Fleetwood Mac – Tusk

Tusk is the twelfth studio album by American-British band Fleetwood Mac. Released on October 12, 1979, it is considered experimental, mainly due to Lindsey Buckingham’s sparse compositional interventions and the influence of punk rock and new wave on his production techniques. The album cost more than $1 million to record (a fact that was widely noted in the press in 1979) and was the most expensive rock album to date.

The band embarked on a 9-month tour to promote Tusk. They have traveled extensively around the world, including the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and UK. In Germany they even met Bob Marley with whose band they recorded music for their Fleetwood Mac Live album, which was released in 1980.

In 2013, New Musical Express magazine ranked Tusk at number 445 on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Going into Tusk, Lindsey Buckingham was adamant about making an album that sounded like Rumors, despite encouragement from their label Warner Bros., who wanted the band to continue with an also commercial record.
For me, Buckingham confided, there’s a kind of guilt behind this particular album, because it was done in a way that undermined exactly the recipe that Rumors 2 and Rumors 3 would follow, which Warner Bros. liked the group to follow.

With three main songwriters, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, the band’s drummer, thought it necessary to record a double album. After their label rejected their offer to buy a new studio to record in, Fleetwood Mac used some of their royalties to build their own studio, Studio D.

The group’s bassist John McVie commented that the album sounded like “the work of three solo artists”, while Mick Fleetwood later declared it his favorite and the best Fleetwood Mac studio album the group had ever produced.

Peter Green, lead guitarist and founding member of the early blues-playing Fleetwood Mac, had also taken part in the Tusk recordings, but his playing on the Christine McVie track “Brown Eyes” was never mentioned on the album. However, on the alternate version, 30 seconds longer, released on the compilation “25 Years – The Chain”, Green’s guitar can be heard.

Tracklist

1. The Ledge 2:02
2. Think About Me 2:44
3. Save Me A Place 2:40
4. Sara 6:26
5. What Makes You Think You’re The One 3:28
6. Storms 5:28
7. That’s All For Everyone 3:04
8. Not That Funny 3:19
9. Sisters Of The Moon 4:36
10. Angel 4:53
11. That’s Enough For Me 1:48
12. Brown Eyes 4:27
13. Never Make Me Cry 2:14
14. I Know I’m Not Wrong 2:59
15. Honey Hi 2:43
16. Beautiful Child 5:19
17. Walk A Thin Line 3:44
18. Tusk 3:36
19. Never Forget 3:40

From this double album we choose “Sara” which was released as a single in December 1979 and reached No. 7 in the American and No. 3 in the British charts.