Behind The Mask Turns 35 Today (April 9)

[Street_Dreamer]

Hard to believe that only two other Fleetwood Mac studio albums came following its release.

[HomerMcvie]

Funny, it only feels like 70.

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by Street_Dreamer

Hard to believe that only two other Fleetwood Mac studio albums came following its release.

Three, but what’s in a name?

[Villavic]

This is an album I liked since it was released, and I had always thought so. But on second thoughts, I have always listened all most all songs when I play a Mac album. However of the BTM album, I only play 6 or 7 songs at the most.

Actually, I think that what I liked the most was the idea that the band was surviving Lindsey’s departure. It wasn’t the same anyway.

[FuzzyPlum]

Behind the Mask- RIP

[UnwindedDreams]

Anybody have any thoughts as to why no Behind The Mask songs were played on the 2018-2019 Tour but a song from Time was (not for the whole tour but for most of the North American dates)?

But meanwhile nonhits from the classic lineup albums such as Isn't It Midnight and Storms were played (again not for the whole tour)?

Love Is Dangerous, In The Back of My Mind, Stand On The Rock, Save Me, and Freedom seemed like no-brainers to me.

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by UnwindedDreams

Anybody have any thoughts as to why no Behind The Mask songs were played on the 2018-2019 Tour but a song from Time was (not for the whole tour but for most of the North American dates)?

But meanwhile nonhits from the classic lineup albums such as Isn't It Midnight and Storms were played (again not for the whole tour)?

Love Is Dangerous, In The Back of My Mind, Stand On The Rock, Save Me, and Freedom seemed like no-brainers to me.

If the fact that most songs were co-written with Billy or Rick or any other, and the band just wanted to sing more "pure" Christine and Stevie songs (in quotes because the band has always included McVie-Quintela hits) plus Finn/Campbell songs in 2018, that would only leave us with Save Me, Skies, Behind the Mask (where Lindsey played acoustic guitar) and Affairs of the Heart. That's sad cause I'd have love to see Do You Know live.

Most likely the decision to include All Over Again was exclusively Christine's so she has her reasons for not include a BTM song, but if I had to choose one of the BTM mentioned songs, I'd go for the title track. Maybe many fans would choose Save Me, but I've never liked that song so much. I put it in the same bag as Temporary One.

Were there reasons for excluding Billy and Rick songs? Finnancial, legal, etc.? I don't know.

It would have been great to hear BTM song on the BuckVie tour, with Lindsey on acoustic guitar.

[bwboy]

Originally Posted by UnwindedDreams

Anybody have any thoughts as to why no Behind The Mask songs were played on the 2018-2019 Tour but a song from Time was (not for the whole tour but for most of the North American dates)?

But meanwhile nonhits from the classic lineup albums such as Isn't It Midnight and Storms were played (again not for the whole tour)?

Love Is Dangerous, In The Back of My Mind, Stand On The Rock, Save Me, and Freedom seemed like no-brainers to me.

Love is Dangerous, Stand on the Rock, and Save Me were great when FM played them in 1990. But since Save Me just made the top 30, I’m sure they considered it a flop as a single, and they even dropped that song near the end of their tour.

As you said, Freedom would have been an obvious choice for the 2018 tour, since Stevie co-wrote it with Mike Campbell.

[Mr Scarrott]

Originally Posted by UnwindedDreams

Anybody have any thoughts as to why no Behind The Mask songs were played on the 2018-2019 Tour but a song from Time was (not for the whole tour but for most of the North American dates)?

But meanwhile nonhits from the classic lineup albums such as Isn't It Midnight and Storms were played (again not for the whole tour)?

Love Is Dangerous, In The Back of My Mind, Stand On The Rock, Save Me, and Freedom seemed like no-brainers to me.

All over again was an inspired choice to end the show, if as I suspect, Christine was feeling less confident about exposing herself on the keyboards with Songbird- there was a certain frailty about her then that wasn't evident on the previous tour. Stevie apparently liked the song too and it felt great that this simple, lovely song got a live airing at last. With Christine's passing its performance and lyrics take on an added piquancy.

I think the reasons why no BTM songs were played were they were nearly all absolute duds, the title track would have been tricky to pull off live, Christine thought the album was terrible and I'd be surprised if Stevie could even remember being on it. Other than that... just as well we were spared the spectacle of Neil Finn covering Stand on the Rock.

[Villavic]

I just found this article. The review of the background has no new info, so I payed attention in the songs review, and I must say I completely agreed with what it says about Do You Know and WTSGT.

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/...hind-the-mask/

So, Skies The Limit really kicks of the trend of starting out as a pretty epic song. But yeah, the chorus just had to be that simple. Fleetwood Mac can make the simple things good, but not this time apparently. Love Is Dangerous was kind of simple and casual. In The Back of My Mind was very intriguing, with the first half of the song being pretty epic before the second half kind of changing up the mood completely. Wasn't a fan of that. Do You Know is one of my favourites, quite nice track. Save Me was also nice, with the instrumental being especially engaging. Affairs Of The Heart was built as a very similar track, so that gave me zero surprises. When The Sun Goes Down has some blues and country vibes and it turned out to be pretty fun. The title track actually proved to be the first real weak song of the album. Stand On The Rock probably was the last track which was among the very likeable ones. The remaining ones just exist.

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by Villavic

I just found this article. The review of the background has no new info, so I payed attention in the songs review, and I must say I completely agreed with what it says about Do You Know and WTSGT.

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/...hind-the-mask/

So, Skies The Limit really kicks of the trend of starting out as a pretty epic song. But yeah, the chorus just had to be that simple. Fleetwood Mac can make the simple things good, but not this time apparently. Love Is Dangerous was kind of simple and casual. In The Back of My Mind was very intriguing, with the first half of the song being pretty epic before the second half kind of changing up the mood completely. Wasn't a fan of that. Do You Know is one of my favourites, quite nice track. Save Me was also nice, with the instrumental being especially engaging. Affairs Of The Heart was built as a very similar track, so that gave me zero surprises. When The Sun Goes Down has some blues and country vibes and it turned out to be pretty fun. The title track actually proved to be the first real weak song of the album. Stand On The Rock probably was the last track which was among the very likeable ones. The remaining ones just exist.

You forgot the most important last line: A step down but still a good album.