Producer Randall Poster Talks FM (WSJ)
 

By John Jurgensen for the Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/...fleetwood-mac/

August 14, 2012
A Music Producer Pays Homage to Fleetwood Mac

To assemble a tribute album to Fleetwood Mac, producer Randall Poster faced two daunting challenges: picking a cross-section of songs from the band’s 17 studio albums, and recruiting artists who could interpret these tracks–some of them numbingly familiar–in a fresh way. To pull that off, Poster drew on the craft and connections he has built up over more than a decade as a music supervisor, selecting the songs that permeate shows like HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” and films by music-obsessed directors such as Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson.

Out Tuesday, “Just Tell Me That You Want Me” features a diverse roster of contributors, including Best Coast (“Rhiannon”), Antony (“Landslide”) and MGMT (“Future Games”). It’s the third tribute album Poster has overseen, if you count the soundtrack to the Todd Haynes-directed Bob Dylan portrait “I’m Not There.” Last year saw the release of a Poster-produced Buddy Holly tribute, which boasted Cee Lo Green, Paul McCartney and Patti Smith. The set sold 80,000 copies according to Nielsen SoundScan, a strong showing for a tribute album. The producer recently talked about putting together the Fleetwood Mac project, what makes some tribute albums fall short, and why he can’t get enough of singer (and ex-wife of Jack White) Karen Elson.

How did you get started on tribute albums?

The Buddy Holly album started with his 75th anniversary, and the people involved in his business let me run with it. By virtue of the success of that project, the people from the record label asked what I wanted to do next, and Fleetwood Mac was the answer.

Buddy Holly’s catalog is relatively small. Fleetwood Mac’s spans more than four decades.

Having been captivated and a bit of obsessive, I thought it would be interesting to draw a line through the band’s beginnings to its more recent incarnation. There’s the early Peter Green Fleetwood Mac, the mid-career Bob Welch era, and the classic Stevie [Nicks], Lindsey [Buckingham] era. Part of the goal was to bring Peter Green and his music into people’s awareness, along with the fact that the band didn’t start with “Rumors.”

What was your process?

We put together our master list of songs that we would have to have in consideration. We tagged about 30 tracks. The Stevie songs are the most magnetic, in a way, and the most famous and challenging. A lot of those songs were taken on by singers who have a distinct sound themselves. We didn’t want this to sound like bands sitting around a campfire singing Fleetwood Mac. Sometimes it’s someone you really want to work with, or a recent discovery, and sometimes connections come through certain producers I work with.

What’s a pairing you wanted from the start, and one that was more surprising?

Antony [Hegarty]. From the outset, the notion of his doing “Landslide” was something we wanted to get done. And one of my favorite singers, Bonnie Prince Billy, knows [producer] Matt Sweeney, who is part of my regular cast of characters. And it came out that he had this notion to cut “Storms.” I didn’t preconceive that and it turned out fantastic. Then there’s a band Gardens & Villa [“Gypsy”]. I curated a little music festival at South By Southwest and they were on the bill, so I wanted to include them.

Karen Elson is the only artist on both the tribute albums you’ve produced.

I just made a commitment in life to put her on everything I do. She sings great, looks great, and is great. So there’s no end in sight, really. She and Beck had been working together a bit, so this was a perfect chance for them to do a finished track and get it out into the world.

What makes some tribute albums fail?

When these things don’t work, they can be a bit cheesy. That’s because people will settle for what they get. We don’t settle. Where we tried something and it didn’t work out, we cut the losses rather than corrupt the whole thing.

How often did that happen for you?

I think it happened once on each album. It’s just hard to do. If you don’t find the door to an interpretation, it’s clear that it’s not right. Artists like to have the interplay with the producers and, if they have the time, to take some notes from us. The Kills went in to do a Peter Green song, “Man of the World.” It just wasn’t working. They ended up doing a great version of “Dreams.”

How much direction do you give them from the outset?

Antony doing “Landslide,” that’s the recipe, but I’m going to let him frost it as he sees fit. Generally they send you a rough cut. Then I might say, can we fatten the bass or add a layer of psychedelic guitar? With [Sonic Youth’s] Lee Ranaldo, there was a point when I said, why don’t you cut “Albatross” and let’s get J Mascis on it?

Did any past or current members of Fleetwood Mac have any input?

Nope, nope, nope. But soon after the tracks started premiering online, they announced tour dates for 2013. So I’m taking credit for the reunion.

How does this process compare to that of music supervision on a movie?

I use a lot of the same skills with a certain added freedom. I think of these album as if they’re movies. What’s a nice change up is that it’s not contingent on taking these pieces of music and fitting them into a 40-second [film] sequence. I don’t have to justify the expense [of licensing a song] or say where I’m going to fit it into the movie. The one benefit of middle age—and I’m constantly looking for them—is that by virtue of my body of work and the filmmakers I work with, it just helps me get these things done. There’s a trust. People think, I may do this and I may not make a lot of money, but at least I can be part of something that has a lot of integrity.

What else are you working on?

I’m finishing Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers.” I worked with Sam Mendes on the new James Bond [“Skyfall”]. I’ll get started on “The Hangover Part Three” right after Labor Day. And I’m finishing up “Boardwalk Empire.” For that we recorded a song with Karen Elson, wouldn’t you know.

It annoys me to no end that the band wholly isolates themselves from absolutely everything with the exception of touring behind the oldies. :rolleyes:

It does me as well...but that is where the money is ...so:shrug:

Well me too, but I wouldn't want them to spend their non-Rumours time participating on this tribute album at all either.


Michele

Me neither, but for that matter, do we even know if they were asked to participate?

What I'd like to know is what tribute album did Michelle Branch record "You Make Loving Fun" for? Stevie was supposed to have helped her on it.

Randall Poster could have/should have included more than one Christine and one Lindsey track respectively. The album is noticeably Stevie-heavy, and while I love all the songs of hers that are covered the selection does not adequately represent the versatility and balance of the band's catalog.

Maybe the interviewer thought that if they heard a tribute album was afoot, they'd just start calling up peeps and asking to be part of it. Which, actually, would be kind of pathetic.

Michele

So Randall narrowed it down to 30 tracks and he picked mostly Stevie for the artists to chose from? He should of picked more Christine. He really shortchanged this album.

It irks me that he thinks he's responsible for their 2013 reunion. And I wish everyone would quit calling it a "reunion." They never broke up...like Ross and Rachel, they're just "on a break," doing solo things, opening restaurants, etc. :)

This! Thank you!

I guess that's something I don't get. They say "reunions" but then Mick will go on about "we're doing something special for our (whatever) annaversary". So which is it? Is it an anniversary, in which case it can't be a reuinion if you were together all along or is it a reuinion and therefore can't be called an anniversary since they weren't together and are now getting together again?

John

I hope to goodness he was just kidding about that. I don't think the tribute album has created enough stir for him to believe it sparked a reunion. As far as triggers go, it wasn't like performing for Clinton!

Michele

I certainly took it as humor. Didn't occur to me that he might be serious.

The AV Club
http://www.avclub.com/articles/music...d-mac-w,83892/
Music supervisor Randall Poster on Fleetwood Mac, Wes Anderson, and Skrillex

by Marah Eakin August 16, 2012

In Set List, we talk to veteran musicians about some of their most famous songs, learning about their lives and careers (and maybe hearing a good backstage anecdote or two) in the process.

The artist: Since first making his mark on Hollywood by compiling the soundtrack for Harmony Korine’s 1995 movie Kids, Randall Poster has worked almost nonstop in the industry, supervising soundtracks and scores on nearly 90 movies. He’s created the soundscape for every Wes Anderson movie since Rushmore and has teamed up with Todd Phillips on all three Hangover movies. Recently, he’s branched out from films to curate two themed tribute compilations, 2011’s Rave On Buddy Holly and 2012’s Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac.

Antony, “Landslide” (from 2012’sJust Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac)
Randall Poster: I’d worked with Antony on Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, and I’m a huge fan. I thought that the notion of Antony singing “Landslide” would just be a gift from God, really. That was one of the most sturdily preconceived notions of artists with song.

The A.V. Club: How do you end up with Antony and Billy Gibbons and MGMT on the same record?

RP: It’s interesting that you mention those three together in the sense that Antony is singing a Stevie Nicks song, Billy Gibbons is singing a Peter Green song, and MGMT is singing a Bob Welch song, and those are three defined eras of Fleetwood Mac. That’s sort of the repertoire, and the history of the band gives you that opportunity, and the evolution of the band gives you that opportunity. In a sense you can almost mark the changes and the diverging and diverting paths of music by combining those artists and songs.

AVC: What made you want to do a record about Fleetwood Mac?

RP: We had done this Buddy Holly record last year to mark his 75th birthday. We did pretty well with it and the label basically asked what we wanted to do next. Fleetwood Mac just jumped out at us. I’ve always been a big fan. I always thought it was really interesting how this band had this long and rich history that I thought a certain audience was probably less aware of than they should be, so I thought it was an interesting opportunity to sort of mind a rich and varied history and repertoire.

The Black Keys, “Dearest” (from 2011’s Rave On Buddy Holly)
RP: I’m a great Black Keys fan and Dan Auerbach’s voice just slays me every time. If you go back, we had The Black Keys’ “Set You Free” in the School Of Rock. I remember at the time it was like I was on a mission from God to get that song in the movie, and thankfully we found a place for it. Matt Sweeney produced The Black Keys and the Julian Casablancas track on Buddy Holly, and the Kid Rock track, and he’s sort of become my secret weapon in doing these records. Matt produced the Billy Gibbons track on Just Tell Me That You Want Me and co-produced and appears with Bonnie “Prince” Billy on “Storms.” Matt just generally strips a song down to its essence, and The Black Keys’ “Dearest” is about the sparest arrangement you can imagine. I think he just basically lets the boys hang on to the song in the most basic way, and I think they get right to the heart of it.

AVC: These were the first two records that you curated, correct?

RP: I’ve produced, or had my hand in producing probably about 90 soundtrack albums over the years. I did produce a record. I’m bad with years, but it must have been somewhere between five and 10 years ago, a compilation called Guilt By Association where I had basically all these bands that I loved cover their guilty-pleasure pop songs. It’s worth seeking out. There’s a great version of Will Oldham singing Mariah Carey’s “Can’t Take That Away.”

AVC: Was putting together a record outside the scope of a film something you’d always wanted to do?

RP: I think maybe what prompted it is that Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There is kind of a Bob Dylan tribute album. We did almost 40 songs. What’s nice about it—or what’s fun in doing these records—is that I can basically decide what songs to do, and who to do them, really. I don’t have to squeeze the songs into a 90-second sequence or anything like that. There’s a little bit of creative freedom in doing this. Yet, also, I borrow from all of my filmmaking skill set in terms of what I try to do with these records, through the combination and the sequencing, to kind of tell the story of the artist without a firmer narrative except the collision of the songs one against the other.

AVC: Antony doing “Landslide” is one thing, but how do you go from thinking, “Okay, someone should do ‘Peggy Sue’” to knowing who should do it?

RP: These artists are all of a certain caliber that you certainly can’t play the part of dictator, because it’s not like I shower them with gold coins. There’s a back-and-forth that goes with it, and I think you have to sort of share the making with the artist. Sometimes you have an artist that you feel like you want to work with and they’re like, “Okay, I know what I want.”

For instance, it’s funny that you say “Peggy Sue,” because when we went to Lou Reed, we had gotten word that he was a big Buddy Holly fan, and we said, “Okay, well, what song would he want to do?” “Well, ‘Peggy Sue.’” And then he said, “I can’t believe nobody else has done ‘Peggy Sue.’” Then we did an interview with Lou Reed and one of the questions was, of course, “Do you remember the first time you heard Buddy Holly?” and he said, “Yeah, ‘Peggy Sue.’”

There’s a dialogue that happens with the artist that sort of leads you one way or another as well. Whereas Antony’s cover came from a bit of a preconception and he thankfully responded to the idea, sometimes it’s just like, “You know what, that’s an interesting idea, but I always wanted to do this one.” Sometimes they come right at you with what they want to do, or they say, “Send me some songs, and let’s talk about it.” It works in those different ways.

With this record, we knew that we certainly needed to cover certain bases. You reach out to artists who you think have a certain predilection, say to the Peter Green material. Or with MGMT, who I’d been trying forever to get them to do things with me, and this was really the first time they agreed—when I put it out there, my suspicion was that they would do a Bob Welch track. That’s sort of the joy of the collaboration, where even when you work on a movie, the fact that it’s a film is kind of the sum parts of a lot of people’s energy coming together. As much as there’s a director who is the leader and decider and visionary, everybody that puts their energy into it just makes it that much more powerful.

Calexico & Jim James, “Goin’ To Acapulco” (from 2007’s I’m Not There)
RP: “Goin’ To Acapulco” was a song that was in that situation. There was a scene in the movie that Todd had indicated that should be “Goin’ To Acapulco.” We knew it should be a brass band, and I had worked previously with Calexico, so I had this notion that Calexico would make the music, and we actually had a couple of other ideas that weren’t right, and sort of somehow landed on Jim James. Then Jim James actually comes back and says, “You know ‘Goin’ To Acapulco’ is my favorite Bob Dylan Song.” That’s how that came together.

Generally when you make these records, you want there to be variety, but you also want there to be some confluence. I think Calexico probably produced a half a dozen tracks on that record. That’s kind of the excitement of doing these things, because an artist gets to work together with people they hadn’t worked with before without having to do a whole record or having to commit beyond a single song. They get to try each other’s clothes on a little bit.

Benjamin Britten, “Noye’s Fludde/Noah’s Flood” (from 2012’s Moonrise Kingdom)
AVC: On Wes Anderson soundtracks, there’s often one artist that runs through the soundtrack, like Seu Jorge on The Life Aquatic and Cat Stevens on Rushmore. Is that something you do to create a mood?

RP: Wes will have an inspiration and then basically I go and I gather all of the related material. For instance, Moonrise Kingdom began with Benjamin Britten’s “Noye’s Fludde/Noah’s Flood.” Before there was even a script, Wes had talked to me and said there was this piece of music and he wanted to do something with it. So basically I go out and I collect all of Benjamin Britten. Then it’s sort of been our strategy, or our kind of enterprise to say, “Okay, let’s try to use as much of it as possible.” That’s how we build it.

It’s the same thing in terms of, say, The Darjeeling Limited, where we basically said, “Okay, let’s use film scores that were either in Satyajit Ray films or that he made for other films and other filmmakers.” Then it becomes my job to go out and get all that material, which actually involved going to Calcutta to pick some of this stuff up. Then you find things out—like, there’s this scene in The Darjeeling Limited where there’s a flashback where the brothers go and pick up their father’s car on their way to his funeral, and we wanted to have music in that scene and we thought, “Well maybe we should have a piece of classical music.” And in my research, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony was Satyajit Ray’s favorite piece of Western music, so I was like, “Well, let’s use that.”

So hopefully you mind the connections and mind the logic and it leads you to the right place. In the seven movies that we’ve worked on together, we have faith in that process. It all comes together and holds together because Wes just has this filmmaking genius.

AVC: How often does that happen? Wes Anderson and Harmony Korine seem like they would have a very specific vision, but have you done other movies where the director just says, “We like rock ’n’ roll. Go crazy”?

RP: Yeah, I think there are films where there’s sometimes a little bit more preconception and sometimes there’s a little bit less. And sometimes you have to wait until the film tells you where you need to go or what it needs for musical sustenance.

Folk Implosion, “Natural One” (from 1995’s Kids)
AVC: When you were doing Kids, did you think, “This needs a lot of Folk Implosion?”

RP: [Laughs.] There was no Folk Implosion, really. That was sort of the greatest surprise. That was really Harmony. We had been listening to a lot of Lou Barlow and a lot of Sebadoh and Lou Barlow’s homemade cassettes. Folk Implosion was the vehicle that Lou, at that point, wanted to be how he made music. And the producer, Wally Gagel, was really critical in making that sound. Then it just sort of happened.

With “Natural One,” at a certain point we were like, “We should put some lyrics and voice on this piece of music.” In a way, that was one of the most surprising things in my whole career. Who would have ever thought that Folk Implosion and Kids would have a Top 40 single? That’s a song I think people will bring back. That song was so groovy.

Skrillex, various songs (from 2012’s Spring Breakers)
RP: The endurance of my career is really steeped in the fact that I have aligned myself with just really brilliant, bold, fearless filmmakers and they continue to make movies. Harmony is a person who just has an incredible sense of the cultural pulse and how to undermine it. Spring Breakers is out of control.

Phil Collins, “In The Air Tonight” (from 2009’s The Hangover)
AVC: Did Todd Phillips say, “It needs to be ‘In The Air Tonight’ in this scene” or was that you?

RP: It’s all born out of the directors. That was specifically Todd. This is the seventh movie I’ve worked on with Todd. Todd is just a comic genius. Again, there’s a large part of the music in the Hangovers where there’s an evolving musical element that I think serves the film, and Todd uses music very well. Some of the most comic moments were the on-camera moments, and those are scripted, and those are really a part of the basic fabric of the movie. We may have been presenting these things, but at those points, it’s just what he thinks is going to be the funniest that gets selected.

Boardwalk Empire (2010 to present)
AVC: How do you move from project to project? How big is your library?

RP: I would say it’s pretty voluminous. It’s a bit of a mess, my library. I think that sometimes there’s a misconception that I know every song that’s ever been made or recorded. But really with something like, say, Boardwalk Empire—which started out in 1920, and now the season will be in 1923—that’s a very early time in music. So that’s why I use my scholastic skills and really bear down and study and read books and research and ask people and find experts. I think in terms of the variety, that’s what keeps you fresh. I can go from Skrillex to Al Jolson in the course of an hour.

Gwyneth Paltrow, “Country Strong” (from 2010’s Country Strong)
RP: I love country music, which surprises people sometimes, so I’d always been looking to do something in country music. That was just a blast just to be able to go and spend time in Nashville and really come to understand things, to have a little bit of an inside look at how the Nashville music machine works, and really get to work in Nashville. The joy of Nashville really is the songwriting and how songwriting happens there. It’s just really special and unique and filled with talented people. In Nashville they have such a reverence for the country-music legacy that it ennobles the whole undertaking.

AVC: How much of your process is just capturing a scene?

RP: I think it’s capturing a spirit, really, especially when you’re doing period music, and especially period rock. Say with, like, I’m Not There, Dylan goes electric at Newport, and it’s a revolutionary moment, but you play the music for a contemporary audience and they’re like, “Well, that’s rock ’n’ roll. What’s so special about that?” So how do you both render the material faithfully and remain faithful to the novelty of it? How do you render the impression of novelty to an audience that is 40 years out? That’s a way where working with the likes of Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth worked, where on some of that material we say, “Okay, we’re going to electrify it in a way that may not be absolutely true to time, but is true to the spirit of the moment.”

Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/rand...perfect_taste/

Monday, Aug 20, 2012 11:11 AM PDT
Randall Poster: The man with perfect taste

Randall Poster picks music for Wes Anderson and discovered your favorite bands. But can he make Fleetwood Mac hip?

By Stephen Deusner

In 1990, Randall Poster co-wrote a movie called “A Matter of Degrees,” about a would-be law student protesting the corporate takeover of his college radio station. It starred Arye Gross, Tom Sizemore and Wendell Pierce from “The Wire,” and if you’ve never heard of it, you’re among the vast majority. It’s not an especially good movie.

But it has a good soundtrack that features the Lemonheads, Uncle Tupelo, Giant Sand, fIREHOSE and Yo La Tengo. This was well before the Lemonheads became MTV mainstays, before Uncle Tupelo ushered in the alt-country movement, and before Yo La Tengo became indie-rock lifers. Twenty-two years later, the soundtrack comes across as strikingly prescient, a lasting memento of a forgettable film.

Poster executive-produced the “Matter of Degrees” soundtrack, helping choose the right songs by the right acts, and it launched a career at the gap between the music and film industries. Since then, he was worked in some capacity on more than 50 feature films and HBO series, including every Wes Anderson film, the Dylan hazyography “I’m Not There,” the glam-rock period piece “Velvet Goldmine,” and Richard Linklater’s “Suburbia” (which, like “A Matter of Degrees,” was a flawed movie that produced a great album).

The mark of a Randall Poster project is its breadth and depth. He seemingly has a vast knowledge of pop history that covers everything from ‘60s garage rock and folk to vintage French pop, from mainstream country to the darker corners of current indie rock and underground hip-hop. Rather than specialize in one genre, his curiosity leads him all over the map.

It’s difficult to calculate the impact Poster has had on popular culture in two decades, especially considering that he also licenses music for commercials and lately has begun producing tribute albums (last year he oversaw last year’s “Rave On Buddy Holly,” and his “I’m Not There” soundtrack was essentially a Dylan tribute). In short, he finds new ways to introduce underground bands to mainstream audiences, an especially compelling enterprise at a time when album sales are cratering and touring becomes increasingly difficult for lesser-known bands.

Poster’s latest project is not a soundtrack, but it’s influenced by them. “Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac” tells the story of the famous classic-rock band that goes beyond the bed-jumping songs that made them famous to examine their earlier days as a U.K. blues-rock band. In other words, Peter Green figures as prominently as Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood. To portray these different facets of the group, Poster invited an array of musicians to contribute covers: The Lee Renaldo Band with J Mascis cover the late ‘60s hit “Albatross” while the Crystal Ark turn “Tusk” into an electronica jam. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top blusters through “Oh Well.” Antony renders “Landslide” nearly a capella and completely hypnotic.

Speaking by phone from the West Coast, the New York native discussed the similarities between soundtracks and tributes, the transformative power of cover songs, and A$AP Rocky’s Buddy Holly sample.

Why Fleetwood Mac? Why do they need this kind of tribute treatment?

I think really what spurred us on was just the range of the catalog. This was a band that had very distinct eras of membership and sound, and it was my ambition to try to draw the line from Peter Green through to the more recent Fleetwood Mac repertoire. It comes out of a love of the music and just my feeling that it was a really interesting collection of songs. I think part of it is the powerful and enduring quality of and emotional attachment to the Stevie- and Lindsey-era songs that are most obvious to people, but I really wanted to celebrate the artistry of Peter Green in that larger context. It’s really a challenge to do that in fewer than 20 songs. If I had my druthers, we would have done 25 to 30 songs. Even then, you would be leaving out what people would think of as the most obvious or the most important or their favorite Fleetwood Mac songs.

There seems to be a very strong storytelling aspect to the album, as though you’re telling the story not only of how this band influenced subsequent generations, but also how Fleetwood Mac evolved. It almost plays like a soundtrack in that regard.

Growing up, vinyl was your primary music delivery format, so I’ve always been somewhat album oriented, especially when you make soundtrack albums for movies. It’s always been our goal with the Wes Anderson soundtracks to try to create a companion to the film: If you play the record the way we’ve organized it, somehow the story comes through. So making these tribute records, I think of them as movies. And so how do I tell the story in that range? How do I detail the range of styles and emotions through the sequencing and through the variety of voices that you can gather for something like this? It’s a bit of a ghost narration in there, but it’s there.

Were there any in particular that stand out as particularly apt or strong covers?

This is my prejudice as a parent of this thing, but I don’t think there’s a weak track in the collection. We approached a lot of artists who have a lot of personality and they really tattooed the songs. As I’ve been living with these songs for months and months, there’s one or another that will be my favorite for a week. But I really like the deliberate interplay between the songs. And so I’m really pleased with everything that we have. I will say, it’s always a thrill for me to hear Bonnie “Prince” Billy. What really knocked me out was how he took a song that really is such a staple of FM and made it sound like this Appalachian folk song. When that kind of transformation happens it’s kind of breathtaking.

One that stood out to me is “Silver Springs,” by Lykke Li. I guess I had never listened that closely to Stevie Nicks as a songwriter, but that song is just devastating.

You have to go to YouTube and the Dance tour — one of the last big tours that Fleetwood Mac did. They did “Silver Springs” and Stevie would sing it at Lindsey. It’s really something to see. Lykke Li is really a huge Fleetwood Mac fan and was totally inspired by Stevie Nicks. It’s a bit intimidating to take on Yoda in a way, but I think that she really did an incredible job in owning the emotion. When you do a bunch of these tracks, you really get a sense of the lyrical qualities and songwriting expertise. It can be very vivid when you hear other people do the songs. On Best Coast’s “Rhiannon,” I paid attention to certain words in the lyrics that maybe I hadn’t before. And again I think that’s really what makes a tribute record worthy of your attention.

On “Just Tell Me That You Want Me,” you’re not only dealing with the breadth of Fleetwood Mac’s catalog, but you’re also managing a lot of artists coming from various worlds. Is diversity an end in itself for a project like this?

Yes. Working on these kinds of enterprises allows me to reach out to artists that I want to work with or that I want to help orchestrate into something. What happens, though, is that you have these artists in mind but then as you’re trying to tell this story of Fleetwood Mac, you see where you want to bring one or another artist in to help render a particular part of the story. And you want to engage artists. You don’t want to go in as a dictator. You do want to engage them and draw them out a little bit and find inspiration from these artists themselves in terms of what they are attached to or what’s important to them in Fleetwood Mac. On a certain level you preconceive and then you follow the path that gets laid out in front of you in terms of who’s involved and who else seems to be a good counterpoint or a reinforcement of a certain musical idea or spirit.

So there’s a certain element of serendipity in putting one of these albums together.

Definitely. That’s where hopefully some of the magic comes. It’s not all coming from one creative point of view. There is this collision of different musical energies that I think make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Or at least I hope so. That’s what I try to do. I like the variety—not only in terms of the variety of artists, but also the fact that the artists work with different producers and bring different sounds to bear. Hopefully it doesn’t come off like babble. Hopefully it becomes more like a working mosaic.

That seems to reflect the way people listen to music today. They’re not just listening to one genre, but to many different kinds of music.

I agree. It’s funny, last year we did this Buddy Holly tribute record, and then yesterday I saw this video of this new track by A$AP Rocky, where the refrain is, “It’s so easy to fall in love.” I’m so glad something like that happened, and I would love to have brought that element to Buddy Holly, but I don’t know how I would have forced it or made it happen just by wanting it to happen. Nice to hear it when it does.

What are your own listening habits? You seem to cultivate a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of not only what happened in the past, but what’s happening now.

I work very hard to keep up with what’s going on right now. And that’s always been as a seeker, seeking out what was at the front line of music. It’s more challenging when you’re going back into a particular era or something that has a regional focus. At that point, it’s not so much that I have an encyclopedic knowledge, but I know where they keep the encyclopedias. Basically I study and research and then frame what I need to do musically. It’s not like I know every song ever done, but I do know how to supplement my own knowledge with experts.

Even going back to something like “A Matter of Degrees,” a large part of your work has been as a conduit for underground bands to find a larger audience and create an environment where these people can be heard. Do you think of that as a specific goal?

That’s one of the great treats in terms of what I do. I can sometimes provide the vehicle to give something a different kind of exposure. That’s the nice thing about working on all of the things that I work on: I find something that I’m in love with, and over some reasonable period of time, I can generally find some vehicle to carry it. It’s very exciting when you have the ability to share new music with a wider audience. Sometimes the value of doing things in a movie is that by giving music a visual context, it puts it out into the world with an even greater electrical charge coming off it. So part of the mission has been to celebrate and support what I thought was great music.

When you did “A Matter of Degrees,” indie culture adhered to this notion of selling out — that placing songs in commercials or even certain types of movies or television shows was disingenuous. I feel like this generation that’s active now has totally disregarded that prejudice. Do you feel like you’ve had a hand in that development?

In terms of the evolution of the digital age, I think certain artists have been forced to look at synchronization in different ways, really, by virtue of the fact that in many ways it has replaced radio as a vehicle to a broader audience. Over time artists have grown more comfortable seeing their music in commercials. Also there’s just much, much more music in commercials. I do think that it’s important that artists maintain some sense of integrity, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that you say no. It just means that you still have some control of what your music is married to. I think that bands are so much more comfortable with it just because it’s all around us. It’s less exceptional syncing your songs to a commercial than it might have been 20 years ago or 15 years ago. It’s certainly keeping a lot of bands alive, so that’s a good thing.

As someone who came of music-buying age in the early 1990s, I associate tribute albums with the CD era. How does a tribute album like “Just Tell Me That You Want Me” function in the digital world?

I think that the majority of albums that will sell will be digital, and I think the digital natives don’t know anything different really. I always felt like with all the shifting delivery systems, there’s always going to be a demand for music. People are always going to want to hear great songs. So regardless of how you get it, I think it’s worthwhile to create it.

You mentioned earlier that you had wanted to keep going with this Fleetwood Mac tracklist. Would you consider revisiting the band’s catalog for a follow-up?

I’d be happy to. Let’s do it again in 10 years. Sure. I think that we’ll look at it 10 years from now and there’ll be another angle to take on it. It’s pretty solid stuff, so I think you could keep pushing it. I think probably I’ll try to do a couple more in between this one and the next Fleetwood Mac project. I’m just about to start a Civil War music project that I’ve been carrying around for a while. It’s traditional Civil War songs, but focused on the music and tradition that the boys brought to the war. It will have artists from the country, bluegrass and pop worlds, and some people that will surprise you, too.

American Songwriter
http://www.americansongwriter.com/20...tribute-album/

Fleetwood Max: A Closer Look At The New Fleetwood Mac Tribute Album
By Andrew Leahey August 29th, 2012


Music supervisor Randall Poster (Moonlight Kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums) was one of guys behind last year’s Rave On, a Grammy-nominated tribute to Buddy Holly. This year, he shifts his focus to Fleetwood Mac. Just Tell Me That You Want Me casts a wide net, with everyone from Marianne Faithfull to Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy taking a stab at the group’s harmony-drenched classics. We caught up with co-producer Poster earlier this summer to talk about the recording process.

So, why Fleetwood Mac?

We’d done the Buddy Holly tribute record last year, and with the success of that, they sort of asked what I wanted to do next. I thought Fleetwood Mac would be a great catalog and great story to jump into. I’ve always loved them. I was first exposed to the classic “Stevie and Lindsey” era of Fleetwood Mac, and then as I explored the other eras, the whole vast legacy continued to be so interesting and compelling. I thought it would be a great foundation for a tribute, as well as a re-examination.

You’ve got a lot of bands on here. Was it difficult to track everybody down and get them into the studio?

All these bands are so busy. They’re all working. You’d catch them where you could, or get them to do the song on the road, wherever they happened to be. At the beginning of the process, we put together a list of all the songs that potentially we’d like to use — our favorites, I guess — and then as the songs came in, or as things unfolded, we’d kind of plot it out, and try to capture all the various sounds and elements and angles that we wanted to put out there. You don’t say, “Ok, everyone do this all at once.” There’s a bit of a process where you let the story unfold musically.

Given how widespread the band’s influence seems to be, you probably didn’t have much trouble soliciting groups to record these songs.

Well, you sort of gravitate toward the people who’re already grounded in that sound. Like magnets, we attract. You start to circle around various artists who’ve really shown those influences in their own music.

So you weren’t interested in throwing listeners for a loop, and getting someone like GWAR to cover “Dreams.”

Yeah, it’s not my interest to do completely blow up the spirit of Fleetwood Mac. It was to filter it through some different artistic sensibilities.

Have you been contacted by Stevie, Lindsey, Mick, or John?

No, but after we started getting some attention for the record, Fleetwood Mac announced they were gonna get together and tour in 2013. So I’m taking credit for that.

Which songs on the album really stand out to you?

This is a self-serving answer, but I really love all the tracks. On different days, I find myself drawn to different things. I always love to hear Will Oldham sing, so his “Storms” is something I go back to pretty steadily. That’s the joy of doing something like this. We only included bands that we love. No one forced anything on us. It’s a bounty of riches, really. I got to be in the studio with Marianne Faithfull, who did a really great version of “Angel.” And one of the challenges with this, especially when you’re taking on some of the more well-known songs, is finding very distinct singers who can make it more than just another version of the same song. You need them to bring some personality to it. Really, one of the things you find when you hear some of these reinterpretations, is that the lyric and the content becomes a little bit more illuminated. You look at it in a deeper way, because you’re not just swept away by the familiarity of the original version. I’m not expressing this well, but the content for some of these songs becomes more vivid because you’re paying attention to it in a new, different way. For some of these songs, just to hear the lyrics sung by someone else… it’s like you hear the words differently. And you remember how great these songs are.

hhaha!!! great post!

Excerpt from Death and Taxes' Poster Interview:
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/1887...andall-poster/


So I guess we should talk about the Fleetwood Mac thing. I’m curious because now Fleetwood Mac is having, for lack of a better phrase, sort of a moment in the sun all of the sudden. And I’m wondering: why Fleetwood Mac? Why are people putting so much emphasis on Fleetwood Mac now?

I mean I can’t really talk about anyone else. I know I wanted to make this record, because for me, it was a big part of my life. The songs either hit me in the head, in the heart or below the waist. I just felt it was such a rich legacy of music that a lot of people probably hadn’t realized how far back it went. There were a lot of people who were unaware that Fleetwood Mac existed before Stevie and Lindsay. For me it was a very interesting challenge to take that whole legacy, that whole repertoire, and to try to reinvigorate it.

What’s your favorite Fleetwood Mac time period and song?

There are days you wanna eat Chinese and days you wanna eat Italian, you know? Some of it, of course in doing this, I gain a much deeper appreciation of the Peter Green era of Fleetwood Mac, so I’d say the one song I adore that isn’t even on our tribute record is “Rattlesnake Shake” by Fleetwood Mac. It’s the one I’ve finally felt hitting again and again lately.

I’m trying to figure out how to word this next bit, because I used to live in Eagle Rock, which is where Bethany from Best Coast is from, and I’ve run into her before. And I now have this job writing about music and it’s strange writing about someone that you used to vaguely know. I know that she really wanted to be part of this Fleetwood Mac compilation and was one of the first to sign on. I’ll be blunt — we reviewed her last album and it was so different than her first one. I thought on her first one she sounded very confident and on her second one, she sounds very different on it. Right, well, her version almost sounds like a damn She and Him song, it doesn’t quite sound like her… were you there when she recorded it or did she like send it over or…

No, no. I think to me, what she brings to it, and was something that I saw, that I heard in the first record was she brings this sort of girl group vibe to it. And again, maybe the She & Him correspondence is the sort of girl group element to it that strips the gothic witchery out of it, and sort of articulates it in a more freshly struck way. And I think a couple of versions of the Stevie songs particularly, and you kind of hear the lyrics in a way you didn’t hear them before. They kind of, I guess maybe at a certain point, I find that since I’ve gotten old I don’t understand the lyrics to the songs as clearly as I did in my 20s. Except in some of the versions here actually, the articulation of the lyrics I actually kind of hear it more distinctly than I did in the original versions, you know?

Were there any other ones—did you have to cut out artists?

I literally ran out of room on the CD. Literally. It came to the final second of the CD, and we basically were left with two tracks available as digital extras. So we just couldn’t fit them all on the record. Literally. Just couldn’t fit them all on the record.

What, to you, makes a good cover? I know Billy Corgan covered “Landslide” and it was a pretty straight take, and then you’ve got something like Bethany from Best Coast (and I can appreciate what she did to it, I just think her last album was really weird) and she totally changed it. What, from your perspective, makes a good cover?

What makes a good cover is when an artist puts their own DNA in it, you know? The challenge is to make each track, but you don’t want people sitting around the campfire singing Fleetwood Mac songs. And they’re not easy songs to do.

I really like that imagery, actually.

It’s fine when you’re camping, but when you’re making a record it comes off as like “Oh, someone doing Fleetwood Mac songs.” To me, the value, or why it’s worth buying something, is when an artist is able to put themselves in it. And I think we largely succeeded in doing that. And then again, I think there are various models for “good.” Sometimes a band figures out that they’re gonna try and be really cool and hip and figure out they’re gonna deconstruct something, and oftentimes that’s just an exercise in onanism. Really. I mean it’s like there’s no point in taking something forward if you’re not helping the past have any purpose in and of itself beyond that.

What was that word you used? A kind of—

Onanism.

Right. Rapid interview u-turn. I know that’s what the Kills did with that one song, I thought that was one of the best songs on the record. They completely changed it.

It’s funny, because the Kills went into the studio planning to do Peter Green’s “A Man Of The World” and came out with “Dreams.”

Was that a surprise to you?

Yeah, I got the call that “Actually, they cut ‘Dreams,’ I hope that’s okay” which it was, only problem would’ve been if someone else had done it, which they hadn’t, so it was cool.

So this is your second [compilation of covers], you did a Buddy Holly one for the first one. Is there another one coming up with another artist?

I’m hoping to do a David Bowie record.

Oh that’d be the ****ing tits! That’d be great. [Laughs] That was the most unprofessional way of putting it, but that’d be really cool.