Tusk
 

What are your guys general thoughts on Tusk? I didn't see a Tusk thread anywhere, so I thought I'd start this one. I personally really like it and all of the wicked grooves found through the tunes, especially miss mcvie's. My favorite tune on the whole thing is the title track. I hope I can write a song half as groovy as that one in my lifetime. Shame Bucko really dropped the ball over the rest of the album. As far as Nicks goes, I love Sara. Wow, what a tune. I guess what are your general impressions on Tusk?

To promote discussion, you've been assigned the task of making Tusk 12 songs long instead of 20. Pick the 12 you would include.

Tusk is great.....but I have to be in the mood for it.

My Fav tunes

Lindsey-Changes every day.
Stevie-Tie between Sara, Sisters of the Moon, and Beautiful Child
Christine-Think about me.

What Make you Think your the One is a GREAT drum track:D

Mick

Make Tusk 12 songs? Okay!

The Ledge
Sara
What Makes You Think You're the One
Storms
That's All For Everyone
Not That Funny
Sisters of the Moon
Angel
Brown Eyes
Beautiful Child
Walk a Thin Line
Tusk

I haven't heard it in awhile, but I always liked the mellow atmosphere of most of it. I also like songs that last about 2 minutes.

It has a bothersome wet signal in the sound field that I don't really like. I prefer the dry, compressed signal throughout Rumours.

1. Tusk
2. Brown Eyes
3. That's All For Everyone
4. Angel
5. Over and Over
6. Sisters of the Moon
7. Storms
8. Not That Funny
9. Honey Hi
10. Think About Me
11. I Know I'm Not Wrong
12. Sara

The Ledge
Think About Me
Save Me A Place
Sara
Storms
Sisters Of The Moon
Brown Eyes
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Beautiful Child
Walk A Thin Line
Tusk
Never Forget

I would hardly say Lindsey "dropped the ball" as far as the rest of his contributions. Did he include the rest of the band as much as he could have? Definitely not, but most of his tracks are still pretty great regardless.

Twelve Tusk, in the original order, just omitting:
1. The Ledge
2. Think About Me
3. Save Me a Place
4. What Makes You Think You're the One
5. Sisters of the Moon
6. Angel
7. That's Enough For Me
8. Never Make Me Cry
9. Beautiful Child
10. Walk a Thin Line
11. Tusk
12. Never Forget

Thirteen Tusk: twelve wouldn't cut it
1. The Ledge
2. Sara
3. Save Me A Place
4. Angel
5. Tusk
6. Sister's Of The Moon
7. That's all For Everyone
8. Storms
9. Honey Hi
10. Beautiful Child
11. Brown Eyes
12. Walk A Thin Line
13. Never Forget

I so love the Tusk album. I avoided it at first...couldn't quite get into it. But once I sat and gave it a complete listen...have loved it ever since. Cutting it down to 12 was tough :distress: It was hard letting go of Save Me a Place, but...oh, this was hard!!!

Over and Over
The Ledge
Sara
What Makes You Think You're the One
That's All for everyone
Not That Funny
Sisters of the Moon
Angel
Brown Eyes
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Beautiful Child
Tusk

I ended up with 13 as well:

Over and Over
The Ledge
Think About Me
Sara
Storms
That's All For Everyone
Sisters Of The Moon
That's Enough For Me
Brown Eyes
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Beautiful Child
Walk A Thin Line
Tusk

I made a 12 song cd long ago it is,

1. Think About me
2. Sara
3. What Makes You Think your the One
4. Storms
5. Over And Over
6. Save Me a Place.
7. Walk a Thin Line
8. That's All for Everyone
9. Sisters of the Moon
10. Beautiful Child
11. Not That Funny
12. Tusk

I'm low on Chris songs as i feel it's her weakest album.

Mick

12, eh? That'll be difficult. But here goes:

1. Tusk
2. Sara
3. Think About Me
4. Storms
5. Not That Funny
6. Angel
7. Brown Eyes
8. Honey Hi
9. The Ledge
10. I Know I'm Not Wrong
11. Sisters of the Moon
12. Never Forget

Four each. But you know, a big part of Tusk's artistic success is the rather sprawling, generous amounts of music and moods. Save Me a Place is as crucial as That's Enough for Me. Over and Over (my least favorite Christine song on the record) is as impressively understated as What Makes You Think is bombastic. Never Make Me Cry is as stripped bare as That's All For Everyone is washed in layers and layers of choral chanting. In short, I can't imagine any of the songs cut. In fact, the album's highs gain further dimension and richness when surrounded by the "weaker" songs. Judging from everyone's lists, it's clear none of us can really agree what the strong or weak songs are.

Very true my friend. That's what makes us all true fans. We are all unique in the one thing we all have in common: we all love Fleetwood Mac. And we all have different tastes.

Ah Tusk. I get all verklempt just thinking about it. When I first bought the album, I was doing research in a prison just outside of the city. Tusk filled in practically every drive there and back, and it's still my go-to album for longer car trips. Explaining why when I went to grab it out of the CD rack just now, I could only get my hands on the cardboard sleeve....


The Ledge
Save Me A Place
Sara
Storms
Sisters of the Moon
Brown Eyes
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Honey Hi
Beautiful Child
Walk A Thin Line
Tusk
Never Forget

I originally ended up with 13, so Angel had to go, and Save Me A Place was a late substitution for That's Enough For Me. While I'm at it, the next closest Chris song would have been Never Make Me Cry :laugh: . But I'm content with my 12!

Tusk
Sisters Of The Moon
Think About Me
What Makes You Think You're The One
I Know I'm Not Wrong
Sara
The Ledge
Over & Over
Not That Funny
Never Forget
Storms
Brown Eyes

I found this surprisingly easy, inasmuch as these are the songs I'd primarily play for people new to Fleetwood Mac. Otherwise, all twenty would make the list! :laugh:

Ironically, I found neither "Save Me A Place" or "That's Enough For Me" crucial (unless that's what you secretly meant). :laugh:
Also, if anyone doesn't agree that "Brown Eyes" is a strong song, they have no taste worthy of being mentioned here! :laugh:
And, yes, I'm a nice, respectful person. :D It shows, doesn't it?

It took me a long time to really get into tusk. But now after numerous listens I've really learned to appreciate it and now quite enjoy it. I think Stevie's contributions to it are magical. The more you listen to them, the more intriguing they become. I would say her songs probably came out the best on the album and going by peoples 12/13 song list the majority of her songs are on them - Sara, Sister... Angel, Storms, Beautiful Child etc.
I think the inclusion of Beautiful Child in the set for the SYW tour and Storms in Unleashed may have made people go and listen to the tusk album again as it is obvioulsy kinda sidelined due to the phenomenal success of Rumours, and people preconcieved notion that it was "too experimantal"! Rumours is of course the better album; as in many peoples eyes it's practically perfect but Tusk, while not as flowing is still Pretty Darn Good !!!

Well Tusk is my favorite album and most of the band themselves agree. It really is a great album. EVERYBODY'S contributions are great.

I like the album a lot, but I never thought the songs were all that strange (even Lindsey's). When I first heard the album in 1979, I was expecting it to be a lot more weird, because that's all they were saying in the reviews. I definitely thought the arrangements were sparse, but not too strange. The only song I was ever kind of shocked by was "Not That Funny", but only because I thought it was so stupid (lyrically), not because of the arrangement. I still never listen to that song to this day, but that's the only one I skip.

I love "Save Me A Place" and "That's Enough For Me". They have a lot to say lyrically, and they are two of my favorite all-time songs by anybody!

I just don't find Brown Eyes all that impressive. Sorry. I like it, but I don't think I would call it a masterpiece or anything.

They could have done so much more with it. It's like it's "stuck" in one place.

OOOO!!! Could you talk more about this? I'm really interested!

No.

It's time for breakfast.

:lol:

you're a terrible multi-tasker, david.

That's weird, I thought exactly the same thing yesterday.
Tusk is one of my favorite albums of all time, and I think it's impossible to pick 12 songs without making any sacrifices.

The Ledge
Sara
Beautiful Child
Honey Hi
Not that Funny
Over and Over
Brown Eyes
Angel
Sisters of the Moon
Tusk
What Makes You Think You're the One
Storms

(Damn, Stevie writes so many good songs. Especially on Tusk, in fact, couldn't take anything off. It was hurtful, though : I know I'm not wrong, nerver forget, save me a place...)

The 12-song Tusk cassette I made about a week after its release (and what is my Tusk playlist on my iPod):

Honey Hi
Angel
What Makes You Think You're The One
Think About Me
Sara
Over & Over

I Know I'm Not Wrong
Brown Eyes
Sisters Of The Moon
Tusk
Storms
Never Forget

Ok, now cut the Beatles' White Album down to 12 tracks....(you ARE allowed to use the simultaneous 45 release of "Hey Jude"/"Revolution" as part of the album, if you wish)

Is breakfast over yet?

David never finishes breakfast...it's just one continuous meal from dawn to dusk.

lol

That's ok, let the food consumption continue, I found my answer here...

http://feedraider.com/item/2007/6/31...ecording-sound

When a sound is produced, what a listener or microphone hears is not just the source of the sound. Rather, it is an aggregate of the source and its reflections off of surfaces around it (i.e., sound reflections or echoes). A space is considered to be 'wet' or reverberant when sound reflections are prominent. When reflections are muted or absent, a space is considered to be 'dry' or non-reverberant...

hmm, I'm surprised at how many people included Not That Funny. Am I the only one that finds that tune abysmal? I suppose Angel also fits in that category.

anyway, here's my list in album order

Over & Over
The Ledge
Think About Me
Sara
Storms
That's All For Everyone
Sisters of the Moon
That's Enough For Me
Brown Eyes
Beautiful Child
Tusk
Never Forget

As far as order, opening the album with Over & Over, a quiet sad ballad type song, has always bothered me. I would probably open it up Sisters of the Moon or Tusk (I would say The Ledge, but it might deter people from the rest of the album teehee)

Are you left-handed by chance? I mean, you're beginning to sound like my anti-matter counterpart! :laugh:

Well it's Not That funny clicked for when I heard on the 1980 live album. Yes it's absurd but it just clicked with me:D

Mick

LOL

(I am right-handed!)

OK, I'll add ya to my list of anti-matter counterparts. Now that makes three from this board! lol

That's always been my biggest beef with the Tusk album...it starts out on such a friggin' downer. The idea (LINDSEY! ARE YOU LISTENING?) of the opening song is to catch the listener's attention, not bum them from listening further. "Over & Over" is a good side ENDER, not opener...and DEFINITELY not an ALBUM opener. One big "black mark" for the album right out of the gate.

I HATED....ABSOLUTELY HATED "Not That Funny".....UNTIL I heard them do it live. The live version is a totally different animal than the horrid studio cut.

What's the World Coming To is a fail as well. It's not exactly a downer, but it sure doesn't catch your attention and it's not representative of the bulk of the album. So, it doesn't fill the bill of attracting anyone or of giving them a sample of what to expect.

Michele

Not nearly to the same extent as "Over & Over", but I agree that "What's The World Coming To" isn't the most Phi Beta Kappa choice for an opening song of an album.

Best FMac album openers:

"Coming Your Way" from Then Play On
"This Is The Rock" from Kiln House
"Child Of Mine" from Bare Trees
"Remember Me" from Penguin
"Emerald Eyes" from Mystery To Me
"Heroes Are Hard To Find" from Heroes Are Hard To Find
"Monday Morning" from Fleetwood Mac
"Love In Store" from Mirage

They had a pretty good stretch there from Bare Trees to Fleetwood Mac, then it all went painfully wrong.

That's pretty much it.

Tusk came out while I was in my first year of collage and already being a big Mac fan, I couldn't wait for this record. The hype was pretty big. Lots of press and how this record could save the industry. I remember it was so expensive. My boyfriend bought if for me and I loved every bit of it. I know I'm not wrong, Storms, Brown Eyes and Beautiful Child are my favorites.

Ok i'm gonna be the one who disagrees about over and over:D I think it's great because it says we dare to be different. This is how we're going to start this little album. Take that. What's more brilliant is what comes in the wake of it. The Ledge!!!!! As if to say, If number 1 caught you off gaurd check this out. The perfect 1-2 punch, IMHO.

Mick

Would your other anti-matter counterparts take similar form to me, by chance? (I'm just curious to see if they're people I already know...)
Actually, I just realised - you're not really my anti-matter counterpart if you're not left-handed, because that would mean you haven't changed enough symmetries to accord with the workings of matter and anti-matter (for that you need CPT, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry). You would have also needed time reversal, which would make for considerably more difficult Ledge posts. (And, yes, nerd jokes are the awesome-est form of humour - just ask any particle physicist that thinks about them and subsequently gets a hadron! :D)

I know TUSK is the favorite album for most die hard fans and/or Ledgies.

My favorite albums was, is, and will be Rumours. Call me a pop fan, call me commercial, but it is Rumours.

I like Tusk a lot, but not love it as a whole work. I adore Sara, Storms, Over&Over, Angel, and Tusk. Not many Lindsey songs, yes. And what I don't like from Tusk is in fact Lindsey's songs. They were too "monotonous sound" songs, it wasn't rock, it wasn't pop, it didn't sound new wave (Mick wrote Lindsey was looking for something new and he was at new wave bands concerts), actually I didn't get it, didn't dislike but didn't like that much. Mirage was more pop, yeah I like it, but I found Tango with better Lindsey songs. OOTC too.

Magnet (Real Music Alternatives)
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2011/0...ood-macs-tusk/

From The Desk Of The Black Watch’s John Andrew Fredrick: Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”
June 2, 2011


For almost 25 years, John Andrew Fredrick and a revolving cast of characters have been issuing records as the Black Watch. The California-based indie-rock institution is back with 11th album Led Zeppelin Five (Powertool), and it’s the first LP to feature the rock-solid lineup of Fredrick, guitarist Steven Schayer (ex-Chills), bassist Chris Rackford and drummer Rick Woodard. When Fredrick isn’t busy writing and recording songs, he’s teaching English at the University of California, so we thought he’d a be a natural choice to guest edit the MAGNET website. Fredrick, with some assistance from Schayer, will be doing exactly that all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Fredrick.


Fredrick: By 1980, everyone (well, me) was sick of Fleetwood Mac. The Pistols had fired, killing an Arab, which rock(ed) the Casbah. I remember a Santa Barbara comedian getting a big guffaw out of a crowd merely by wailing, “Stevie Nicks, now—I mean, does she even own a pair of pants?” It was cool to hate the Mac. Where has hate gone, by the way? Why do people hate hate? (I sound, on purpose, like my ire-idol Martin Amis here.) Does anybody know/read anymore William Haslitt’s ”On The Pleasures Of Hating”? What’s wrong with being “a hater”? And Lydon said it best in proclaiming “anger is an energy.” Why have the kids o’ today turned that ugly term “hater” into a term of ridicule? It’s great to hate. It’s a nice taste, a familiar flavor. Myself, I hate ignorance and ostentation; the Kardashians (um, redundant?); the Boston Celtics; the denizens of Paris who seemed to queue up to take turns mocking my college French; going to the dentist; several of my neighbors; power pop (and especially the term “power pop”); country music (unless the country is Ireland); the San Antonio Spurs; people who say “like” and “you know” every bloody other word; white trash; this loud, control-freakish tennis bum in my circle of tennis bums called Ivan whom we uncleverly call Ivan The Terrible; a longtime wannabe songwriter friend of Steve’s who thinks that just because you say odd or catty things and make people uncomfortable that that makes you a bona fide artist; Duke University’s sports teams fans or Raiders fans; golf; palpably manicured facial hair; anyone who likes Kerouac or any Beat save (maybe) Allen Ginsberg; Galaxie 500 and especially the fans who try to talk me out of loathing them; and a dead guy called Jim ****ing Morrison.

But enough about that. As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted me, music fans had had enough in the early ’80s of hearing “Rhiannon” on the radio, the internecine scraps between Lindsey and Stevie, and Stevie and Mick, and Christine and John, and Stevie and **** knows what, the stories of cocained alterna-orifices. You will never break “The Chain” indeed. By a “Landslide,” Fleetwood Mac, who’d made LPs I ****ing worshipped (Bare Trees, Future Games, Mystery To Me, Heroes Are Hard To Find, the eponymous one, Rumors, plus Buckingham Nicks) were “Over & Over,” and I’d scream if I ever heard them again. Ruined. Severely, by all accounts, as out of favor as bell bottoms at an Elvis Costello show, Fleetwood Mac went in 1979 and made their most majestic recording yet—and, for me, one of the greatest double-albums ever: Tusk. An engineer told me that covering Fleetwood Mac has of late become all the rage amongst band in their 20s. Everyone, he said, has a version of something on those two white records. They don’t know Danny Kirwin or Peter Green or the great Bob Welch, but they know that they’ll be so coolly not-ironic about being ironic (or not) that their cover of “Dreams” or “Gypsy” might get them a gig at The Echo or Joe’s Pub or funding for some new headbands and vests. I’m not gonna deconstruct Tusk here. I’m not gonna do that to you, to me. I’m gonna go put on the CD (not the vinyl—CDs sound better, man; OK, it’s another flaccid jest) and roll a “number” or make a “honey slide” out of some Orange Clover and some “shake” and fairly glory in how hard Mick Fleetwood hits a drum, how simply tough a guitarist Buckingham is and how C. McVie can make me—a guy who does not cry—cry.