We've gone long enough without a thread for this tremendous band. I've been a fan of their music as far as I can recall. I remember walking around the house on weekdays and my dad blasting "Rhiannon" or "Go Your Own Way" on the stereo in the garage. I get the impression that this new batch of members don't really listen to anything pre-2000 but what the heck, I'll give it a go.

Their first album wasn't their 1975 self-titled album; they'd been a band since the late 60s and actually released a self-titled album in 1968. That album was a great offering of blues rock; Peter Green provided vocals back then. Their third album, English Rose, is where "Black Magic Woman" can be heard—yes, the famous one that Santana covered. Keep in mind they released a solid set of albums before they got "big."

1974 saw a switch with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joining John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood. The next year saw the release of their next self-titled album (I like to refer to it is as The White Album.) This is where the band really picked up steam. The three-headed songwriting team of Nicks, Buckingham and McVie (Christine) was unmatched. Two years later revealed the masterpiece of Rumours and in 1979 they released the sprawling double-album, Tusk.

The band fell apart in the 1980s, but even their 1988 greatest hits compilation is significant. I'm not sure what you could really say about the band that hasn't been said before. They were one spectacular band, one that offered remarkable songwriting, memorable music and passionate, emotional albums. They are highly overlooked (sure, everyone loves Rumours) but they are one of the best bands of all time. If I made my "dream band" I'd probably choose them as the songwriters.

So anyways, share your opinions, vote for your favorite album (yes, I left some off) or just disagree with me, I'm used to it.

Question:
What's your favorite Fleetwood Mac album?

Choices:
Fleetwood Mac ('68)
Mr. Wonderful
Then Play On
Future Games
Bare Trees
Fleetwood Mac ('75)
Rumours
Tusk

 

Fleetwood Mac (1975) is my favorite Buckingham/Nicks era Mac. Although I do love Tusk almost as much, it still needs trimmed down to a single album.

Pre-B/N, I'd go with English Rose, followed by Future Games, Bare Trees and Mystery to Me (absolutely love "Hypnotized", my favorite Mac song of all time).

The Peter Green stuff is my favourite by a mile.

Once Fleetwood Mac started employing 'rock stars', they lost a lot of the warmth in the sound. That's not to say it's bad music, but when you hear stuff like 'Albatross' and 'Oh Well' it sounds much more honest.

quote:

I get the impression that this new batch of members don't really listen to anything pre-2000 but what the heck

I'd like to respond to this because it brings up an interesting point. Now, I'm 28, and so I missed this era of music, but it's starting to come to light that the 90's was largely a big reminescence of the 60's and 70's while the 00's are all about recapturing the synthetic glory of the 80's. A simplification, sure, but a convenient skeleton to work with.

I was obsessed with The Beatles as a teenager, as were many others my age. I was obsessed with the mindset of the 60's and 70's and, while not being too explorative musically at that time, managed to get pretty saturated with the "aura" of it. Fleetwood Mac is obviously a bit more current than The Beatles, but my point is that I have a pretty good feel for the music of recent past decades; it's practically programmed into my precognitive mind and nostalgia for it rears it's ugly head in all my greatest failures in real life, along with a healthy penchant for sentimentalizing my own imagined victimization at the hands of a ruthless society at large. I'm messing around here, but really -- there's a reason I don't go back here. It's been done, and it can't be done better, so one must move on.

Can't say I'm a huge Mac fan, but I do enjoy some of their songs quite a bit (The Chain, Hypnotized, etc) but i rarely listen to an album of theirs, but I have them all on my hard drive just in case.
General listener/fan = stock answer

I picked Rumours.

Also... I'm finding that I don't enjoy most new artists in the same way I enjoy Classic rock, it seems all the weeding out has mostly already been done for Classic rock, but weeding through new music feels like work, outside the handful of bands I already know I like :White Stripes, The Strokes, The Shins, Caribou, and so on. I just let someone else tell me whats great and I'll decide from there.

i only have the 75 fleetwood mac through to tusk, but i absolutely love all three of those albums and listen to them regularly. i went through a whole buckingham-nicks type thing in highschool, and i think i must've listened to rumours more than any album during the following year.

I'm 22 years old and have loved the Mac since I was 13/14, when I would listen to their live reunion album "The Dance" for weeks on end. Their songs just don't age, at all, they're wonderful.
I've never heard anything pre-Buckingham/Nicks (I'm ashamed to say), but if I'd to rate one of their albums as "better" than the others, it'd be a tie between "Rumours" and "Tusk." "Tusk" is brilliant and doesn't get nearly enough recognition by the music press (if Jack White, Conor Oberst, or Sufjan Stevens did something similar today, people would bow down at their feet).
Also, I'd like to give a shout out to the actually-really-surprisingly-good "Say You Will" album. Yeah, it doesn't quite have the cohesiveness that their older albums offer, and yeah Christine is nowhere to be found, but it's still much better than it's given credit for.

quote:

Originally posted by ProfAmaretto:
I've never heard anything pre-Buckingham/Nicks (I'm ashamed to say),

You only think you haven't heard anything pre-Buckingham/Nicks, but trust me - you have!

Try doing a search for 'Fleetwood Mac Albatross' on youtube sometime. If you don't recognise it immediately I'll be very surprised!

One of the best instrumentals ever written in my humble opinion and a very famous piece of music (particularly in the UK). A lovely warm sound. It possibly represents the birth of the ambient 'chill out' genre.

I have a healthy collection of the Mac from the earliest days to the latest, and I need to sing the praises of Rumours. Fucking genius. ...and as Greil Marcus has discussed, the ante- upping guitar solo in 'Go Your Own Way' by the peerless Buckingham is one of the central moments in rock as art, articulating confusion, pain and finally redemption of a kind.

I've always found Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac to be pretty boring. But I am a huge fan of Stevie Nicks and not at all a huge fan of blues-rock. Never really listened to the in-between stuff, descriptions of it always sounded a little too "Jackson Browne" to me, if that makes sense. Fleetwood Mac through Tusk are all brilliant, Mirage and Tango in the Night are not nearly as bad as they're sometimes portrayed, and even Behind the Mask had a moment or two. I also concur with the Prof that Say You Will was pretty damn good and way better than it had any right to be.

Anyone familiar with Camper Van Beethoven's take on Tusk?

quote:

Originally posted by odysseyandoracle:

Anyone familiar with Camper Van Beethoven's take on Tusk?

The CVB Tusk really made me appreciate Fleetwood Mac's version a little more. It's a very interesting cover album in that they didn't try to do paint-by-numbers covers, but somehow they capture the spirit of the original.

I also find that my favorite songs on the CVB version are very different from my favorites on the original Fleetwood Mac album. For instance, I think Christine McVie's version of "You'll Never Make Me Cry" is a little sugary, but CVB's is a highlight. On the other hand, I'm not wild about CVB's 10 minute freakout version of the title track.

Comparing the two, I got an idea to make a mix of the two Tusks. Here it is.

1. "Over and Over" - Camper Van Beethoven
2. "The Ledge" - Fleetwood Mac
3. "Think About Me" - CVB
4. "Save Me a Place" - FM
5. "Sara" - FM
6. "What Makes You Think You're The One" - FM
7. "Storms" - CVB
8. "That's All For Everyone" - FM
9. "Not That Funny" - CVB
10. "Sisters of the Moon" - FM
11. "Angel" - FM
12. "That's Enough For Me" - FM
13. "Brown Eyes" - CVB
14. "Never Make Me Cry" - CVB
15. "I Know I'm Not Wrong" - CVB
16. "Honey Hi" - CVB
17. "Beautiful Child" - CVB
18. "Walk A Thin Line" - FM
19. "Tusk" -FM
20. "Never Forget" - CVB

I love Fleetwood Mac, I really do. It's too bad I can't find any of their earlier albums on vinyl; those are just so hard to find. Rumours is a piece of cake to find though.

I will try out your mix Eric and I will tell you how it sounds.

On a side note, I bet that Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks were everyone's favorite girl when they were young. I mean, I look at their photos that come with the vinyl copies and I think they are two very, very hot women. I bet that when their music was out and people were buying it, the guys were going nuts.

Not sure how constructive that is, I'll shut up now.

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
I love Fleetwood Mac, I really do. It's too bad I can't find any of their earlier albums on vinyl; those are just so hard to find. Rumours is a piece of cake to find though.

Yeah, I have Rumours on vinyl and listened to side one yesterday. Good stuff.

no one else is going to vote for "Then Play On" except me? I do admit I love both iterations of the band (Peter Green/Buckingham Nicks), but I have to give Peter Green a slight edge. Then Play On is ultra psychedelic and bluesy, definitely my favorite from them.

You just like going against the grain. I mean, look at your handle.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by harrisonOWNSmccartney:
no one else is going to vote for "Then Play On" except me? QUOTE]

I think "Oh Well" is a great blues rock tune, a classic even, but I think the mid-70s incarnation of the band is a bit more interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by harrisonOWNSmccartney:
no one else is going to vote for "Then Play On" except me?

Then Play On is easily Mac's best album, and one of the best albums of the late-1960s. If you can find it (and good luck, because you'll need it) get the UK version of the LP. It contains a couple of Danny Kirwen songs not available on the US version. Failing that, get hold of the Aussie/US version of the LP. They've at least got the original sequencing. The CD version "Goes its own way" with respect to sequencing, and throws in "Oh Well, Parts 1&2" for inappropriately good measure.

Here's a ghost vote for Kiln House, overlooked by many.