Yes, I’m still insisting the alternate versions of Fleetwood Mac’s most popular albums (‘75-‘87) are worthy of individual assessment amid this deep dive into the discography of the late great Christine McVie.
When it comes to the rough-cut mirror-image of Rumours, though, many of the truly illuminating session gems are only bonus bits on the ‘Super Deluxe’ edition of this blockbuster. Fortunately for fans unwilling to splurge or incapable of spending so lavishly, those tracks are streaming as well.
What isn’t are most of the half-finished versions saved for this 2020 Record Store Day release, repressed two years later as part of a box set gathering all six titles on colored vinyl.
After a zillion spins of the finished product, any means of hearing this stuff with fresh ears is appreciated. Yet, seemingly in an effort to hawk another variant, the project’s overseers sometimes selected stages of the heartbreak-fueled process that aren’t terribly dissimilar to completed cuts.
Consider ‘Dreams’: the alternate sounds almost done, lacking only subtler restraint from Mick Fleetwood and most of Lindsey Buckingham’s distinctive fretwork (equally absent on a slightly incomplete ‘Go Your Own Way’). Certainly an interesting draft of Stevie Nicks’s indestructible bittersweetness, but it isn’t remotely as riveting as the stripped-down rendition included in the ‘SD’ set (sampled for this post).
And why is that?
Because you hear even more of Ms. McVie.
Her electric piano is revealed in both versions of that song to be its bedrock; Mick & John’s weighted-down groove grows out of it. ‘Don’t Stop,’ meanwhile, is a revelation without Lindsey’s guitar stealing the spotlight; Christine’s untacked piano is front-and-center the whole time.
A more fleshed-out ‘Songbird’ helps us spot feathers still to be plucked: no need for drum beats or constant acoustic-guitar strum. But ‘The Chain’ is really ill-served. That rare all-group composition fused the chorus from an acoustic Nicks demo with a grander piece from McVie called ‘Keep Me There.’
The former is included.
The latter, containing its true spirit, should have been.