Tusk at 40: FM's defining record

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Amen to that. Without the production, Sara is pretty skeletal. The RS reviewer at the time noted that "Brown Eyes" was a mere scrap of a song that the production made into a magnificent castle in the air. I don't dispute this. The difference is "Brown Eyes" would still sound compelling with just Christine singing to her electric piano. The verses have a tuneful shape and the chorus of sha la las is irresistible. Meanwhile, "Sara" without the gorgeous orchestration, killer bottom-end, and lush vocal harmonies is tedious and unremarkable. The production MAKES the song--excepting the opening piano and vocal section ("Wait a minute baby...) which is catchy on its own.

"Storms" and "Beautiful Child" and "Angel" could stand on their own without elaborate production, .

actually Lindsey explained in a long interview where he went through many songs and how he produced them that Storms was kind of a basic country song [and from what he said it sounds like it might have been a more twangy or even a bit more upbeat the way she had it] and anyone else would have kept it that way but he wanted it to be more meaningful. I think it was a British interview. I have it recorded somewhere. That's a great example of his production where it sounds really simple like oh that's just Stevie and Lindsey and his one acoustic guitar and it's not. There's many layers of guitar made to sound simple and there's a piano line that runs through it that really adds to it.

The piano on Beautiful Child does sound a lot like they took her original plonky piano thing she does on her demos and polished it a bit. I've never heard her demo of Angel, but given how she's done it solo that's another one that wouldn't have been as good without his influence. Having John's baseline so prominent really makes it pop. And LB tweaked her melody which you can see part of on the Tusk doc. then later in the doc she tells Christine how it was all her idea.