Spare Me a Little

[aleuzzi]

Originally Posted by BLY

This track came on my play list this morning and two things came to mind. 1. How great of a song this is and all of her pre Buck/Nicks era songs are. 2.How I wish all the Mac albums were given a re release deluxe box set.

Yes and definitely yes. For even at their lowest point (and there's non consensus what that is, since some say PENGUIN, others might say HEROES, others KILN HOUSE, etc), the music is of high quality. And the musicianship is exemplary. At the very least BARE TREES deserves a reissue with any possible demos or outtakes included. It's a deceptively rich record. On first listen (and I'm going back to 1982!) I remember thinking all of the songs sounded the same and were of the same color. But I kept listening and discovered so many subtleties in the music. The recording is a bit muddled (don't know why the drums often sound like they're coming from a remote space) but the musicianship and the songs are outstanding. "Spare Me" is a treat. "Dust" and "Child" are my favorites.

One of the virtues of a rerelease and, ideally, a digital upgrade, would be to hear the nuances in the music. Part of the reason no two FM albums from this period sound the same is because each one was recorded with a very different sound. The spacey, almost echoey sound of FUTURE GAMES is contrasted by the arid and muddled sound of BARE TREES. Both PENGUIN and MYSTERY were recorded on the RS mobile unit, but the former sounds more professional, again airier with a bit more reverb. MYSTERY sounds like the music was recorded too close to the speakers. "Why," "Miles Away," and "Hypnotized" benefit from the production but others sound odd. "Just Crazy Love" is not all that different than "Remember Me," but the former sounds like a demo whereas the latter sounds like a finished work.

And then there's HEROES, which is deliberately more produced than any of its predecessors but sounds oddly dated in parts. The arp string ensemble, the horns, the swaths of blurry guitar--all of it feels muddled in a very different way than BARE TREES. And yet, I would LOVE a digital rerelease of HEROES so I could hear Christine's magnificent voice on the title track, "Prove Your Love," and "Bad Loser." So I could hear the band break out in a bizarre (for them) jazz funk on "Born Enchanter." And so I could better hear the stirring harmonies in "Angel."