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Fleetwood Mac · S5 E1
The Pressure
How do you follow the best-selling album of all time? Lindsey Buckingham has an answer nobody expects
Rumours has spent thirty-one weeks at number one, sold over ten million copies, and turned five people who can barely stand each other into the biggest band on the planet. Lindsey Buckingham walks into the next session with a cassette of The Clash and a plan to throw all of it away.
"Not That Funny" (Fleetwood Mac, Tusk, 1979). This is what Lindsey Buckingham heard in his head while the label begged for Rumours II. Jagged, confrontational, recorded through cheap equipment on purpose. Nobody at Warner Bros. knew what to do with this.
The Impossible Follow-Up
By the summer of 1978, Rumours was the best-selling album in Warner Bros. history. The label's message was simple: do it again. Same formula, same polish, same radio-friendly hooks, same result. Lindsey Buckingham heard that and decided to do the exact opposite.
Sources
Caillat, Ken and Stiefel, Steve. "Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album." Wiley, 2012.
Fleetwood, Mick and Bozza, Anthony. "Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac." Little, Brown, 2014.
“What would be the point of going in and making Rumours again? What kind of artistic death is that? It was a very political record to make, because I had to fight for a different vision.”
— Lindsey Buckingham, paraphrased from interviews compiled in Fleetwood, Mick. "Play On" (Little, Brown, 2014)
TAP TO REVEAL: How much did the Tusk sessions cost?
Not That Funny, Fleetwood Mac (1979)
"Not That Funny" is built on a deliberately lo-fi guitar tone that Lindsey achieved by recording through cheap equipment rather than the studio's professional gear. The drums are stripped to basics, almost tribal. It sounds nothing like Rumours on purpose. Lindsey was channeling punk and new wave bands who valued urgency over polish. Listen for the raw tape texture that bleeds through the mix. Most engineers would have cleaned it up. Lindsey left it in.
Sources
Fleetwood, Mick. "Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac." Little, Brown, 2014.
Village Recorder, West Los Angeles
The studio at 1616 Butler Avenue where Tusk was primarily recorded over months of sessions in 1978 and 1979. The same room that had hosted Steely Dan and the Stones now belonged to Fleetwood Mac's most ambitious experiment.
The Weight of Rumours
Over & Over, Fleetwood Mac (1979)
While Lindsey was tearing up the rulebook, Christine McVie kept writing the kind of songs Rumours was built on: warm, melodic, effortlessly lovable. "Over & Over" is pure Christine: a simple chord progression, a voice like honey, and a hook that stays for days. It's the sound Warner Bros. wanted the entire album to be. The tension between tracks like this and Lindsey's experiments is what makes Tusk so fascinating.
Over & Over, Fleetwood Mac (1979)
"Can you hear me calling, out your name?" Christine wrote this in the afterglow of a new relationship, and every line sounds like a woman who has found something solid after years of chaos. While Lindsey's Tusk tracks were all sharp angles and deliberate discomfort, Christine's lyrics stayed open, tender, and direct. The contrast on the same album tells you everything about where these two writers were standing in 1979.
What did Warner Bros. want Fleetwood Mac to deliver after Rumours?
The label wants hits. Stevie wants ballads. Christine wants melody. And Lindsey Buckingham is in his garage with a four-track tape machine, recording guitar parts through a cheap speaker. Next: the man who decided that the biggest band in the world should sound like a basement demo.
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