Favorite album before Stevie and Lindsey
 

another poll, just wanting to know. i really like Kiln House.

Mystery To Me is one of my favorite Mac albums, period. I love all the Bob Welch era Mac albums, though. He really brought something special to the band that's hard to classify.

Bare Trees.
As the last album with Danny Kirwan, it really sounds like his farewell work, specially if you listen to Dust. Bare Trees, Danny's Chant and Child of Mine are amazing, but Sunny Side of Heaven is simply wonderful, and maybe one of the best songs of Fleetwood Mac. By its instrumental character, it really differs from other songs.
Only two songs of Bob Welch, but enough to appreciate his talent and all he could do. Sentimental Lady is a poem, and I love it more than the Bob's solo version. Ghost is...funny? Hehehe
Chris' songs, Homeward Bound and Spare me a little of your love are good, specially the second one. I like them more than her immediate Penguin songs. :sorry:
Well...about the last "song", it's rare, no questions about it, but sometimes when I hear it, I think "this is a little peace of history"!
Regards and thanks!!

Agreed on everything. MTM is one of the few FM albums I listen to cover to cover.

voted MTM, but Heroes is a close second.

Mystery to me just need one more great "Chris-track"... maybe Come a Little Bit closer or Did you ever Love me and it'd be a great great record. Still, it is my pick.

Was going to choose Penguin, but I forgot Why...hehehe.

Then Play On. No sweat.

I wish I can answer this poll.At that time before I was madly in love with Olivia Newton-John.

most all the albums are listed in full on youtube. Chris/Bob era offers some really great stuff.

actually...all the albums are good, but I'm not a big fan of Kiln House. Some of JS's tracks are too obscure.

Major problem...I like them all about equally...a ever so slight dip in quality on Kiln House & Penguin counterbalanced by the peaks on Then Play On & Mystery To Me...and dips & valleys all on one album (Bare Trees).

Although I do think had it not been for the off-stage foibles during the Mystery To Me tour (or if they could've channeled that pain an anguish like they did just a measly 3 or 4 years later), it could've been what Rumours ended up being (odd how interpersonal relationships almost killed the band after one album, yet a very similar situation after another launched the band into the stratosphere of popularity which was the glue keeping them together) :shrug:

Looking back from nearly 40 years on, there really wasn't a major shift in the band's sound from album to album despite personnel changes. It was just a slight blending from album to album...like the songwriters knew what was coming even if they weren't going to be around. You go from "Rattlesnake Shake" on Then Play On to "Tell Me All The Things You Do" on Kiln House to the "Dragonfly" single A-side having a Kiln House feel to the B-side "Purple Dancer" almost being a major announcement of what was coming on Future Games...then with Bare Trees being the first album in a while to have the same lineup as the album prior and "Child Of Mine" & "Homeward Bound" being lead-ins to Penguin and "Dissatisfied" & "Bright Fire" also blending into the entire Mystery To Me album followed by Heroes Are Hard To Find blending tunes with sounds of what came just before ("Bermuda Triangle", the title track) and a sound that the founder gave ("Safe Harbour" being Welch's attempt at an "Albatross" type track), to Welch forseeing the sound of the next incarnation with "She's Changing Me" & "Angel", neither of which would have been out of place on the 1975 self-titled album.

Although I disagree with you on the level of quality on some of these albums, ( I really think that the first Two never levelled with TPO, and BT, KH, FG (that I love, btw) were no match with MTM, I really agree with you on the evolutionary development of the band though all It's incarnations. beautiful post dude. ( let's just not talk about the post tango incarnations, then we Will disagree again..)

But what you wrote, That's how I look at FM's musical legacy, too.

One of my favourite bedtime listens is the two Kirwan/Welch era albums back to back. Sad that the absence of Greenie meant no-one took any notice but those albums epitomise beautiful music. I have never heard anything else quite like them. How gorgeous can music get with all instruments electric bar the drums? How gorgeous can rock get without turning into folk?

These two albums have the answer and it's such a shame Kirwan went nutso because great album though M2M is (and Heroes) a balance in the sound had been lost to my mind.

Thanks. I DO know when to STFU sometimes, ya know. ;) :D

Well, a first album is a first album...unless they're really special, there is a "learning curve" with album making. Plus, I have that "problem" with Mr. Wonderful, since being here in the US, English Rose WAS their 2nd album in my mind...(didn't put the effort into the UK albums with Fleetwood Mac like I did with the Beatles' UK albums...I thought the US 2nd album was far superior than the UK 2nd album). And, still, to me, as an album in its entirety, I think English Rose as a blues album is every bit as good as Then Play On is as a rock album (except for the cover, however! LOL!)

Kiln House! There's no other record quite like this in all of rock.

In fact, Kiln House and Then Play On are both entirely excellent in different ways and moods.

The 71-74 albums are all interesting and have moments of great quality and interest but are, on the whole, uneven or inconsistent. Of that batch, Future Games has the most consistent concept or sound. Mystery has some of the greatest Welch tunes, and Penguin some of the most enjoyable C. McVie moments.