/popmusic/in..._ep_exten.html

By Chuck Yarborough, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 13, 2013

Fleetwood Mac has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, including almost 50 million in the United States.

The current tour, which features Saturday’s stop at The Q, celebrates the 35th anniversary reissue of "Rumours," the breakthrough album by the lineup that featured founding members Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie — the Fleetwood and Mac in the name — along with Christine McVie on keys, Lindsey Buckingham on guitar and Stevie Nicks on vocals.

Sadly, Christine McVie, who was married to John when she joined the band, left the group in 1998, the year they were inducted into the Rock Hall.

Not so sadly, Fleetwood Mac is continuing to produce music. GOOD music. The band has a new EP out, appropriately enough called "Extended Play," that features four songs — "Miss Fantasy," "It Takes Time," "Without You" and "Sad Angel."

The EP has a rollicking, more acoustic feel to it that’s reminiscent of the days when Nicks and Buckingham were a duo, before they joined Fleetwood Mac. Which sort of fits, because "Without You" is actually a remake of a tune they recorded back in those days.

Buckingham sings lead on all four songs, and there are hints of Nicks on "Angel" and, obviously, "Without You." But John McVie’s voice is curiously absent, and the EP does suffer from the absence of Christine McVie, both vocally and on piano.

But that’s all relative. Comparing Fleetwood Mac’s sound to anyone else’s sound is like comparing Little League to the Majors. The foursome really is in a different league. That in mind, the worst thing about this EP is that it’s an EP, with only four songs, and the best thing is that its very presence portends the issue of a full album.

Cha-ching.

Will there ever be a full album made out of those songs and the others they have been working on? I sure do hope so!

We don't know. We do know it is just "a matter of how and when" not a matter of "if" for the remaining Lindsey-penned Fleetwood Mac songs to be released. So the band has already shared 3/8 new songs plus the new/old Without You.

There are five more Fleetwood Mac songs floating out there somewhere in the ether waiting to end up on an official CD or digital download release. I get the feeling from band interviews and particularly from Lindsey (and less so, Mick's) comments on the public record - that Lindsey, Mick and John would love to make a new Mac album, and that Stevie is less than thrilled about the idea.

But my prediction is we will get a full-length new Fleetwood Mac studio album maybe in 2014 or 2015 which will probably contain the four EP songs, plus the five already recorded (and unreleased) Lindsey songs (with some additional -Stevie- vocals), then maybe three or four new Stevie songs. She will come around to the idea of recording with Fleetwood Mac again, I think. But any future studio work with Fleetwood Mac will have to be on Stevie's own terms and she will need to have complete creative control over the direction of her new songs to feel comfortable working with the band.

It really would be a shame if Say You Will (2003) went down in history as Fleetwood Mac's last studio album. As much as I love SYW, I think Fleetwood Mac still continues to show so much promise and Extended Play (2013) showed they haven't lost their special touch or musical prowess. The band should play on while they still can, in studio and on stage. The fans will thank them for it.

Taz.de October 14, 2013

http://www.taz.de/Fleetwood-Mac-auf-...-Tour/!125432/

Malicious people might say, that was inevitable. That Fleetwood Mac would also eventually be "cool." In recent years, the retro mania had been responsible for the revival of post-punk, acid-folk and even hair metal. In archival understanding of history nuller years no musical niche was too remote to be not dragged by a clever decision guy band from obscurity into the public spotlight.

With Fleetwood Mac had no one make this effort. In Asservatenkammern mainstream radio playlists their songs are equally important evergreens like "Hotel California" by the Eagles. Anyone who has spent in the eighties, part of his youth listening to the radio, knows "Rumours" by heart.

Retro mania based on cultural codes and tacit agreements: driven by the desire to discover a pristine moment in the turmoil of pop history. On Fleetwood Mac meets nothing of all this to. Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and McVie siblings never were seen as style icons. It does not require secret knowledge and familiarity of their songs was a retrospective Mythifizierung also detrimental.

The name Fleetwood Mac stands for high quality, perfect form use music, made possible by the 48-channel studio excesses. The music is so perfect in its technical execution, the songs that surrounded an aura of sanctity. "Rumours" is also the last great classic rock album that reveals emotional depths behind his obsessively polished surface. Because "Rumours" acted mainly from the end of love.

A Fleetwood Mac tribute album with acclaimed artists

However, when Fleetwood Mac this week complete their epic reunion tour (the third since the turn of the millennium) by German multi-purpose arenas, they meet a new situation. A large American coffee chain has succeeded for the Fleetwood Mac tribute album "Just tell me how you want me" some hip artists, including MGMT, Washed Out and Antony, but also gray eminences as J.Mascis, Bonnie " Prince "Billy and Marianne Faithful to win.

Last year, Warner released an exhaustive historiographical "Rumours" box set. So this year's Fleetwood Mac Road Show will take place under different circumstances than the tours in 2003 and 2009.

It will be interesting to see how the band reacts to the unexpected popularity of a new generation of musicians and musicians who actually should be socialized with punk. In "Rumours" in 1977, after all the debut albums by the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Television, Wire, Elvis Costello and Talking Heads came on the market.

Determine the musical legacy

A freshly released Fleetwood Mac 4-song EP "Extended Play" radioed ahead in this respect mixed signals. On the catchy upbeat song "Sad Angel", a slightly over made-piece power pop, followed by three adult pieces that try to tie something to try the classic folk-rock sound of the seventies. What the pieces is lost, is Buckingham's flair for melody and porous flitting sound signatures. Exactly what "Tusk", in retrospect even the best Fleetwood Mac album, is now estimated again by younger listeners.

So the timing could not be more perfect. Fleetwood Mac have it in our hands to help determine their musical legacy. Interpretations of largely significantly younger bands are helpful. They have reclaimed often wrongly maligned as smooth radio rock sound of the Mac a fabulous range of genres and highly complicated emotional states.

Yikes, what the heck translated that? I cannot believe it was written that way. And wtf is the writer thinking referring to the McVie's as siblings. :shocked:

Yes, it was translated.

What if John and Christine had been sister and brother, how would that have changed things? Of course, Christine's Rumours songs might not have been the same, but would the entire band dynamic have been less tumultuous?

Lindsey says that Christine's break up informed SnL's and he and Lindsey had already fallen apart before by the time they joined FM, so I don't think he's correct, but the conjecture is interesting.

Michele

With EP release, FM reasserts themselves as a still relevant band in 2013
 

http://musingsonthemediums.blogspot....nded-play.html

Musings on the Mediums

A periodical blog where I discuss my musings and opinions on various forms of media, including movies, books, and, the main focus of this blog, video games. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to talk about things like television or music, so those will only be designated to a rare post. Read as I explore the confines of each medium, and which games I feel best utilize those confines and change both the nature of the medium and our ways of viewing it.


Saturday, November 2, 2013

Album Review: Fleetwood Mac, Extended Play

It seems like Fleetwood Mac make some of their best music in periods of great volatility. Rumours, the band’s 1977 masterpiece, was written and recorded during a time when the band’s personal lives were in the toilet. The Mac’s latest release, the four song EP Extended Play, was recorded in another bout of uncertainty, with multiples recording projects being derailed by Stevie Nicks’s and Lindsey Buckingham’s solo careers. Like during Rumours, the band somehow remains at their most focused during a storm, and has produced an incredible record.

One of the best things about Extended Play is that it sounds like Fleetwood Mac. In an era where the music industry seems to be pressing for more homogenization, it is great to hear a band that sounds like themselves. The EP’s lead, and best, track “Sad Angel,” is a classic Mac song of the highest caliber, reminiscent of many of the tracks from the beginning of the Buckingham-Nicks era Mac. Buckingham’s vocals effortlessly blend with Nicks’s, showing the potency of this long partnership.

In fact, all four of the tracks on the EP fit seamlessly in the canon of the first few Buckingham-Nicks led Mac. Buckingham’s electric and acoustic guitars shine together, for an incredibly well blended, bright sound. John McVie’s bass flits between sweetly accentuating the melodies to pounding along with Mick Fleetwood’s steady, reliable drumming, showing the strength of the consistent core of the band. And, like many good Fleetwood Mac songs, love is at the forefront of these songs from the haunting Buckingham solo piano and voice track “It Takes Time,” to the pleasant day dream of “Miss Fantasy.” Despite none of the band members being romantically linked any more (Christine McVie left the band after divorcing John, and Buckingham and Nicks terminated their romantic relationship during the recording of Rumours) it seems that these old habits die hard.

In a musical culture where artists, consumers and producers keeping pushing for “the new,” it is refreshing to hear something so classic. Fleetwood Mac reasserts themselves as a still relevant and superstar band in 2013, and remind us why these bands are still around, and still kicking ass.

Rating: 9.0/10


(guess this maybe should have been in EP reviews thread but i'm lazy to search...)