BTM: a commodity or miscellaneous solo projects?

[Villavic]

I don't remember if this article was shared before, I didn't find it in this forum though the search tool is not always effective.

I didn't think Behind the Mask was an anthology of miscellaneous solo projects, but it kind of makes sense. Anyway, IMHO the most valuable asset was not "the edge on Nicks’ voice" but Christine's songs.

https://ew.com/article/1990/04/13/behind-mask/

Behind the Mask
By Greg Sandow Published on April 13, 1990

A new Fleetwood Mac album has been released. Which of the following best describes your reaction? (A) ”They’re a proven commodity, dude.” (B) ”Oh, wow!” (C) ”Don’t the people in that band all have solo careers now?”

An (A) answer means you probably work in the record business; (B) means you won’t want to read the rest of this review; (C) means you wonder whether the old Fleetwood Mac really still exists.

You might be wise to wonder. From 1982 to 1987 Fleetwood Mac released no new material. The band’s 1987 album, Tango in the Night, seemed to bring it back to life. But then Lindsey Buckingham quit; he was replaced by two musicians not usually thought to be as imaginative as he. Now we have this new album. It keeps the band’s name alive, but sounds like an anthology of miscellaneous solo projects — most of them, not surprisingly, by the band members with the biggest solo careers, Christine McVie (whose voice sounds sweet and gauzy) and Stevie Nicks (whose voice has an arresting edge almost like a metal file, an understandable reason either to love her or hate her).

But the most distinctive songs turn out, surprisingly, to be by the new guys, singer-guitarists Rick Vito and Billy Burnette. Together they wrote ”When the Sun Goes Down,” a breezy country tune notable for its complete lack of pretension and for finely etched background harmony by the two women. ”Distinctive,” though, doesn’t necessarily mean good. Burnette (this time with an outside collaborator) also wrote ”In the Back of My Mind,” a song that begins with minutes on end of strange thumps and muttering. I guess that’s meant to be the sound of the back of his mind, though you’d also have to call it unconvincing psychedelia, years after its time.

The other songs go down easily, as the six musicians compound rock, country, folk, and pop into a mix that always sounds plush, even when the lyrics ask what otherwise might register as sharp questions about the pain of love. In an environment that undemanding, the edge on Nicks’ voice can be an asset. Still, most of Behind the Mask is pretty bland. The songs hardly add up to an album; the six musicians hardly add up to Fleetwood Mac.

[bwboy]

Thank you so much for sharing that review, Villavic! I checked out the link and saw the writer gave the album a ‘C.’

I think he made some very valid points, but he completely lost me when he said BTM sounded like a group of solo songs put on a FM album. Um, you mean compared to Tusk or Tango in the Night? I mean, those are two FM albums that sound like solo songs put under the banner of FM. BTM for the most part features all of them playing and singing together. We don’t have to guess which songs Mick is really playing drums on, or John is playing bass on, or Stevie is really singing on. We KNOW all of the singers are singing on In the Back of My Mind, Save Me, Skies the Limit, Freedom, etc. Those beautiful harmonies are one of the reasons BTM is one of my favorite albums.

[Mr Scarrott]

Nearly all of BTM makes me cringe with embarrassment. There's very little, if anything of the sensuousness, occasional eccentricity, dark mysteriousness or joy and bravura that permeated the five previous albums that featured both Christine and Stevie. There is not one great song on it. It's a contractual obligation with two principals who had run out of steam and a couple of reserves who whilst proficient musician, would never really belonged in this tier if everyone else were at their peak.

[bwboy]

Originally Posted by Mr Scarrott

Nearly all of BTM makes me cringe with embarrassment. There's very little, if anything of the sensuousness, occasional eccentricity, dark mysteriousness or joy and bravura that permeated the five previous albums that featured both Christine and Stevie. There is not one great song on it. It's a contractual obligation with two principals who had run out of steam and a couple of reserves who whilst proficient musician, would never really belonged in this tier if everyone else were at their peak.

Sorry you feel that way, Mr. Scarrott. I don’t find the album embarrassing at all, and I think Christine especially shines during this incarnation. As Long As You Follow is absolutely beautiful, and embarrassing just doesn’t come to my mind when I hear it. Same thing with Save Me, Behind the Mask, In the Back of My Mind, and later songs like Love Shines and Heart of Stone.

I do think Stevie comes off very poorly here, I just can’t tell if it’s her songwriting, production, or more specifically a producer who didn’t know what to do with her songs. But considering that even Lindsey couldn’t do anything with Paper Doll, I would have to say it was mostly Stevie’s fault. As you said, creatively, she was out of steam, it seemed like. Having said that, I do think she tried, and that both ladies wanted the album to succeed. I never got the impression they were doing this solely out of contractual obligations. They all did a large amount of press for BTM, too, which was a little unusual, and I think demonstrated they liked the album. At the time, anyway LOL.

[HomerMcvie]

Sorry, but BTM is crap. Do You Know is the only song I pull from it for compilations.

And SYW is crap.

Which means we went all the way from Tango to BuckVie with only crappy output. 30 MF years. So do we cling to this band just for Rumours and Tusk? Kinda looks that way.

[Mr Scarrott]

They probably did a lot of press because by itself, the music wasn't selling the album. The fact that nothing from it got played in any tour after 1990 speaks volumes:even "Time "didn't quite suffer a similar fate as "All over again" got a welcome airing in the band's final tour.

I'm not sure I agree with Homer in his analysis. The five albums,from 75-87, although not of all the same quality offer us a vista of new born hope, personal disaster, explosion, retrenchment and parting to justify my fandom, quite apart from the earlier stuff

[David]

In terms of songwriting, Behind the Mask is Mirage without the marvelous arrangements. The Greg Ladanyi dude either misinterpreted the strengths of the band or couldn’t figure out a good way to incorporate the new guys with the old guys.

It just goes to show that you can have the right ingredients in a studio, but you’d better know how to cook — and how to plan a menu. Mask sounds like pasta carbonara masquerading as aspic.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by David

In terms of songwriting, Behind the Mask is Mirage without the marvelous arrangements.

Mirage is a fun, enjoyable album. BTM IS NOT.

[Mr Scarrott]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

Mirage is a fun, enjoyable album. BTM IS NOT.

Absolutely, Homer. I just listened to "That's Alright" for the first time in ages. "Gypsy" for me and nearly everyone is the finest song on the album but this other, deceptively simple one from Stevie is a bit of a gem. The production and arrangement of it are never within a hundred miles of causing me to wince, and she sounds great. Other have commented on the music-box feel of "Mirage"- it seems a bit of an oasis between the welcome weirdness of "Tusk" and the 80s tropes of "Tango". There's some great little corners of "Mirage"- Pachelbel on "Eyes of the World" for example- others will come to me.

There's a dullness, drowned quality about BTM. I suppose they had to produce an album in those days for the tour. I'll give Christine (and Rick for his guitar work) nearly top marks for "As Long as you follow" I'll grant you, bwboy, but it's a shame that whatever inspired her there didn't really pan out over much of the subequent album. If I were to criticize that track, maybe there's a hint of schmaltz about it I don't quite like. So there was a sense of a bit of promise unfulfilled when the full horror of BTM (title track aside) hit me. Would you ever have played it to a friend who knew nothing or very little about FM? Dear Lord, please tell me no!

[WalkAThinLine.]

Behind the Mask is a cohesive yet otherwise average album. Christine McVie delivered a great slew of songs here, and this includes her co-write with Burnette on "Did You Know". Burnette probably offered the second best batch of songs here with "In the Back of My Mind", "Hard Feelings", and to a lesser extent, "When it Comes to Love". Vito is a bit out of place on this album and his contributions are arguably the weakest. When subtracting "Seven Wonders" from the equation, I would probably place Stevie's songs on Behind the Mask slightly higher than her work on Tango in the Night, but it's still rather close. "Love is Dangerous" might be one of the band's most generic songs ever released.

[Villavic]

If it had been a new band's album, I'd find it a a set of nice songs. But their problem was that they already were Fleetwood Mac, and we expected much more than what we got on the BTM album.

Mick explained it very well in his book, about how they felt after Rumours. The difference was that it actually happened after their best lineup albums.


Ask Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2, Bruce Springsteen. How do you follow, let alone top, the best work you've ever done in your life, work that almost killed you to complete?

[bwboy]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

Sorry, but BTM is crap. Do You Know is the only song I pull from it for compilations.

And SYW is crap.

Which means we went all the way from Tango to BuckVie with only crappy output. 30 MF years. So do we cling to this band just for Rumours and Tusk? Kinda looks that way.

Do You Know is definitely one of my favorites. I love that it’s a real duet, something the band seemed to avoid for the most part. I thought Christine and Billy sounded great together. Maybe not a dynamic or creatively spectacular song, but solid nonetheless.

I think I would agree with your last statement, too. Including the White Album, I think we cling to FM for Rumours (which I understand we’re all sick of, but can never forget how incredible it is) and our rediscovery of Tusk.

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by bwboy

Including the White Album, I think we cling to FM for Rumours (which I understand we’re all sick of, but can never forget how incredible it is) and our rediscovery of Tusk.

I see the three 70s albums as their best,of course including the White. And I never get tired of Rumours. Maybe it's because I don't listen to the radio anymore. Those 70s to 90s radios always play Hotel California, Dreams, Killing me Softly, Livin' on a Prayer, etc. It's easy to get oversaturated with those songs.

So I regulate the frequency with which I listen to Mac albums (and any music) and their versions (studio, demo, live, etc.).

[Macfan4life]

There is a theme on this board by many members that if it's not commercially successful its a horrible album. BTM is definitely a mixed bag and definitely has highlights. All of Chris's songs are good. Billy gives one excellent song and co-writes/sings another good one (When the sun goes down). Stevie's songs are B side or almost demo quality.
Half the album is really good and I prefer much of it to the lightweight sugary, computer programmed Tango. Even if you hate the album, the Mac rhythm section shows up and it sounds much more like Fleetwood Mac than most of Tango.
Stevie was almost a distraction for this album. The way they layered her in was sort of insulting for the band. They "needed" to make her appear more than she was there. Also needing some of her Stevieness to promote it. Those parts are cringe and I did a whole thread about that a few months ago when I bought the BTM CD for the first time and listened to it back to front over and over for 2 weeks. I only had the cassette and it was not worth it at the time to upgrade to CD. But its pretty good. Some of you need to give it another listen and stop circling the wagons