Extended Play Reviews
 

Here's one from E.W.

http://music-mix.ew.com/2013/04/30/f...ended-play-ep/

Fleetwood Mac have released their first collection of new music in a decade. As promised, the legendary band tabled a full album release in favor of an EP, titled "Extended Play" and available exclusively on iTunes.

The record kicks off with the bouncy "Sad Angel," in which co-lead singers Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks harmonize over looping guitar and Mick Fleetwood's driving beat. "Hello, hello sad angel, have you come to fight the war?" they ask.

The rest of the EP includes the classic-sounding "Without You," which started as a track for Buckingham Nicks, the duo's pre-Mac group. There's also a piano ballad by Buckingham called "It Takes Time" and the album closer "Miss Fantasy."

It's their first new music since 2003's "Say You Will," which debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.

The band told Billboard in February that, "Big, long albums don't seem to be what everybody wants these days." Whether a full-length album emerges from this current reunion is entirely up to fans, Nicks said.

"[Let's] see if the world does want more music from us," Nicks said. "If we get that feeling, that they do want another 10 songs, we can reassess."

Fleetwood Mac is on tour until June.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...-extended-play

Apparently that's the right way to do it, since it's doing well on the charts!

Guess it's time to reassess. *cough cough* ;)

I know!!! Who knew! :blob2::blob1::]

Number one, baby!!

So Stevie & Lindsey produced Without You, and Mitchell Froom produced the other three tracks. Interesting.

yup, that's what i thought.


http://ultimateclassicrock.com/fleet...-album-review/
FLEETWOOD MAC, ‘EXTENDED PLAY’ – ALBUM REVIEW
by Michael Gallucci April 30, 2013 12:17 PM

iTunes

The last time Fleetwood Mac made an album together, they were minus Christine McVie and enough good songs to fill its 75-minute running length. They’re still without McVie on their new four-song EP, but they fixed ‘Say You Will’’s biggest problem by keeping ‘Extended Play’ at an economical 17 minutes. And if it sounds more like a Lindsey Buckingham record than an actual band one at times, at least ‘Extended Play’ is the best thing released under the Fleetwood Mac moniker since 1987’s ‘Tango in the Night.’

In fact, ‘Extended Play,’ which is available exclusively on iTunes, sounds a lot like Buckingham’s recent solo albums, but with a punchier rhythm section and Stevie Nicks’ backing vocals. All of which give the music way more life than if Buckingham – whose insular approach to his solo records often make them sound thin and narrow – would have recorded them himself.

The opening ‘Sad Angel,’ propelled by acoustic guitar and a killer hook, crackles with more energy than anything the band or Buckingham, who wrote and sings lead on all but one of the EP’s four tracks, has done in years. It doesn’t hurt that Nicks and Buckingham still make a great singing team, chiming in on the choruses like it’s 1977 again. The song is the highlight of ‘Extended Play’ and its only real uptempo track.

But the remaining three songs are almost as good, especially the closing ‘Miss Fantasy,’ a shuffling pop number featuring a whispered vocal by Buckingham, with Nicks pushing along the choruses. The hushed piano ballad ‘It Takes Time’ is mostly Buckingham until the final minute, when strings swell around the spare melody. And Nicks and Buckingham share lead vocals on ‘Without You,’ a leftover cut from the pair’s pre-Fleetwood Mac duo days written by Nicks.

Fleetwood Mac have been performing a couple of the songs on their current tour, so in a way, ‘Extended Play’ doubles as a show souvenir for fans wanting new material from the band. It’s not essential Mac by any means, but after all these years, and all these years apart, it’s nice to know that they’re still capable of making some sweet music together.

7 out of 10 Official Ultimate Classic Rock Rating



btw, if anybody thinks Sad Angel is more rocking than a number of songs on Lindseys most recent solo albums, they are either deaf or never listened to those albums.

Rolling Stone By RJ Cubarrubia

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...ay-ep-20130430

April 30, 2013 9:55 AM ET

Fleetwood Mac have returned with their first batch of new music in 10 years. Extended Play, available now exclusively on iTunes, contains the new tracks "Sad Angel," "It Takes Time" and "Miss Fantasy," penned by Lindsey Buckingham. It also includes "Without You," a rediscovered and revamped track originally written by Stevie Nicks from the pair's Buckingham Nicks project.


Extended Play is Fleetwood Mac's first studio release since the 2003 LP Say You Will. Buckingham promised the EP was on the way earlier this month during a concert in Philadelphia. In January, he talked to Rolling Stone about how his relationship with Stevie Nicks has developed over the years.

"It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever," Buckingham said. "After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case – there are new chapters to be written."

Fleetwood Mac are currently on a North American tour. Their next show is tonight at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri. For full tour dates, visit the band's website.


Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/ne...#ixzz2RyIbVztK
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

It's #59 currently... :shrug:

More press
 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...=entertainment
Fleetwood Mac 'Extended Play' Released As Band Debuts New Songs

Earlier this month veteran rockers Fleetwood Mac promised fans they would soon be releasing new music, and Tuesday morning they did just that.

Made up of Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac released a four-track EP called "Extended Play" on Tuesday, available exclusively through iTunes.

"One of the things we thought would be a good idea before we hit the road would be to go into the studio and cut some new material," Buckingham said at a Philadelphia concert in April. "So last year we did that. It's the best stuff we've done in a long time, and in a few days we're going to drop an EP of new stuff."

The extended play is Fleetwood Mac's first collection of new material in 10 years. The band released its last studio album, "Say You Will," in 2003. The new EP features four songs from Fleetwood Mac: a retro Nicks-penned track "Without You," as well as new songs called "Sad Angel," "It Takes Time," and "Miss Fantasy." Take a listen to "Sad Angel" above.

With more than four decades in the business, the members of Fleetwood Mac are currently in the midst of a North American tour. The tour kicked off earlier this month, hitting cities across the U.S. and Canada before wrapping in Sacramento, Calif. on July 6. The band then heads abroad, kicking off the European leg of the tour in Dublin, Ireland on Sept. 20.

So what has kept the rockers (now all in their 60s) going all of these years, making new music and traveling the world on an exhausting schedule? "It has everything to do with the feeling I get when my fingers touch those keys and I sing that first sentence," Nicks explained to HuffPost Entertainment about her love of making music in December. "It may not save the world but people are gonna love it. Because I love it."

Right now (just checked), it is number 6 on the iTunes album chart.

For those who may not know, these are iTunes sales charts - not Billboard rankings or anything like that.

However, with iTunes being the largest (in terms of volume) music retailer in the world, being number 6 in the U.S. late in the day after release, is very impressive. :nod:

That's good to know. I wasn't sure. I thought maybe it was common for new releases by a name band to have a big spurt up the first day and then fall to #139 within the week. So, to know it's not a regular thing is inspiring.

Michele

It says to me that it's selling units to more than just internet fans. If this were not available online, and only a CD release in brick-and-mortor stores, I doubt it would have charted. Just my opinion, of course - I'm no sales analyst.

Of course, it might very well fall to 139 tomorrow. :shrug:

Unrelated:
Gosh, the projects Stevie could do if she embraced the internet.

it's #6 on overall album sales chart, and #1 on the rock album chart. so TerraRhiannon is also correct.

all this is itunes US, not Aus, UK, NZ, etc. so whoever said #50something was not looking at the itunes US.

agree. same if it was available on both amazon and itunes - it would be split. of course, top of itunes promotional banner plus the price helps too.

Perez Hilton

http://perezhilton.com/2013-04-30-fl...sten-sad-angel

We didn't want to believe the Rumors (ughh we couldn't resist!) in case they proved to be false…

But huzzah! Fleetwood Mac really DID record new music and it's all available for your listening pleasure RIGHT NOW in the form of their Extended Play EP!

Take a listen to Sad Angel, one of their brand new tunes written by Lindsey Buckingham (above)!

Now, we've already heard this track before as Stevie Nicks and co. have been playing it while on tour, but the legitimate studio recording gives us a FAR better sense of what this song is about than the muddled live version.

Extended Play is the band's first collection of unheard tracks since 2003's Say You Will, and amongst its freshly penned melodies is Without You, a rediscovered song from the Buckingham Nicks project that was never officially released.

Yaaaay for more Fleetwood Mac! Our ears will never tire of their supreme musical talent and soul-stuffed creations!

"Extended Play" just inched up to #5 on the US Itunes album chart! ;)

Very Awesome.

Sad Angel review
 

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/fleet...medium=twitter

FLEETWOOD MAC, ‘SAD ANGEL’ – SONG REVIEW

by Dave Lifton April 30, 2013 8:52 PM
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Earlier today (April 30), Fleetwood Mac released a four-song EP, ‘Extended Play,’ their first new studio material since 2003′s ‘Say You Will.’ While the EP is available for purchase exclusively at iTunes, you can stream the lead track and first single, ‘Sad Angel,’ below.

Written by Lindsey Buckingham, ‘Sad Angel’ opens with some typically kinetic, percussive Buckingham rhythm guitar before his vocals come in, and joined later by the whole band. The rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood chug along in typical no-nonsense, muscular fashion, with some keyboards and a few layers of guitars to fill it out.

Even though she sings in tandem with Buckingham for all but the opening 15 seconds, Stevie Nicks is largely invisible. She takes her lines well and the two still blend together very well, but there’s little of her trademark personality on display. Maybe that’s a little harsh, but for a band that has traded so frequently on the duo’s history together, ‘Sad Angel’ doesn’t offer much in the way of tension between its two lead singers.

Not that that’s a bad thing, of course. Throughout the run-up to the release of ‘Extended Play,’ we’ve heard about how those past issues are behind them – note how they’re posed in the press photo above – so what better way to prove it than with a nice, poppy song that is, lyrically, light years removed from their famously autobiographical work.

Or is it? The ambiguous lyrics could be Buckingham acknowledging that he and Nicks need each other, and are never better than when they’re together. “We fall to Earth together / The crowd calling out for more / Hello, hello sad angel / Have you come to fight the war?” they sing in the chorus. It’s hard to tell, because we usually associate Nicks with gypsies or witches, not angels.

If ‘Sad Angel’ is about her, then it’s a nice peace offering as the two of them prepare to write the newest chapter in their incredibly long history together. If not, then it’s still a welcome return to form for one of rock’s most enduring bands.

7 of 10

^Oh come on. She's been an angel for a long time.

Michele

When I first heard this song I kind of thought it was about Stevie coming back to Fleetwood Mac. "Hello, Sad Angel, have you come to fight the war?" Make sense in that respect.

That's what I thought too

Wished...
 

it would be released on disc, don't care for iTunes

that's "ayn-jell":D

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,4251800.story

By Mikael Wood
May 1, 2013, 8:30 a.m. Los Angeles Times

The four songs on the new Fleetwood Mac EP -- which the legendary pop-rock outfit put up for sale on iTunes on Tuesday morning with little advance 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 back to sessions for the two 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," which you can hear below, 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 in the midst of a giant arena tour that will bring the band to the Hollywood Bowl on May 25 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 "Extended Play" -- 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 (after only a handful of spins, anyway) 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.

:laugh: Reminds me of my mother... even she won't sit down in front of a computer.

Mostly Junk Food, April 30, 2013

http://www.mostlyjunkfood.com/stream...ended-play-ep/


No, you didn’t read that wrong. Fleetwood Mac is actually back with new material for the first time in ten years and no one can be disappointed about it. They quietly released it on iTunes earlier today and is actually a strong EP for only being fifteen minutes long. However, they could’ve come up with a better title than “Extended Play” but they’re old so they get a pass. In related news: Steely Dan just announced a summer tour.

Here’s what Lindsey had to say about the project:


“It’s still evolving, and that’s the beauty of it too. I’ve known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we’ve been a musical couple forever,” Buckingham said. “After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case – there are new chapters to be written.”

Just this excerpt from The Music Network, by Nathan Jolly

http://www.themusicnetwork.com/music...l-in-a-decade/

While we aren't wild about the prospects of a song called Miss Fantasy penned by a 63-year-old Lindsey Buckingham, we are thrilled beyond belief that Fleetwood Mac have released their first new music since 2003's muted Say You Will, an album marred by the still-strained relationship between Nicks and Buckingham.

The Guardian, UK May 1, 2013 by Sean Michaels

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013...erial-released

Fleetwood Mac have unveiled their first new music in a decade. Without fanfare or a marketing campaign, the band released their four-song EP direct to iTunes on 30 April.

The release, simply titled Extended Play, comprises a quartet of tunes: three originals by Lindsey Buckingham and one by Stevie Nicks, written in 1973 when the pair were still the duo Buckingham Nicks. This is hardly a set of sexagenarians' basement tapes: Without You – not be confused with the Danny Kirwan-written Mac song of the same name – and Sad Angel are as shiny as Rumours, and even the lonely piano ballad, It Takes Time, has a dramatic synths/strings coda.

Buckingham revealed plans for the EP at a gig in Philadelphia earlier this month – the band have been performing some of the new songs on their current tour. "It's the best stuff we've done in a long time," he said, promising that the record would be out "in a few days". It took a few weeks, instead, but within hours of appearing on iTunes, Extended Play had appeared in the digital shop's top 10 chart, though it has since dropped.

"We all felt that it would be great to go into the studio and record new material before embarking on this tour and the result has been remarkable," Buckingham said in a statement. Nicks has previously indicated that Fleetwood Mac would only record another full-length if she felt certain fans would buy it. "Big, long albums don't seem to be what everybody wants these days," she told Billboard in February. "[Let's] see if the world does want more music from us … If we get that feeling, that they do want another 10 songs, we can reassess."

One of Buckingham's new songs is an explicit response to Nicks's musical reticence. "At the moment [Sad Angel] was being written, I was really thinking about the fact that [Stevie] and I were not agreeing on the idea of an album," he recently told MSN. "The chorus is, 'Hello, sad angel, have you come to fight the war?' It goes on to talk about 'the crowd's calling out for more' … [Sad Angel and Miss Fantasy] are songs about Stevie and me."

Prior to Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac's most recent new recording was the 2003 album Say You Will. That record reached No 6 on the UK album charts, and achieved gold sales, but fell well short of the band's commercial peak from 1975 to 1987. The band have sold more than 100m albums worldwide.

Fleetwood Mac are currently in the midst of a North American tour, with plans to visit the UK and Europe this fall.

Slate by Alex Heimbach, April 30, 2013

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/...gs_listen.html

Fleetwood Mac, which put out a new EP today, was one of the few music choices my parents and I could agree on. I would scream along with the rocking chorus of “The Chain” on the way to school and dance around the house to “Little Lies.” Since then, my appreciation for the band—from Lindsey Buckingham’s virtuosic guitar playing to the group’s layered harmonies—has grown more sophisticated, but the songs still pack the simple, emotional wallop they did for me 15 years ago.


Alternately credited with and cursed for creating “adult contemporary,” the members of Fleetwood Mac are almost as famous for their personal drama as for their classic songs. Originally, though, Fleetwood Mac was a simple British blues band, formed in 1967 by guitarist Peter Green and named after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. This lineup, with a few additions, put out three albums, which did well in the U.K., but received little attention stateside. (One of the singles from that era, “Black Magic Woman,” became a major hit for Santana.) In 1970, Green left the band after suffering from a mental breakdown (he was later diagnosed as schizophrenic). A year later Christine McVie, John’s new wife, officially joined. A keyboardist who wrote her own music, Christine increasingly came to shape the band’s sound. Mick and the McVies stuck together through the early ’70s and more personnel changes—one of their guitarists joined the Children of God and another had an affair with Fleetwood’s wife—as they tried to replicate their British success in the U.S.


They didn’t have much luck until 1974, when Mick recruited the American folk duo Buckingham Nicks. For their first album together, this new version of Fleetwood Mac combined Christine’s songs with some that Lindsey and Stevie had already written. The eponymous result finally brought the band the American popularity they’d been looking for, selling five million copies and reaching No. 1 on the charts. It had four hit singles, including McVie’s poppy “Say You Love Me” and Nicks’ haunting “Rhiannon,” which highlighted her wild performance style.


Success also brought trouble, as it does. The band’s two couples began to unravel—as did Mick Fleetwood’s marriage to model Jenny Boyd—just as they returned to the studio. And so the musical legend of Rumours was born: The album is made up of songs that Christine, Lindsey, and Stevie wrote about their dissolving relationships. The most famous of these are Buckingham and Nicks’ dueling takes on their doomed love, her ethereal “Dreams” and his aggressive “Go Your Own Way.” But at the heart of the album is the only song all five of the band members ever collaborated on, “The Chain,” which emphasizes their commitment to carrying on as a group despite their personal disagreements.


After the massive sales of Rumours, the studio invested heavily in the band’s follow-up. But Buckingham was determined not to repeat himself and began experimenting with different recording techniques (including, for instance, laying on a tile floor as he sang into the microphone). Meanwhile, Stevie had embarked on a secret affair with Mick—which ended, much to her chagrin, when he left her for her best friend. Eighteen months and the largest recording budget of all time produced the messy Tusk. The album sold about a quarter of the copies its predecessor did, but the unnerving title track, which features the USC marching band, balances Buckingham’s desire for punky weirdness and the rest of the band’s gift for grandeur.


The band put out two albums in the ’80s: 1982’s Mirage—which was largely overshadowed by Nicks’ solo release Belladonna—and 1987’s Tango in the Night. Tango was troubled; the band’s lifestyle remained extravagant and Nicks had abandoned coke for Klonopin, which made her spacey and unreliable. Buckingham and McVie, who had a hit with my old favorite, “Little Lies,” took over most of the songwriting duties, but Nicks, with the help of Sandy Stewart, still managed to contribute one great song, the cheerful “Seven Wonders.”


After another blow-up with Nicks, Buckingham left the band right before the Tango in the Night tour. The split wasn’t permanent, but the band never really recovered; in 1997, Christine McVie permanently retired from Fleetwood Mac. The remaining foursome has toured sporadically since then. Their 2003 album, Say You Will, was fairly successful, but failed to live up to their earlier work.


The new EP is the band’s first new material since then. The best of its tracks, “Sad Angel,” hearkens back to the catchy pop-rock of Rumours, rather than the smoothed-out sound of their more recent stuff. Perhaps they’ve rediscovered the knack they used to have for transmuting a troubled dynamic into powerful songs, though it’s hard to tell on the basis of just three new songs, all by Buckingham. (The fourth track, “Without You,” is an old Buckingham Nicks tune.) However it turns out, I’ll always have “The Chain.” And if you’ve never given the band much thought, you’ll find 10 tracks to get you started below, both as a Spotify playlist and on YouTube and Amazon. Enjoy.

New music review: Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac

By Bernard Perusse, The Montreal Gazette May 1, 2013


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...#ixzz2S7A2HpBp

It wasn't quite the blindside of David Bowie's sudden emergence in January with new music. Lindsey Buckingham had started the jungle telegraph with an announcement at Fleetwood Mac's April 6 concert in Philadelphia that the group would release an EP of new material "in a few days."

But the actual appearance of the music yesterday on iTunes still came as a surprise in an era when release dates are etched in stone and the hype machine gets going ages before the music surfaces.

Four tracks from the Mac - one of them a rediscovered oldie - is not the feat Bowie accomplished with 17 unheard songs. But it shares the same decade-long gestation period: this is the group's first fresh recording since the 2003 album Say You Will.

And it's a joyous 18 minutes.

Fans will read all sorts of meanings into the lyrics, which are hard not to connect with Buckingham's often-troubled relationship with Stevie Nicks. It is, after all, the backdrop for rock n' roll's longest-running soap opera.

"It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever," Buckingham said to Rolling Stone. "After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case - there are new chapters to be written."

"I had a really good time working with him for four days at his house. I got to hang out with his family and his kids, his grown up kids, and really connect with him again. We're pretty proud of what we have done, and we're looking at it through the eyes of wisdom now, instead of through the eyes of jealousy and resentment and anger," Nicks told the same publication.

""Hello, hello sad angel, have you come to fight the war?" Buckingham and Nicks sing in harmony during the killer chorus of opening track Sad Angel, an uptempo, catchy pop-rocker written by Buckingham. In many ways, in fact, the entire EP sounds like a Buckingham solo release: strongly melodic, filled with dreamy hooks and neurotically self-aware.

Without You, which, tellingly, comes from the pre-Mac Buckingham-Nicks era, is the sole track penned by Nicks. It finds the two in a grizzled update of the Everly Brothers sound: over a gorgeous, crisp acoustic jangle, Nicks's rough nasality blends with Buckingham's high tenor in a celebration of where the two have brought each other. The perspective might be 40 years old, but it seems oddly poignant now.

It Takes Time, a stark, but sweet piano ballad, finds Buckingham's protagonist struggling to connect with his own feelings, while Miss Fantasy is quite the stunner: a sunshiny, bittersweet look back, with a chorus that evokes the Beach Boys. As Nicks comes in on harmony, the track soars higher than we could have hoped for.

No word yet on when, or even whether, a physical release will follow.


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/enter...#ixzz2S79v48kd

Miami Herald by Howard Cohen May 3, 2013
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/0...fleetwood.html

Fleetwood Mac, Extended Play (LMJS Productions) * * * 1/2

Fleetwood Mac’s first new music since 2003’s Say You Will is short on Stevie Nicks, who resisted recording a full album with the group. The resulting four-track EP, released to iTunes as a digital download, makes you wish for more on the strength of Lindsey Buckingham’s three new songs.

Nicks contributes the folksy Without You, a reject from the 1973 sessions for the Buckingham Nicks LP. The pair harmonize over Buckingham’s tinny acoustic strumming. Meh.

Much better: Buckingham’s fresh songs in which he returns to writing crisp, accessible, engaging California pop/rock, like the infectiously melodic and rhythmically driving Sad Angel and the breezy Miss Fantasy, a piquant taste of Mirage-era Mac that makes great use of the famed rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

His stark solo piano ballad, It Takes Time — imagine Christine McVie’s Songbird as its closest cousin — intrigues the most because it’s unlike anything the guitarist has released.

Nice to report, also, that 37 years after breaking up, those old rumours between Buckingham and Nicks never cease to amuse. Buckingham has said that Sad Angel was written in a bout of anger over Nicks’ reticence to record an album. “Hello, hello, sad angel/Have you come to fight the war/The drums, a fire, a calling ... the crowd calling out for more.” Score one for Team Lindsey.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/0...#storylink=cpy

http://nickslive.blogspot.com/2013/0...ed-play_3.html

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” - "concise burst of fresh songs'

Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” (iTunes)

In the decade since Fleetwood Mac released 2003's “Say You Will,” a new surge of interest in the group's distinctive pop style has taken hold in the modern pop, alternative and country communities. Recent music by artists as diverse as Cut Copy, Lady Antebellum, Vampire Weekend, Haim, Daft Punk, John Mayer and Little Big Town was inspired by the warmth and harmonic richness of Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era, and last year's tribute album, “Just Tell Me That You Want Me,” offered persuasive testimony to the band's enduring influence.

But for all the enthusiasm those acts show for Fleetwood Mac's pop shimmer, most would balk at walking a mile in their shoes, and continued tension within the band is a key reason why they only mustered four tracks for “Extended Play,” Fleetwood Mac's first new material since 2003. But this concise burst of fresh songs, mostly co-produced by Buckingham and Mitchell Froom (Crowded House), says more about what it really means to be part of Fleetwood Mac than anything since “Rumours” and “Tusk.” Buckingham takes it on directly with “Sad Angel,” which addresses the challenge of getting Nicks on board with new Mac material while the fans are “calling out for more.” Even the inclusion of “Without You,” an unreleased Buckingham Nicks song, underlines the continued tension — putting the song on “Extended Play” was a compromise after Nicks and Buckingham could not agree on how to handle the 40th anniversary of the “Buckingham Nicks” album.

But Buckingham extends an olive branch with “It Takes Time,” a rare piano ballad from the band since Christine McVie's retirement. The song acknowledges that Buckingham bears some of the burden here, and that he carries his own emotional baggage to every Fleetwood Mac gig. The group wraps up “Extended Play” with Buckingham's “Miss Fantasy,” a wistful uptempo song about “the queen of the underground.” “Everyone whispers when you go, into the silence soft and low/ Ten thousand voices, crying ‘on with the show,” Buckingham sings. Over 35 years after the romantic fissures that nearly wrecked the band, on “Extended Play” Fleetwood Mac proves that some chains never really break.

— George Lang
Newsok.com

Was Stevie a producer? I didn't know that.

http://www.offthetracks.co.nz/fleetw...ended-play-ep/

May 3, 2013 by Simon Sweetman
Fleetwood Mac: Extended Play – EP

Fleetwood Mac

Extended Play – EP

LMJS Productions

Though you could argue it’s phoned in by the title alone, I really like this four-track EP by Fleetwood Mac, the band’s first release in a decade and their second set of recordings sans Christine McVie. Once again her presence is missed – because it’s now just The Stevie and Lindsey Show and her counterpoint was (always) crucial.

Where Say You Will, the band’s last album, was far too long (some 75 minutes) Extended Play is probably just a bit too short – six tracks might have been nice. But it’s a move I applaud. For two (crucial) reasons. Firstly, Fleetwood Mac is a hits-act, running the nostalgia circuit, giving its fans what they want, delivering ****-hot performances, still white-hot with Lindsey’s guitar prowess front and centre, that oh-so-capable rhythm section, Nicks still playing the twirling white-witch bogan-fantasy to the hilt and – yes – The Stevie and Lindsey Show is a big part of the sound and look and story of the band’s tours – as it has been since 1975 (with just a slight break). So fans want to hear the hits and a new album would be a waste of time but a new EP allows them a fan-souvenir and a chance for the band to slip in just a wee bit of new material. A nice touch, I say.

But the other great reason for a four-track EP at this stage in their career – far more important, I say – is this idea of simply offering all you have to say at any one moment and nothing more. Or, put another way, offer up your best work – avoid the filler. So Fleetwood Mac only has four songs they want to share right now. So be it. See reason one above – no one is going to a Fleetwood Mac show for the new material.

I don’t see this move of releasing an EP as misguided, I think it’s smart that a band like Fleetwood Mac releases an EP over an album; that they’ve done so at this stage in their career pleases me. More bands should be releasing just the good material.

So, all that said, is the material on the EP good enough?

For the most part, yes. And – it has to be said – thanks to Lindsey. Three of the four songs are from Buckingham, who really has been doing the heavy-lifting since Tusk. And – in the decade since Say You Will – he’s the Mac member that’s offered the most outside of the band; his solo albums a grand showcase for his skills; each album offering something new, a fresh angle. The other song is one that Buckingham had a hand in way back; has been resurrected.

So, opener, Sad Angel is the sort of immaculate pop song Buckingham has been scrubbing since his first solo album and in the way the riff dissolves into the hook it bears some resemblance to his great solo track Trouble. It’s a strong new addition to the Mac cannon.

Without You is a re-recording of a pre-Mac Buckingham/Nicks demo – and though it’s lightweight it plays into the history and is something for fans to hear; to reconnect with that soap-opera back-story that is so important to this band. It’s the weakest song on Extended Play however.

But It Takes Time is gorgeous, Lindsey at the piano, deciding – essentially – that if the band is missing Christine McVie and Christine McVie Songs he’ll just write one. It Takes Time wouldn’t have been out of place on the recent return from Bill Fay. It’s my pick for winning track on EP – it’s the something special you often find on EPs.

And the closer, Miss Fantasy, is another strong pop song. Flavours of the Mac of old. Just enough to distinguish it – and the other songs here – from Lindsey’s solo career; it’s deceptively slight at first – just 17 minutes after all – but you hear the textures, that lovely feel that is signature.

Will it change the world? No. Will it keep the fans happy? Of course.

The EP is available at iTunes or you can stream it.

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Fleetwood Mac's First New Music In 10 Years - Extended Play

Fleetwood Mac are back with their first new recordings as a band for 10 years. Particularly from the thinking man's guitar hero Lindsey Buckingham, there have been plenty of solo projects in more recent years and Stevie Nicks even managed an acclaimed solo album in 2011 (In Your Dreams).

But this is the first time since the whopping 18-track album Say You Will of 2003 that Fleetwood Mac have recorded new music. At this stage it seems very much like they are testing the waters because they've only released four songs on an EP with the nice little title of Extended Play. Word is Nicks is reluctant to release a full album if it's not going to sell and that her long time sparring partner / love / muse / ex Buckingham is more keen.

So the EP is kind of a hedging of bets. If it sells then Fleetwood Mac fans can expect a new album. If it doesn't, then expect them to keep touring as a collective but to only get new releases in the form of solo projects.

I hope they do a full album and that they realize the comparatively (for them) mediocre sales of their last album shouldn't dissuade them from attempting to further their legacy, rather than just maintaining it. Say You Will had some highlights (namely Bleed To Love Her and Steal Your Heart Away), but suffered from being too long and sounding a bit like the combination of two solo albums from Buckingham and Nicks. Without Christine McVie (who retired in the late 90s to the English countryside), this is always going to be a concern.

Fleetwood Mac as they look today.

But, that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. Live, Fleetwood Mac are still just as compelling as ever and listening to these quite excellent four new songs (albeit one that's a reworking of a song from the 40 year old Buckingham / Nicks LP) makes me want to hear more.

The new songs are reminiscent of classic Fleetwood Mac in that the material is autobiographical. After all these years, there remains something very intriguing - as well as unique - about two people singing songs about each other, to each other. And while these songs are the songwriting works of Buckingham, Nicks should know that nobody produces her songs better than he can.

Here is my favourite of the new Fleetwood Mac songs, Without You.