Is this the last great Fleetwood Mac album or would that be the one before this, or even the one before that?
It’s certainly the least unified of the most legendary lineup’s lot. Almost hard to call it a proper Mac project when out of 18 months of recording, Stevie Nicks’s timeshare in Lindsey Buckingham’s bedroom studio amounted to about two weeks of rough vocal work amid touring and stints in rehab.
Unlike the Tusk or Mirage sessions, where fracturing volatility and outright hostility could be tempered by a shared sense of purpose, no one seems to have been on the same page making Tango in the Night.
Lindsey, teeming with material, wanted to work on his third self-serve feast, and brought ‘Big Love’ and ‘Family Man’ to the table nearly finished, then fished ‘Caroline’ out of some demos. Mick Fleetwood persuaded him to upsize to a Mac meal, but Nicks was busy gigging on and off with Petty and Dylan and doing loads of blow, while John McVie, who could out-snort her snow-covered hills by a landslide, had spent so long sailing ‘round Saint Thomas he feared he’d forgotten how to play bass.
By comparison, newly remarried Christine McVie, still the chief focus of this deep dive, was relatively happy and stable — if also somewhat less inspired. Which is slightly ironic, given it was a Christine solo track involving everyone except Stevie — her rendition of Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ for the inaptly titled comedy A Fine Mess (see earlier post) — that sparked the idea of another Mac attack in the first place.
Her joy is still shimmeringly evident in ‘Everywhere,’ another quintessential slice of romantic Chris bliss cut from the same cloth as ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun.’ Yet it’s telling that such sheer happiness is the only song here she wrote on her own.
The more earthbound ‘Little Lies,’ its choruses enhanced by her vocal mates, was co-penned by her new love Eddy Quintela, along with the rote rocker ‘Isn’t It Midnight’; that one and the airily appealing ballad ‘Mystified’ required enough help from Lindsey that Christine insisted he share authorship.
Should Buckingham have gotten even more credit for why Tango is relatively consistent and so enjoyable overall? At the time, absolutely. But he torpedoed his own efforts.
After nearly two years of production, at the moment the LP was taking off to become yet another multiplatinum blockbuster, he declined to tour and bowed out — much to the consternation of Stevie, who promptly attacked Lindsey, their fight spilling out into the street.
The invisible eighth wonder of Tango in the Night — beyond the path to the rainbow’s end/edge of Stevie’s ‘Seven Wonders’ — is that somehow the completed assortment holds together well despite all its behind-the-scenes shortcomings.
Not to mention more eccentric tedium than ever before, like recording certain songs for twice as long at half-speed, only to mix them at double-time, creating a uniquely crisp quality to match Christine’s synth parts and Lindsey’s synthetic production.
Whether it measures up to its predecessors is a determination strictly the ear of the beholder. Casual fans likely look upon it favorably? Its sales figures and persistent hits would suggest so.
I think it’s an almost-great hodgepodge that holds up surprisingly well almost four decades later. But even in its best moments it still strikes me as less a major Fleetwood Mac album than a glorified bridge to Lindsey Buckingham’s next solo work, his high-water mark, Out of the Cradle, which took him the next five years to finish.
Misery and heartbreak tend to produce more lastingly resonant music than well-moneyed happy shit. Just one of many reasons why Rumours is so brilliant and beloved. This is post-that. For all its light charms, Tango is the sound of a band straining to still matter — not to us, but to themselves.
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