Tusk - looking back 25 years later

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by shackin'up
you don't mean that. SAY YOU DON"T MEAN THAT!

I do. Sorry. That song never did anything for me. Stevie sounds great and the arrangement is gold, but I can't listen to it. I find it utterly dull.

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by snwriter
I think that the women's songs on Tusk are primarily their own and that Lindsey just added his touches.

I don't hear a strong Lindsey influence on "Think about Me," "Angel," "Beautiful Child," "Never Forget," "Over and Over" or "Brown Eyes."

And I still say (and many others agree) that "Not That Funny" is just a bad song and therefore not the linchpin of "Tusk," but rather its worst song. It also was the nadir of the "Tusk" shows.

I see, you're a joker. Can you honestly even imagine Christine bringing a song to Fleetwood Mac strictly based on the acoustic guitar, as in "Never Forget?" Please, if you can think of any other instance before Tusk, share with us. "Beautiful Child" has no strong Lindsey influence!? So you think that all those guitar parts and harmonies were thought up by Stevie? Not that she couldn't mind you; it's just that the whole treatment of the song is very Lindseyesque. Or "Angel." Did you watch the Making of Tusk video?

About the only song on your list that does not sound very Lindseyesque is "Brown Eyes." But guess what, do you think Christine would have brought it to the studio and have it produced that way if not for Lindsey? That minimalism has Lindsey all over it; even though the song doesn't sound very Lindsey, it still has his fingerprints.

Nothing on Tusk doesn't have a lot of Lindsey, even when a lot is just a little by design.

[shackin'up]

Originally posted by face of glass
I'd like to join the club too. As a showcase for the rhythm section and LB "NTF" was pretty much flawless. My musician friends have described the duel between Lindsey and John in the Mirage concert video as "spastic". I think that's an understatement.

I am haunted by those vocal noises too. I guess when the arrangement got expanded they started out as a Talking Heads-type scarefest and then later turned into this horny moaning.

If anyone thought Lindsey was being completely serious there then I would disagree. It is so over the top and so utterly idiotic and macho-like that it can't be but another parody, like "Come" but with a totally different approach.

well of course it's going well with the lyrics, and i don't think he's serious on the content here, but he definately sound and looks deadserious in the delivery here. It's not that he's taking much distance ....

gerald

[shackin'up]

Originally posted by CarneVaca
I do. Sorry. That song never did anything for me. Stevie sounds great and the arrangement is gold, but I can't listen to it. I find it utterly dull.

amazing...for me that song has- like you can read in the marchnumber of uncut- a Gram and Emmylou with a popsheen-quality.

(Nice review of earls court in uncut: it's on burnish.net

Thea rocks. she typed it up.)

gerald

[snwriter]

CarneVaca:

I resent you calling me a joker. You have every right to believe that Lindsey is the chief architect of all FM songs, as you seem to do.

I choose to believe the reality that Christine and Stevie are great songwriters, often better than Lindsey, and that they have a major say in what THEIR songs sound (ed) like.

Yeah, the Tusk documentary shows Stevie and Lindsey working on "Angel" vocals together. So what? When (if ever) has Lindsey ever recorded a song as funky and as un-soupped up as "Angel?" Surely, Stevie's initial vision of the song had to be its main ingredient.

Lindsey's handprints are all over his songs on "Tusk." The brilliance of Stevie and Christine come out on THEIR songs on the "Tusk" album, and they were both in better than usual form. WIth the exception of the title track, it's the women's songs on "Tusk" that have stood the test of time.

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by snwriter
CarneVaca:

I resent you calling me a joker. You have every right to believe that Lindsey is the chief architect of all FM songs, as you seem to do.

Forgive me. I thought you were being funny. I didn't make any statements about Lindsey being the "chief architect of all FM songs," but it's well documented that Tusk was primarily a Lindsey project. It was Lindsey, and to some extent Mick, against the rest of the band. So much so that when the album was perceived as a commercial flop, Lindsey suffered recriminations from the rest of the band. Surely that reaction would not have happened if he hadn't been the primary architect of the Tusk sound, don't you think?

The songs sound the way they do because of Lindsey. There's no way around that. As I said, even "Brown Eyes," the song that would seem to have the least Lindsey in it, betrays Lindsey's influence in its minimalist production. No way would Christine have done that on her own or with another producer. And no way would she have done Honey Hi and Never Forget as acoustic folk numbers.

As for Stevie's songs, she herself has said many times that Lindsey shaped the songs into the way we know and love them. Again, it's all well documented.

[snwriter]

"Brown Eyes" is highly reminiscent of the Peter Green-era of FM, it sounds very much like "Sun King" off the Beatles' Abbey Road, which John Lennon said was very influenced by the then current Fleetwood Mac. It also sounds more like a Bob Welch song than a Lindsey song. And Christine was a bandmember of both Green and Welch. Lindsey was not.

It's also well-documented that both Christine and Stevie resented the "credit" Lindsey kept taking for their songs during his interviews of the late '80s and early '90s.

[CarneVaca]

It also sounds more like a Bob Welch song than a Lindsey song. And Christine was a bandmember of both Green and Welch. Lindsey was not.

Lindsey was not a member of the band when Bob and Peter were. And they were not members when Lindsey was, which is when the song was produced and released. So what's your point?

[snwriter]

My point is that Christine could very well have been influenced by her past FM work with those other guys.

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by snwriter
My point is that Christine could very well have been influenced by her past FM work with those other guys.

Granted, but that doesn't change the fact that the album sounds the way it does because of Lindsey. Neither Bob nor Peter were there in the studio telling Christine, "Let's record a song with just you and the keyboard." Ken Caillat himself said that the band had done all these elaborate arrangements and that Lindsey pulled down the sliders and said this is how he wanted the tunes.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by shackin'up
well of course it's going well with the lyrics, and i don't think he's serious on the content here, but he definately sound and looks deadserious in the delivery here. It's not that he's taking much distance ....

True. I believe he has a very strong male aggression/dominance side in him and that’s why he looks dead serious in there. But it’s not like he could not be intentionally exaggerating or smirking at himself in there just a little.

Originally posted by snwriter
I choose to believe the reality that Christine and Stevie are great songwriters, often better than Lindsey.

But LB isn’t necessarily often focusing on the songwriting itself. For the record: I think that in terms of “classic” songwriting (the school of Tin Pan Alley and the Beatles etc.) Chris beats Stevie and Lindsey easily. But then again SN and LB need not be as great in that area because Stevie covers her weaknesses up in performance while Lindsey puts his focus on the overall arrangement. He isn’t just speaking through the songwriting in there, he’s speaking to us through his guitars and every little bit of music he puts to the track.

Originally posted by snwriter
and that they have a major say in what THEIR songs sound (ed) like.

That I agree with. But I certainly don’t think that neither of them suggested Lindsey what to play because they are unable to imitate his playing skills. It’s Buckingham’s interpretation that seeps through in the end and he said a lot in all of the Tusk songs.

Originally posted by snwriter
"Brown Eyes" is highly reminiscent of the Peter Green-era of FM, it sounds very much like "Sun King" off the Beatles' Abbey Road, which John Lennon said was very influenced by the then current Fleetwood Mac.

Really? I don’t hear that; all I hear is the similarity between “Albatross” and “Sun King”. And Chris wasn’t a band member yet during the first success run of “Albatross”. That song (which is supposedly Shadows-influenced) sounds almost like an anomaly in the FM catalogue.

For me the main focus in the arrangement of “Brown Eyes” are Lindsey’s guitar parts and the vocal harmonies. Those harmonies have gone through Buckingham’s hands in the mixing board. You could state that Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut helped there too, but the overall vision to me seems to be Lindsey’s. There’s this quote from the sessions. I’m paraphrasing Sodascouts but here goes:

Originally posted by sodascouts
I remember Richard Dashut saying that for Tusk, they would get the song to something that sounded terrific and then Lindsey would say "Great, now let's turn all the knobs the other way and do the exact opposite." He wasn't going for what sounded terrific, he was going for what sounded different.

Now of course I partially disagree with what she wrote but you get the point, I hope.

It’s Buckingham’s show all along. If you feel the repetitive piano riff of “Sara” or “Beautiful Child” represents a unique artistic vision then fine. For me it sounds like Stevie’s demos, although a bit more polished. The magic comes in when those guitars and the voice treatments enter the track. It isn’t just Stevie’s and Chris’ personality expressed in there, it’s Lindsey’s too. His guitar speaks through these and offers other points of view to the topic. He supports the ladies all the way on Tusk.

Originally posted by snwriter
It's also well-documented that both Christine and Stevie resented the "credit" Lindsey kept taking for their songs during his interviews of the late '80s and early '90s.

That I believe is just the band members’ unwillingness to attest much weight to Lindsey’s contributions. They still had a band to run and they still wanted to be successful; they didn’t want to admit that a large part of it may have come from a member who left them under bitter circumstances. It wasn’t yet the time to speak what they might have felt, it was time to colour it a little.

[shackin'up]

Hey snwriter,

why so defensive? i think Carne is right and saying-much better articulated-what I said before today. I also think that Chris and Stevie wrote the best material they ever did on Tusk. As a songwriter, they maybe even overrule lindsey on this album. But: to make an outstanding, businesswrecking, f*cking great and daring album: you just must have a vision. Lindsey had the vision. he worked it through like a real jerk and butthead but with a tremendous amount of taste and respect towards the compositions of the ladies. And on his own songs he went all the way: sometimes against the edge, sometimes on the edge and sometimes over the edge, but constantly on the ledge. Just give him the credit for that and admit that you can't fikkin name a few songs that you don't like on the album and then say: his contributions are overrated. Because in THAT case: I think you are missing the point.

gerald

okay, this post was written at the same time as Faces'....

man those fins write fast....

[snwriter]

I see the point of all those who give Lindsey the bulk of the credit for the "Tusk" album. What a lot of Lindsey-philes (who think he is "it" when it comes to FM records of the Rumours lineup) miss is that he had great basic songs to work with--often from Christine and Stevie.

[shackin'up]

Originally posted by snwriter
I see the point of all those who give Lindsey the bulk of the credit for the "Tusk" album. What a lot of Lindsey-philes (who think he is "it" when it comes to FM records of the Rumours lineup) miss is that he had great basic songs to work with--often from Christine and Stevie.

That's what I said...



And i am a Fleetwood Mac Fan. I was in the USA this year to see two shows. I saw one in Germany and one in London. Everywhere the same: 70% is coming for Stevie. I acknowledge that. So we Lindsey-philes are a minority.

But when it comes to Tusk: That is his album. Everyone of the band wanted a rumours 2, commercially speaking. He resented that and fought the battle. Now, for the last time I ask friendly:

don't overlook or ridicule that...it hurts me

gerald

[snwriter]

I don't want to hurt you....okay