The box sets 1975-1987

[David]

Originally Posted by BLY

I was just going through my box sets of those 5 amazing albums released by Fleetwood Mac. I will say that’s got to be the best thing that was ever released for a true fan of their MUSIC.

I think the Tusk deluxe is the best group release since — Tusk.

I’d like to be picky about two things:

—The live cuts from Wembley, Tucson, and Omaha are a live nut’s dream, but the seven cuts from St. Louis disappoint, mostly because we got that soundboard years ago but also because some of these choices were easily beaten by later performances (“Tusk,” for example, should have been taken from the Los Angeles shows with the Trojan Marching Band).

—The deluxe edition omits about five studio tracks that were included on the earlier expanded edition—unacceptable. For completists, that requires us to buy both editions and double up on 90 percent of the product. The deluxe is missing:

• Demo #2 instrumental
• I Know I’m Not Wrong #2
• I Know I’m Not Wrong #3
• I Know I’m Not Wrong (1.15.79)
• Never Make Me Cry

Alternatively, the Rumours deluxe incorporated everything from the earlier expanded.

Otherwise, the Tusk deluxe is spot-on in every respect (although we could quibble about which mix is best, the expanded or the deluxe—sometimes the deluxe mix sounds colder or washed out in reverb). I remember first hearing it online, before the hard copy arrived in the mail. I had a Proustian moment where I was reliving the excitement I felt in 1979 listening to the album for the first few times. Very little else the band has done has so acutely transported me back in time emotionally, having the band’s long-lost (and little remembered) style flood my senses.