The Fleetwood Mac album Christine McVie called “absurd”
There are a number of absurdities in the history of soft rockers Fleetwood Mac. The amount of cocaine and champagne they collectively consumed, for one. The romantic entanglements and betrayals that took place between band members. The decision to publicse them all through song, to air their grievances out through a microphone while looking each other dead in the eye across the stage.
But one thing that was rarely absurd about Fleetwood Mac was their actual music. Though their catalogue was born out of their turbulent personal lives and excessive substance use, it was rarely as sonically chaotic or shocking as their life behind-the-scenes. Rumours, their aptly-titled 1977 magnum opus, marked the height of the influence of drugs and divorce, yet the record barely strayed from subdued soft rock.
The most sonically experimental era for Fleetwood Mac came towards the end of the decade with Tusk, which was Lindsey Buckingham’s baby. He was keen to switch up Fleetwood Mac’s sound, to imbue their established pop rock sound with some slightly stranger elements, with the influence of post-punk and of more artsy stylings.
As usual, the experience of recording Tusk was marked by indulgence and absurdity in the studio. “There was blood floating around in the alcohol,” McVie once said, as quoted by Rolling Stone. “Recording Tusk was quite absurd,” she continued, “The studio contract rider for refreshments was like a phone directory. Exotic food delivered to the studio, crates of Champagne.”
This will come as no surprise to fans of the band. Fleetwood Mac were well-known for their use of substances in the studio and even devised a covert method of doing bumps on-stage, involving Heineken bottle tops. But, this time, it seemed that some of the absurdity of their recording processes had finally found its way into their sound.
Tusk wasn’t a passionate break-up record like its predecessor, Rumours, nor was it full of the commercial appeal of its successor, Mirage. It refused to be constrained, flitting between influences and styles at will with little concern for the listener. The opener, ‘Over & Over’, for example, lulls you into a false sense of security with country twangs and Christine McVie’s familiar vocals, but the warmth is quickly off-set by follow-up track ‘The Ledge’.
McVie’s comforting vocals are quickly replaced with Buckingham’s, in a tiny track that is both sparse and strange. From there, Tusk never stays in one place sonically. There’s the Stevie Nicks-helmed hit ‘Sara’, which features twinking guitars and love sick lyrics. There’s the kalimba infused ‘That’s All For Everyone’, the off-kilter titular track, and the Talking Heads-esque groove to ‘Angel’.
It’s all over the place and, particularly in terms of Fleetwood Mac’s standards, it’s absurd. But unlike Rumours and the many releases that surrounded their magnum opus, its absurdity isn’t limited to the lore that surrounds it, it bleeds into the songs, into their unpredictability over the course of the album’s runtime, courtesy of Buckingham’s newfound penchant for experimentation.
Tusk provided a glimpse at Fleetwood Mac beyond the constraints of soft rock, giving into the strangeness of their lives in the studio entirely, experimenting with more than just substances. It’s certainly still within the pop realm, with singles like ‘Tusk’ earning radio play and chart success, but it’s much more out there as far as Fleetwood Mac stylings go.
