My Amazon Reviews: Fleetwood Mac "Tango In The Night"

Dance into the sunset
4 Out Of 5 Stars

While not as widely heralded as the band's always lauded "Rumours," "Tango In The Night" could easily be the best of their post "Rumours" efforts. This was the last album recorded by the Christine/John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood Lineup (Buckingham split afterwards), The album peaked at number 7 and dropped two top ten singles in the twisted "Big Love" and "Little Lies," with "Seven Wonders" and "Everywhere" being substantial hits.

Starting off life as a Buckingham solo album, "Tango" morphed into a Fleetwood Mac group disc. Produced by Buckingham and longtime cohort Richard Dashut, he brought his edginess to a great portion of the disc, from the push and pull of "Big Love" to the quirky "Family Man." Nicks revisits her love songs to strong women theme with "Welcome to The Room (Sara)" and Christine McVie scored with the lovely "Everywhere." Mick gets to do more with his drums that usual, like the middle eastern vibe of "Caroline," and the title song. Buckingham is still in charge, though, his signature vocals are dominant throughout.

Even with that, this still sounds like a group effort thanks to the contributions from McVie and Nicks. It allows Buckingham to exit on a solid plain, while the rest of the band have offered him a gratifying curtain call. Still one of their best efforts. (Given the collapse that followed, that's worth repeating. "Behind The Mask" peaked at 33 and had one top 40 single;"Time" failed to even hot the top 100.)

     

My Amazon Reviews: Fleetwood Mac "Fleetwood Mac"

Dreams Unwind and Love's a State of Mind
4 Out of 5 Stars

The varying incarnations of Fleetwood Mac had been slowly gaining commercial ground in the USA over several albums, but few would have predicted the mammoth breakaway success of 1975's "Fleetwood Mac." The newcomers Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham provided an 'X Factor' the band sorely needed; Nicks being the ultimate space-woman front-person and Buckingham being a guitar craftsman/songsmith that gave the band's nucleus of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (along with singer-pianist Christine McVie) a jolt of energy along with a congealed line-up.

The songs speak for themselves. There was Christine McVie's dreamy "Over My Head," her soulful "Say You Love Me" and Nicks' introduction to the world via "Rhiannon." The group had newly magical harmonies with the mixture on McVie and Nicks (as well as Buckingham's rubbery vocals) that made many of the songs pop-out like previous albums hadn't before. Nicks' personalty, as expressed in "Rhiannon" and the tender, country-ish ballad "Landslide," gave the band a new focal point, and Buckingham's oddball persona surfaces on the turgid "I'm So Afraid."

It seems like the eponymous nature of the album was by no means an accident. "Fleetwood Mac" was both reinvention and reinterpretation of the long-standing band's strengths with some new twists added. It shocked almost everyone by selling 5 million copies, and can you name another superstar album where the band is posed in a bathroom (as on this disc's back cover)? As unassuming as they may have seen it to be at the time, "Fleetwood Mac" marked a major turning point in America Music as the LA novices and UK vets spun a musical web that everyone (including former bandmate the late Bob Welch and associates like Walter "Magnet and Steel" Egan) wouldn't wait to capitalize on.