In 1977 Fleetwood Mac were at the top of the music world. Their soft rock masterpiece Rumours was selling by the bucketload, they had just swept Rolling Stone's end of year readers' poll and the world awaited the much anticipated follow-up album. But when the Mac entered the studio that year, their main objective was to make anything but Rumours mark II. The group's guitarist and creative guide Lindsey Buckingham, who had helped reinvent the British blues band when he joined with girlfriend Stevie Nicks in 1975, had other things in mind than repeating the phenomenal success of their last LP. Reacting against their sudden celebrity and influenced by the current punk rock explosion, Buckingham was determined to experiment and go against what was expected of them all.
Drummer and business manager Mick Fleetwood, ever the entrepreneur, believing that bigger would indeed be better this time, decided to document the making of the album and the tour that followed, acting as producer on the film.
After two years and at a cost of well over $1 million the result was the eccentric double LP Tusk. At the time it confounded many fans used to their melodic radio-friendly sounds. Some critics were impressed at least, but their record company Warner certainly wasn't. Whereas Rumours went on to sell more than 25 million copies worldwide and for a time was actually the best-selling record ever (before it was eventually eclipsed by Michael Jackson's Thriller), Tusk was a big disappointment in comparison selling only four million records. (It's since added a further three million to that tally.) The band were then marched out on a long and gruelling tour playing more than a 100 dates on four continents for more than nine months. The highlights of which were captured on a live LP and on the video.
Considering Warner's disappointment with the success of Tusk, it's a surprise that they saw fit to release the documentary on the recording of the album in 1981, while the band were taking a well-earned break. Although Stevie Nicks' success as a solo artist that year may have had something to do with it. Since the video revolution was still in its early days back then, the title, which has never been re-released, has become a bit of a rarity and is highly sought after by fans, quite simply because it's great.
The documentary part of the video is essentially a few interviews and some in-studio footage but it does at the very least provide a little insight into the Mac's recording process, if not their well-documented excesses. Buckingham is in full Brian Wilson-esque producer mode presiding over the mixing desk and working with Nicks on her songs, while the group's third songwriter Christine McVie appears a largely independent figure. The interviews are often telling also or at least adding to each member's public persona. The famously quiet bassist John McVie never says a word: Mick Fleetwood is portrayed as the slightly decadent family man and prankster; Christine McVie appears very English taking time out on her boat; Nicks is seen practising ballet and Buckingham is always in the studio (this is a man who has taken more than 10 years to record a still unreleased solo album).
Performance-wise the video concentrates on Tusk tracks, the highlights being a luscious dreamy version of Sara with Nicks looking like a Pre-Raphaelite vision draped in red, Buckingham going mad on the song Not That Funny, and a haunting performance of McVie's Never Make Me Cry in the studio.
Twenty-three years after it was released Tusk is finally getting some of the recognition it deserves, and some even prefer it to the more famous Rumours. Not surprisingly then, having not been available since t h e early 1980s, the Tusk video is highly desirable to Mac fans. If you own a copy you probably either managed to get hold of a bootleg or were a Fleetwood Mac fan lucky enough to own a video recorder back in 1981. The Mac has just released their first studio LP with both Buckingham and Nicks since 1987, and already there has been lots of interest in the band once again. Most fans are keen to see this lost treasure available again after all these years. Currently residing in the vaults at Warner, hopefully it won't be too long until we do.
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