Christine Mcvie/Stevie Nicks - 1979

This week in our Half Off Double Album series we are going to tear apart a contentiously beloved album, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk. Tusk as an album contains a lot of great songs, arguably mostly from Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie but also a few from Lindsey Buckingham. The production of the album was pushed forward by heavy drug use and a maniacal Lindsey who was insistent that this album sounded nothing like their previous album Rumors.

It was early on when the decision was made to make a double album. Whether that was a good or bad decision is a matter of opinion. But what if among all the stress and turmoil surrounding the Rumors album and tour they decided to take a step back and do other projects? So here we have McVie/Nicks.

Side One
01 Angel
02 Never Forget
03 Brown Eyes
04 Beautiful Child
05 Sisters Of The Moon

Side Two
01 Over & Over
02 Storms
03 Honey Hi
04 Farmer's Daughter
05 Sara
06 Never Make Me Cry

Reality Notes

It had been a while since the last time I had listened to the album, so I took some time to reacquaint myself with the material. I came to the conclusion that this album cannot be trimmed down to a single disc Fleetwood Mac album without losing some great songs. The way I see it, this could go one of three ways.

1. Everyone records solo albums
2. Lindsey and Stevie revive Buckingham-Nicks and Christine records a solo album
3. Lindsey records a solo album and Stevie and Christine do an album together

I suppose technically Lindsey and Christine could have teamed up and Stevie could do a solo album but for some reason I didn't find that as interesting to warrant exploring. We don't have enough songs to really explore option one although with one outtake and some alternate versions I might be able to pad enough to make a Lindsey solo album. Still hacking away on that.

There were also many other Stevie songs demoed, some of which showed up on later solo and Fleetwood Mac albums. Beauty And The Beast was recorded for The Wild Heart. Smile At You was released on Say You Will. Secret Love appears on In Your Dreams and The Dealer shows up on 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault. If someone wants to put that together go ahead. Unfortunately the production varies from album to album so I'm not sure how well the songs will blend together.

Going with option three I had more than enough songs to work with. We have six Christine songs, five Stevie songs and one Beach Boys cover outtake (Farmer's Daughter). I dropped Think about me by Christine, there was just too much Lindsey on it. Lindsey, being the producer, has his hands in everything and can be heard on many tracks vocally (on a Fleetwood Mac album that's fine if not expected). And of course, Lindsey, Mick and John are all there to lend a hand.

I'm kind of treating this as being similar to Bob Weir's Ace solo album that features the Grateful Dead as the backing band. Here we have Christine and Stevie being backed up by the rest of Fleetwood Mac. Peter Green even shows up playing guitar on Brown Eyes.

I actually started with option two. I'm a big fan of the first Buckingham/Nicks album so to make a follow up seemed to be a good idea. The results were good and after a few listens I warmed up to some of Lindsey's songs but the production on the first album was more like the last two Fleetwood Mac albums and this one didn't always feel very Buckingham/Nicks like.

It was when I was constructing option two that I realized that it was Lindsey's songs I liked least. Lindsey was determined at the time to make Fleetwood Mac relevant in a post punk/new wave era. While he may have succeeded on some level there, the results don't always feel like a Fleetwood Mac song when taken out of context, especially Lindsey's songs.

Because we have more Lindsey songs than Stevie or Christine I'm still shuffling things around and I may switch a few songs out but at the moment this is where this album stands.

01 Tusk
02 Angel
03 Sisters Of The Moon
04 Walk A Thin Line
05 Storms
06 Sara
07 Save Me A Place
08 Not That Funny
09 Beautiful Child
10 The Ledge
11 That's Enough For Me

If I manage to achieve something I can be happy with I will post that sometime in the future.

I modified the original cover to reflect the change to a McVie/Nicks album. Because the title track was a Lindsey song we can no longer call the album Tusk. I am hoping to use it for the Lindsey solo album or the Buckingham/Nicks album, whichever gets done first.