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Originally Posted by tango87
I've always been in raptures about Lindsey and Richard's production on Tango. I know a lot of people disparage it as sounding cold and inorganic, but I really don't agree - I think it's so absorbing and sophisticated.
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Even if some of us don’t like the arrangement decisions, we should all agree that the album’s engineering is Rolls-Royce: perfect balances, EQ, dynamics, mixing, and so on. The acoustics of every track are equal to anything on
Rumours or
Mirage. In 1987 there was some great engineering on the radio — Peter Gabriel, Prince, the Jesus and Mary Chain — but also a lot of sludgy crud, even from great bands (
Hysteria or
Tunnel of Love, anyone?). The engineering in
Tango sounded great on the radio, on home systems, and in the car. It was really the last Mac studio album to sound
that good.
Out of the Cradle is its kindred on that level — and in other ways.
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In a way, I feel it completes the mythical identity that had been part of their appeal since Stevie and Lindsey joined. I remember Rolling Stone's review saying it sounded like the band members were 'calling out to each other from the turrets of a castle through the mist,' (or something).
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I think it was John Rockwell in the
New York Times who also wrote a major praise of the album’s sound and emotional landscape.
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I was thrilled to see Richard on the recent BBC documentary about Christine, demonstrating that the iconic tinkly opening to Everywhere was actually Lindsey playing a half-speed guitar that had been sped up, rather than a Fairlight as everyone had assumed.
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I figured it was a four- or five-finger pattern programmed on a synthesizer — until I heard the beginning of “Surrender the Rain” in 1992. (I used to play that part manually in a Fleetwood tribute on a Korg synth tine — I played a five-finger pattern in the major key and dropped the 4, letting my hand go limp and just rolling ascending and descending over and over as fast as I could.)