Goodbye Angel & Teen Beat appreciation

[HejiraNYC]

My two fave Lindsey songs of all time are from those Mirage sessions: "Book of Love" and "Goodbye Angel." Especially GA... it is such a beautifully bittersweet song... and those harmonies... I could just die! Why it got left off of Mirage... yet "Empire State" is on there, I don't know.

[golden braid]

I think Goodbye Angel is a really pretty song too and should have replaced Empire State instead of Oh Diane. I think Oh Diane is kinda catchy.

[wondergirl9847]

Originally Posted by shackin'up

necessary (?) or not, they ARE moans from Lindsey. That's enough reason for existance.

By the way, I really like his moans here. (I admit: I can't think of unappreciated moans from Lindsey by me)

I think I like moans from Lindsey.

Sh*t, man. I'm a moans from Lindsey-liker.

Maybe even a moans from Lindsey-lover.

This is sick.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Gerald, dude, sesly, you crack my a$$ up!!

I like Goodbye Angel...Teen Beat is fun, not a fave, but it's unique, I guess.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

Why [Goodbye Angel] got left off of Mirage... yet "Empire State" is on there, I don't know.

Exactly - "Empire State" is far worse than "Oh Diane." Let's replace that and leave the fun retro song.

Although I admit "Goodbye Angel" isn't his best work, either. The words "Goodbye Angel" sound rather mocking in the sing-songy way he enunciates them. I do find the lyrics "love turned to hate, touch turned to pull" interesting. We usually thinking of "pull" as pulling someone towards you, or vice versa, so it seems incongruous with "hate." What does it mean?

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

Exactly - "Empire State" is far worse than "Oh Diane."

My how perceptions can differ. To me "Empire State" is one of Lindsey's rare post-Tusk masterpieces. "Oh Diane"...a major waste of recording tape, studio time, and electricity.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by chiliD

My how perceptions can differ. To me "Empire State" is one of Lindsey's rare post-Tusk masterpieces. "Oh Diane"...a major waste of recording tape, studio time, and electricity.

I actually like both of them.

I don't think either of them are necessarily masterpieces, but they're definitely enjoyable to my ears.

[GateandGarden]

Originally Posted by chiliD

My how perceptions can differ. To me "Empire State" is one of Lindsey's rare post-Tusk masterpieces. "Oh Diane"...a major waste of recording tape, studio time, and electricity.

I've tried, but I just can't listen to "Empire State."

[dissention]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

I've tried, but I just can't listen to "Empire State."

I can't stand that track, but I love Oh Diane. Always have.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by Lux

The difference between affection and demand?

Hmmm.... that does make sense.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by Lux

The difference between affection and demand?

That's how I've always interpreted that line, too.

[shackin'up]

Originally Posted by David

"Teen Beat" is just bumping around, looking for solidity out of the ideas, isn't it? It's not a song; it's a musical germ. It was developing into something, & Lindsey put it away.

I love it when he does that. Especially when he does NOT put it away: it's on an official release. I could listen EASILY and fall in love with an entire CD of his sketches; the man is brilliant and "free-thinking" in those demos. Given Thing, early EOTW, early IKINW, Teen Beat, Steve's Riff etcetera. Sometimes it out-energies the finished version.

Oh and I agree on the goodbye angel-qualities. I just think it is an irritating melodyline.

And Empire State is one of his great pieces; an underrated and very creative composition that could have fit in on Law and Order too. (even better)

[Mari]

Sometimes I wish someone would just GRAB away whatever he records in demo-phase before he starts over-producing where everything just sounds alike.
(though the SYW stuff turned out pretty good.. maybe that bug has left him?)

[Betsy]

I grabbed the used Boxed Set of the Chain (that I bought two years ago and never played) and put all 5 in the car CD player...

Disk 3 Song 11 TEEN BEAT

Never heard it before. I kept expecting to hear lyrics...I didn't...

...but it did remind me of what a 2008 more rocking (less acoustic) album of Lindsey's might (kinda/sorta) sound like...

As for his Mirage contributions....I liked Oh Diane (50's sound)... loved Empire State (can't describe why) .... Goodbye Angel (? jury is still out on that one) ...

Anyone got any 2008 insights into this old thread??? Particularly any comments about Teen Beat?

In another thread, I read, ChiliD had some insights as to the history of the song....

ChiliD...if you are out there...can you humor me and re-interate what you said about TEEN BEAT?

[michelej1]

Teen Beat is a cover. The writer, Sandy Nelson, is famous for his drumming instrumentals. I don't know what lured Lindsey to the song. I guess it was something he must've liked as a boy. That's when it hit the charts.

Below are some reviews of The Chain that don't appear to be on the web already.

Michele

[michelej1]

Miami Herald (FL), December 2, 1992
Section: LIVING TODAY

THE CHAIN RECORDS HISTORY

Herald Staff

* Fleetwood Mac, 25 Years -- The Chain, Warner Bros.

Mick Fleetwood once wrote: "Nothing ordinary ever happened to Fleetwood Mac." The new four-CD, 72-track boxed set, 25 Years -- The Chain, proves his point as it documents his group's turbulent history.

As with any greatest-hits release, The Chain confounds in its omissions (Hold Me ); delights in its inclusions (Stevie Nicks' breathtaking ballad Storms ); wastes space on junk (Teen Beat, an outtake from the Mirage sessions), and offers some new material.

Of these four reunion tracks, the band's trademark harmonies and pop hooks sound best on Christine McVie's wonderful Heart of Stone. Lindsey Buckingham's lushly Oriental-sounding Make Me a Mask is another gem. But Nicks' vocals on the reggae-ish Paper Doll (the lead single) show a marked deterioration compared to her older Beautiful Child and Silver Springs ballads.

The bulk of The Chain comes from the record-breaking '75-' 79 LP's: Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tusk. No complaints there. Who would, when you get standout cuts like Rhiannon, Go Your Own Way, Crystal, Sisters of the Moon and the Bill Clinton-revitalized Don't Stop.

In the Sixties, Fleetwood Mac was an acclaimed blues band in England, and disc No. 4 shows why: Peter Green's guitar electrified Black Magic Woman years before Santana's remake, and Green Manalishi still sends chills.

The Chain's sound is uniformly clean and detailed, but the packaging is strictly bargain-basement. For a price that can soar as high as $75, one deserves better than a small CD-size box and a photo book with minimal liner notes.

Musically speaking, however, The Chain is worth buying -- even if you already own 1988's single-CD Greatest Hits. After all, this is Fleetwood Mac. Arguably, the best rock band ever.





Newsday (USA), December 13, 1992

Section: FANFARE

MORE HOLIDAY MUSIC BOXES

Wayne Robins. John Anderson. Gene Seymour

Last week we published Part I of our Critical Guide to the Season's CD Sets. Here's the rest of it.

25 YEARS: THE CHAIN

Fleetwood Mac

(Warner Bros.)

When Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" (" . . . thinking about tomorrow") became the unofficial Clinton-Gore campaign song, some people thought it was groovy that any putative rock song would be invoked to celebrate a major party's presidential nomination. Others wondered how groovy the Clinton-Gores could possibly be, shaking their booties to a 15-year-old Fleetwood Mac tune.

Such ambivalence has long dogged Fleetwood Mac itself, a band that has, in its quarter century, been all things to all people. It evolved, with numerous volatile personnel upheavals, from Brit blues band to pretentious art rockers to Amerenglish pop group to L. A. rock band to erratic experimentalists to arena rock dinosaurs. At the peak of its fame, in the mid-1970s, Fleetwood Mac was simultaneously the best and worst rock band in the world: the best, for its versatility and pop-craft on huge-selling albums such as "Fleetwood Mac" and "Rumours"; the worst because its finicky self-absorption, its soap opera lifestyles, and huge expenditures of time and money in the recording studio made it a symbol of everything that had gone wrong with the music business.

"25 Years - The Chain" covers four compact discs in roughly reverse chronology: Disc one begins with "Paper Doll" and "Love Shines," two of four new songs included in the package, while disc four begins with "I Believe My Time Ain't Long," Jeremy Spencer's "Dust My Broom" rip-off that was the band's first British single (1967).

Most listeners who respect Fleetwood Mac's best work but don't identify themselves as fans will want to avoid the extremes of derivativeness and conventionality on these two discs and concentrate on the appealing, wide-ranging pop and rock on the middle two discs. In retrospect, Stevie Nicks' songs such as "Gold Dust Woman," "Dreams" and "Rhiannon" have a toughness that contradicts the ethereal space cadet image with which she's been saddled; Christine McVie still sounds like someone with whom you'd like to spend an afternoon shooting pool and drinking beer; and Lindsey Buckingham's experiments like "Tusk," "Teen Beat" and "Not That Funny" sound like the ravings of a rich, brilliant, disturbed child.

Still, better Buckingham's primal screams than the wan Seals and Crofts-ish pop of Bob Welch's "Sentimental Lady," or the Led Zep-ish shenanigans of Peter Green on "Green Manalishi," or the antiseptic newer songs featuring Buckingham replacements Rick Vito and Billy Burnette. Only the most cursory attention is given to underrated albums such as "Kiln House" (1970), from which there's only one song. But what can you do? Fleetwood Mac isn't one band: It's been at least half a dozen bands, which explains why this four-disc set seems both like way too much and hardly enough.