Fleetwood Mac

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Say You Will

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As late-career comebacks go, this one’s respectable without ever being revelatory, and lord knows it isn’t succinct, running a minute longer than ‘Tusk’ when half of that would have sufficed.

After reuniting in ’97 and touring until their Hall of Fame induction in ’98, it was inevitable the most beloved version of Fleetwood Mac would make new music. With both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in the mix for the first time since ‘Tango in the Night’ it also isn’t surprising this behemoth obliterates the stale duds that preceded it.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Time’

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The kindest thing that can be said about this, an album about which kind things have rarely been uttered, is that it isn’t entirely rubbish. Because I’m a masochist, I’m on my fourth listen of Time as I write — and at least the first three tunes have sunk in enough that I now can hum along to a discernible hook.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ’25 Years – The Chain’

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Once upon a time, when this first-ever fully retrospective Fleetwood Mac box set was new and flooding stores ahead of Christmas ’92, I owned a CD copy that was eventually ripped and purged along with thousands of others during my years-long reinvestment in vinyl.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Behind the Mask’

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This flimsy batch, 15 studio sets on, surely rests outside anyone’s list of the best Fleetwood Mac albums. It’s inarguably unmemorable, albeit less forgettable than what came next from this perpetually morphing and disintegrating group.

But having finally given Behind the Mask more than scant attention for the first time since it was new 35 years ago — when it epitomized all that was numbingly dull about rock at the dawn of the ‘90s, shortly before Nirvana-et-al. upended everything — I’m here to report that it doesn’t entirely suck. Depending on your need for seemingly fresh Mac nostalgia, you might actually like it.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Rock, Rhythm & Blues’

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This is a fun if inconsequential ‘89 salute to early rock ‘n’ roll staples that has gone overlooked for so long, no one’s even bothered to rip a quality copy of the thing onto YouTube.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Greatest Hits’

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Newbies, start here.
Yes, of course: Every quality collection ought to include Rumours. Bet yours already does. True devotees also would/should want pressings of the self-titled ‘75 LP, probably Tusk, either of the ‘80s titles or both, plus at least a representative platter for both the Bob Welch era (I vote Bare Trees) and the foundational Peter Green years (Then Play On is tops, although there’s a Greatest Hits for that phase as well, from ‘71).

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: The Alternate ‘Tango in the Night’

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This is far from the final installment in my deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography; there are 15 more posts to write after this one. But it is the last (thus far) of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘alternate’ albums comprising demos and different takes of material both beloved and overlooked.

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘A Fine Mess’

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For this 38th (!) splash within my deep dive into Christine McVie’s complete catalog, only one song from the soundtrack to Blake Edwards’s largely forgotten comedy A Fine Mess matters: her straightforward yet lovely cover of the Elvis Presley classic ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love.’

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Christine McVie Deep Dive: Todd Sharp’s ‘Who Am I’

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By now this sort of passed-over obscurity ought to be an unsurprising discovery to anyone still following my extensive peer into every facet of Christine McVie’s discography.

Danny Douma, Robbie Patton, Billy Burnette — these largely forgotten singer-songwriters all crossed her path at some point too, and in most cases wound up sharing credits on McVie hits. So it is with this fellow, Todd Sharp, who’d been lingering on the fringe of Fleetwood Mac circles since his time playing in Bob Welch’s band and contributing to Mick Fleetwood’s Zoo.

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