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Fleetwood Mac
TUSK (EXPANDED)
(Rhino)
Stars graphics

When Fleetwood Mac released Tusk, in late 1979, it was seen as sprawling, expensive, ego-and cocaine-driven — in short, everything that punk-rockers despised (except maybe the cocaine). Yet along with its obvious Love and Beach Boys roots, Tusk has a lot in common with another double album released that season: Public Image Ltd’s Metal Box/Second Edition. Both are textural experiences that took sound manipulation as far as it went in the pre-digital pop era. In the wake of the straight-ahead guitar/vocal settings of Rumours, Mac mastermind Lindsey Buckingham devised a new template for mainstream pop, combining loopy, homemade backing tracks with intricately layered vocal parts and giving brushed drums or door slams equal weight with the melodic hooks. Meanwhile, his songwriting, notably in "That’s All for Everyone" and "Walk a Thin Line," took on a haunting undertow it had never had before and hasn’t had since.

Although Buckingham has always gotten most of the credit, the other two writers were on the same wavelength. Stevie Nicks’s "Sisters of the Moon" is the most convincingly cosmic of all her songs (and the only one with a keyboard lick as the main hook); Christine McVie’s songs are wrapped in a soft romantic haze. As part of Rhino’s Mac reissue campaign, the original Tusk is paired here with a fascinating disc of in-progress versions plus a studio take of the Beach Boys’ "Farmer’s Daughter. Later Mac albums would, unfortunately, take an MOR turn; the band’s most recent tour featured only two Tusk songs in a three-hour set.

BY BRETT MILANO


Issue Date: April 16 - 22, 2004
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