It was all a Mirage, I used to read West Coast Magazine...

Paranoia, Jealousy, Hand-Tinted Photographs

The Talking Heads This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
Fleetwood Mac Everywhere

When it comes to Fleetwood Mac, there are a couple of idées fixes that I tend to harp on about when the topic inevitably arrives. First, there's my suspicion that when Lindsey Buckingham wrote 1986's Everywhere, he was either directly or indirectly paying homage to the Talking Heads' This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody), which was released in 1983 (and with the intro, possibly the sound logo of Disney's Buena Vista). Both of these songs are passable as hipster mating calls, which would explain the following videos.

MGMT cover The Talking Heads

Vampire Weekend cover Fleetwood Mac

Secondly, that a couple of years ago, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album was the album that allowed people of my age and generation the chance to re-evaluate Fleetwood Mac, primarily because the strange excess and weirdness of the album itself and the recording process gave us permission to. That was followed by an embracing of Tango In The Night (I'm thinking now of CFCF's great re-working as evidence), and that we'll shortly be in the age of Mirage, after which there will be a Photian Schism for a couple of years while various sects develop around The Cult of Peter Green, The Gospel of Christine McVie (née Perfect), The Doctrine of Stevie Nicks, & maybe even The Decrees of Mick Fleetwood's Zoo (that's least likely, I think.)

Fleetwood Mac Love In Store

So, what's going to give us all permission to delve into Mirage? Truthfully, the nasally voice of Stevie Nicks has always rubbed me slightly the wrong way, to say little of her neo-gypsy art school teacher outfits (I hate free spirits), so it's going to be a Christine McVie song first, Love In Store, which is awesome in much the same way that the Grateful Dead's Touch of Grey is awesome, and has given me great results as a late-night dancefloor closer.

Fleetwood Mac Hold Me

After Love In Store, my next pick on the album is the 9th track. The opening piano roll of Hold Me is a compelling dance-floor shuffler that eventually picks up steam & becomes a near-perfect expression of desire and the anticipated satisfaction of that desire.

Christine McVie back when her last name was Perfect

Fleetwood Mac Wish You Were Here

Finally, there's the album closer, Christine McVie's ballad Wish You Were Here, reportedly about her deceased lover Dennis Wilson (of The Beach Boys). Incidentally and (by now) obviously, I love Christine McVie's voice, and how much does Victoria Legrand of Beach House's voice sound similar? Just prior to Christine McVie joining Fleetwood Mac, she recorded and released a solo album called Christine Perfect that I would highly recommend to anyone else enamored with her voice. Here she sings noticeably deeper, and the music is bluesier than her later solo work, especially on a cover of Etta James' I'd Rather Go Blind and my personal favourite, No Road is The Right Road, which is the stylistic forerunner of Holly Golightly's There Is An End.

This could all be moot, though. It's been a long time since I've mp3 blogged, and maybe now we've all got rid of our musical hang-ups, which would go a long way to explain the widespread enthusiasm for the Italo Disco Bike-In this weekend.

Lindsey Buckingham pays tribute to Adam Ant & the Nouveau Pirate Movement