Which two albums represent Christine's best Fleetwood Mac work?

[bethelblues]

I have to go with Rumours and Tango in the Night, though it's close for Mystery to Me (I should relisten to those songs). On Tango, it's clear Christine was the MVP of the album: two hits with Little Lies and Everywhere, and I love Isn't It Midnight, which is a pretty strong rock song from Chris with great guitar work. And Rumours, it's hard to deny the greatness of You Make Loving Fun. I love Oh Daddy, the intricacies of the sounds of that song, its production. The poignancy of Songbird. Yes, Don't Stop isn't at the same level as the other songs, but Christine was certainly at a career peak for the Rumours album, as were arguably Stevie and Lindsey. There's a reason that album is considered one of the greatest albums ever made (apart from sales and the pop culture phenomenon), everyone brought their A-game. I do wish, like The Beatles or The Stones, the overall greatness of one album could have translated to several more albums of equal or greater quality (that were perceived in that manner when they were released).

[chiliD]

Mystery To Me...that's a definite. "Believe Me", "Just Crazy Love", "Why"...superb! "The Way That I Feel" is kind of so-so; but, she did a GREAT vocal on Bob Welch's "Keep On Going"!!

Future Games..."Morning Rain" & "Show Me A Smile" not too shabby of a debut on a FMac album. With a little editing "Morning Rain" could've been a good single, but it suffered from the era it was recorded, with the whole "jam" mentality. (plus, she probably needed to raise the key a bit. It's just a little bit too low for her range)

Bare Trees..."Spare Me A Little Of Your Love", good, but not great (however later live versions with the BN harmonies improved it quite a bit); "Homeward Bound", suffered from the same things as "Morning Rain", just a little bit too low of a key for her voice.

Penguin...now here's where she starts to take off..."Remember Me", "Dissatisfied", "Did You Ever Love Me?"...GREAT songs.


Heroes Are Hard To Find...a little dip in quality, but still pretty good...the title cut is catchy, why it didn't do better in the charts is a head-scratcher. "Come A Little Bit Closer" & "Prove Your Love" were standard CMcVie fare..."Bad Loser" is off the hook! One of my favorite Christine songs of all-time.

Penguin & Mystery To Me:
1973 was a VERY GOOD YEAR for Christine McVie!

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by chiliD

Penguin...now here's where she starts to take off..."Remember Me", "Dissatisfied", "Did You Ever Love Me?"...GREAT songs.


Heroes Are Hard To Find...a little dip in quality, but still pretty good...the title cut is catchy, why it didn't do better in the charts is a head-scratcher. "Come A Little Bit Closer" & "Prove Your Love" were standard CMcVie fare..."Bad Loser" is off the hook! One of my favorite Christine songs of all-time.

Penguin & Mystery To Me:
1973 was a VERY GOOD YEAR for Christine McVie!

I'm so glad someone else is as rabid about Christine's songs from the Penguin & Heroes albums as I am. Christine's songs off those two albums are just flawless . I've always hated Christine has dismissed those pre '75 Mac songs, because they're every bit as good as anything she's ever done. And the lady never releases anything short of perfection.

As far as my two favorite Christine albums, I've been chewing on that all week. I'm leaning towards Tusk as my favorite. As utterly perfect as her Penguin songs are, there's only 3 of them... so I guess my #2 will have to default to Tango, simply because there's more goodness to behold.

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

I'm so glad someone else is as rabid about Christine's songs from the Penguin & Heroes albums as I am. Christine's songs off those two albums are just flawless . I've always hated Christine has dismissed those pre '75 Mac songs, because they're every bit as good as anything she's ever done. And the lady never releases anything short of perfection.

As far as my two favorite Christine albums, I've been chewing on that all week. I'm leaning towards Tusk as my favorite. As utterly perfect as her Penguin songs are, there's only 3 of them... so I guess my #2 will have to default to Tango, simply because there's more goodness to behold.

Cool!

As I was frantically searching in vain for a different Fleetwood Mac song of hers, I found an mp3 of a VERY, VERY, VERY early version of "Morning Rain" from a BBC broadcast. It was SO new at the time, that they hadn't even titled it yet and the BBC announcer said that they had to come up with a name for it for the broadcast, so they told him it was titled "Start Again". The lyrics are similar but different from the Future Games track, but musically (instrumentally) it was almost identical.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by chiliD

Cool!

As I was frantically searching in vain for a different Fleetwood Mac song of hers, I found an mp3 of a VERY, VERY, VERY early version of "Morning Rain" from a BBC broadcast. It was SO new at the time, that they hadn't even titled it yet and the BBC announcer said that they had to come up with a name for it for the broadcast, so they told him it was titled "Start Again". The lyrics are similar but different from the Future Games track, but musically (instrumentally) it was almost identical.

I think I've heard this!!!

[aleuzzi]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

I think I've heard this!!!

Yeah, it was floating around in the pre-rumours forum a while back. Her vocal on it is WAY better than the album version. I think the band chose the final version because of Kirwan's blistering guitar work, as well as Christine's switch from electric to acoustic piano. But they dropped a key and her voice sounds too low on it.

That first versions sounds poppier, more radio friendly, like a Traffic single from the late sixties...

[aleuzzi]

Here is one of the threads for Morning Rain/Start Again:
http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showth...ing+rain+start