Analyzing album covers: Tusk

[shackin'up]

Originally Posted by WatchChain

The album cover, like the material on the record, was like a sucker punch out of left field. At the time, "Tusk" was the most unexpected thing Fleetwood Mac could have done. "Tusk" was like flipping the middle finger at the machine that is the music industry. No one saw this coming, including the record executives.

Someone once said that, when the band sat down in a conference room to play the final/finished product to the businessmen and record executives at Warners, the company execs saw their Christmas bonus checks flying out the window. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in that room during this little "listening party". I would imagine some pale and confused faces by the time "The Ledge" played early in the session. So, the cover is fitting for such an eclectic piece of work from a band that was expected the stick with the PROVEN $$$Formula$$$$..........

Exactly. Tusk was a deliberate bite in the anckles of what was expected. Not only to the board of WB, but also at the big expectations that they built up themselves in their audience, that bought 20 million records in a couple of years with their brand on it. It's also a very selfabsorbed cover; we don't want to do what you want from us. And we know, that we are only able to show this attitude BECAUSE you spent this huge amount of money on us collectively, so we will use that money and position to put out the opposite of what you want from us. We are artists, and not expectationfillers.

Don't say that you love me. Just tell me that you want me. I'll tusk you.
And... What makes YOU think you're the one, recordindustry? Everything you do has been done, and it won't last forever.

On the inside, there's that pretty sepia pic of Lindsey preparing a room, sitting on his knees. Some insight in , or metaphore for the artistic sparkle for the album, experimenting alone and bring the result to the band in a later stadium,and there's the whole african scrapbook of small photographs and handwritings, that fit with Lindsey's own idea of being a refined primitive, something that can be said about Mick, and to a certain extend, about John too. I'll leave some space for others to fill in other perspectives than Lindsey's but I'm convinced that he was largely responsible for the "story of the album", so I read it that way. The colourphotographs are something else. They leave room for projecting meaning about flying around in space without feet on ground, and then leave, but not without leaving traces. I could ramble on, but I know there are a lot of people over here that are oversensitive for Lindsey's artistic ethics and the conflicting reality of making big chunks of money with it. I believe in his unadult behaviour towards the industry, and maybe he overstretches with his cocky, therapeutic talk. Still, he was the beating heart of Tusk, and his attitude is still alive, although he can look at it now with more life-experience and relativation. (Some of this rant will not be in correct english. Keep in mind, I'm Dutch.)

Also the sexual connotation, the history of dildo's in the early FM performances and the tusk as a male sybol, add to the primitiveness of the whole album and it's cover. Oh there's a lot more to say. But I'll leave it here.

To me, Tusk means "f*ck you", in all it's layers of meanings.