Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenMagic
4. Christine, Lindsey and Stevie has their best work songwriting-wise on the album. Especially Christine who honestly I did dismiss at first. But on this album her songs have some teeth to them. As does Stevie's. Sister of The Moon beats Gold Dust Woman for me any day of the week. Lindsey's is just sheer genius. His non-specific surreal, subject matter adds to over-all quality of songs.
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You lost me on this one. I think Christine came up short on this album.
Christine's role has always been to provide the really poppy, hook laden songs to add to Nicks' mysticism and Buckingham's off-kilter brilliance. On every album of the BuckinghamNicks Mac she comes through with at least two really radio friendly songs: "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me" (white album), "Don't Stop" and "You Make Lovin' Fun" (Rumours), "Hold Me" and "Love In Store" (Mirage), "Little Lies" and "Everywhere" (Tango).
But on Tusk we have "Think About Me" as the catchiest of her songs, and even that one is not as pop-oriented as the songs listed above. That's not to say that it isn't *good*...I think it's a great song, along with "Brown Eyes". But she just didn't provide the big radio songs for Tusk like she did the other albums:
"Brown Eyes" is *awesome* but it's an atmospheric album track, not a single.
"Never Make Me Cry" is too subdued to make it on radio.
"Never Forget" is a nice, bouncy song but not substantial enough to be a radio hit.
"Over & Over" has a nice smokey vibe but again way too subdued to make it on radio. No real hook here.
"Honey Hi" is a grower. I actually really disliked it when I first got Tusk back in 1979, but its grown on me since then basically because of the gorgeous vocals on it. But still, not radio friendly.
Now, I'll give you that one can consider these to be good songs, absolutely. But they aren't the radio pop songs that, IMO, Tusk kind of needed. Tusk is a class, brilliant album, and it has Nicks' best songs ever because Nicks did what Mac needs Nicks to do: Be the long-winded, mystical, personality-driven goddess. Buckingham came through too with amazing songs that were way ahead of their time: "Tusk" was the weirdest, best top 10 hit of 1979, "I Know I'm Not Wrong" sounds today like it should have been a hit back then, and the production on "That's All For Everyone" is breathtaking.
But Mac needs McVie to provide the radio friendly pop and on Tusk she just didn't.