A Flock Of Seagulls - A Flock Of Seagulls

The first A Flock Of Seagulls record I bought was the single "Wishing" which I thought was terrific. It wasn't included on their album, but I bought anyway, having previously heard "I Ran", which had been a huge hit in the US thanks to MTV latching onto it. It was a shame they didn't follow it up with "I Raq" !

A Flock Of Seagulls were often considered to the a synth band, probably due to the memorable synth refrain on "Wishing" but for the most part it's the guitar playing of Paul Reynolds that dominates their sound.

They are now mostly remembered for the silly haircuts, dodgy fashion and an example of all things naff in the early 1980s, but the quality of their songs and musicianship is frequently overlooked. Instead, they should be remembered for giving the world uptempo new wave/synth pop songs, with catchy tunes, great guitar, propulsive bass and swirling synths.

My memory of this album is that the best songs were the first 4, and looking now at Side Two I can remember "Telecommunications" and that "D.N.A" was an instrumental but I couldn't quite recall how it went. The rest were a blank though.

 "Modern Love Is Automatic" starts with chilly wind effects, like something from early Hawkwind or when Captain Kirk and his crew get stuck on an icy, alien planet. Once the drums come in the song launches into some great guitar with a sing-a-long chant. It's a great song and it's surprising it failed to chart in the UK.

"Messages" has a similar urgent beat to "Modern Love Is Automatic" but reminds me more of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. It has a good bass line and another sing-along chant.

The intro of " I Ran" made me think of Hawkwind's "Quark, Strangeness and Charm" LP before morphing into mainstream new wave.  There are two tremendous guitar solos.

"Space Age Love Song" is my favourite track on the album. A beautiful, dreamy song and the title should give a picture of how it sounds. "I saw your eyes and you made me smile, for a little while I was falling in love".

After the strong start to the album, it starts to go downhill a little. The bass on "You Can Run" reminds me of Duran Duran's "Careless Memories" but unfortunately the song isn't as good and it's a little dull.

Side Two opens with "Telecommunications". On a first listen you would think it was OMD, especially the vocal, but the song has a strong choppy guitar riff rather than OMD's synths. It's a decent track.

"Standing In The Doorway" starts with a long plodding instrumental, but an explosion leads to a change of pace and the vocal comes in after 2 minutes, and then covers similar ground to "I Ran". For some reason I kept thinking of Devo when it was playing. It's not bad.

"Don't Ask Me" is pleasant enough with the trademark guitar and bass to drive the track, although it's fairly unmemorable but "D.N.A" is a banger of an instrumental, with the recurring guitar line sounding like something that would keep being played between the rounds of a radio or TV quiz programme !

Excluded from the version released in the US, "Tokyo" is a slower tempo, fairly light-weight but innocuous pop song. 

The album closing number "Man Made" is very different to anything else on the album, being very slow, and nearly six minutes long. It is probably best filed under the category "experimental". Personally, I found it to be a bit boring, and my least favourite track on the album but it is listenable.

In conclusion, "A Flock Of Seagulls" is a good album with some outstanding songs and a great instrumental, and whilst it doesn't manage to maintain these levels consistently over the 11 tracks, there isn't a bad song here, and the band's reputation needs to be revised.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Modern Love Is Automatic
2. Messages
3. I Ran ( So Far Away )
4. Space Age Love Song
5. You Can Run

Side Two :

1. Telecommunications
2. Standing In The  Doorway
3. Don't Ask Me
4. D.N.A
5. Tokyo
6. Man Made

Released 1982
UK Chart Position :32

Singles :

Telecommunications ( - 1981 )
Modern Love Is Automatic ( - 1982 )
I Ran ( So Far Away ) ( No 43 - 1982 )
Space Age Love ( No 34 - 1982 )

 

 

Fleetwood Mac - Tango In The Night

 

Following the release of "Tusk" in 1979, Fleetwood Mac released only one album, "Mirage" in 1982, until Tango In The Night came out in 1987. I had not purchased Mirage and only bought Tango In The Night after the fifth single had been released.

Consequently I was already familiar with most of the better tracks on the LP, and at the time I didn't think most of the rest the album tracks to be that interesting. I didn't play the album that often after the first couple of weeks after buying it. Looking at the track listing now there were four songs I couldn't recall.

Side One opens with the first single "Big Love". Whilst being an OK song, I never liked the fake orgasmic vocals, which are apparently all Lindsey Buckingham rather than him and Stevie Nicks.

Next up is "Seven Wonders" co-written by Nicks with Sandy Stewart, who had worked together on Nicks' solo albums, and this is one of my favourite songs on the album. I was surprised to learn it only got as high as 56 in the UK Charts.

Christine McVie's "Everywhere" was a global hit and has since been used in bank and mobile phone adverts in the UK.

"Caroline" is one of the songs I didn't remember. It has a weird drum intro and the "Carra-liinne" chant has a hint of native American to it. It's quite a nice song

"Tango In The Night" is another track I didn't remember and it is actually fairly awful. It seems to be Buckingham's attempt to be the "Tusk" of the album, but fails miserably.

The side closes with "Mystified", a cute, but insubstantial song, jointly written by McVie and Buckingham.

Side Two starts with "Little Lies", another McVie song that was a huge hit. It has great backing vocals in chorus from Nicks and Buckingham.

Buckingham's "Family Man" was the last of five singles from the album, a smooth song with a disco feel, and a flamenco style guitar break.

"Welcome To The Room....Sara" is about Nicks' trying to kick her cocaine habit after checking in to the clinic as Sara. It's not great and when "The First Cut Is The Deepest" is sung, I wished it was the PP Arnold/Rod Stewart song !

The rock flavoured "Isn't It Midnight" is an album filler but has a good guitar solo reminiscent of The Cure in their "Hot, Hot, Hot !" phase, whilst "When I See You Again" is a simple song with plucked guitar but the "What's a matter baby ?" refrain is a bit annoying after a while. The vocal by Nicks isn't the best either.

The album closes with "You And I, Part II", a lively, happy toe-tapper of a song with pleasant keyboards and perhaps because it wasn't a single, is my favourite track on the LP. I'm not sure what happened to Part 1, I think it may have been a B-Side ?

Overall, Tango In The Night is a patchy album. The huge hit singles helped reaffirm Fleetwood Mac's status as global headliners, but it has nowhere near the consistency of "Rumours" or "Tusk". That said it isn't a bad album.

I have probably heard "Little Lies" and "Everywhere" too often so that now I switch channels when they are played on the Virgin Anthems radio station. If these songs were not so ubiquitous I would probably appreciate them a lot more. Apart from "Seven Wonders", the contributions from Stevie Nicks are inconsequential at best.

 

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Big Love
2. Seven Wonders
3. Everywhere
4. Caroline
5. Tango In The Night
6. Mystified

Side Two :

1. Little Lies
2. Family Man
3. Welcome To The Room....Sara
4. Isn't It Midnight
5. When I See You Again
6. You And I, Part II

Released 1987
UK Chart Position : 1

Singles :

Big Love ( No 9 - 1987 )
Seven Wonders ( No 56 - 1987 )
Little Lies ( No 5 - 1987 )
Everywhere ( No 4 - 1987 )
Family Man ( No 56 - 1987 )

 

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

 

Tusk was the long awaited follow-up to Fleetwood Mac's globally successful Rumours album and was around 18 months in the making. It was reportedly the most expensive album ever to have been made at the time and was deemed by many critics to be a failure, despite reaching number 1 in the UK, and number 4 in the US.

Sales were certainly paltry in comparison to Rumours and reasons put forward for this ranged from the cost of a double album, the LP being played on radio stations prior to it release in the US leading to wide-scale taping, to the musical content not being "Rumours 2".

Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham was determined the album was not going to be Rumours 2. He had apparently been listening a lot to Talking Heads and want the next album to be relevant in the post-punk/new wave world. 

Buckingham was the dominant force on "Tusk" with nine of the 20 songs, whereas Christine McVie contributed 6 and Stevie Nicks wrote 5. He was also in charge of the production, apparently with a "my way or the highway" stance.

Reviewers comments included "art-house", "self indulgent", "experimental", "post-punk" & "sparse" although these generally were directed at Buckingham's contributions. McVie's songs were her usual consistent, lightweight but great tunes, and Nicks' varied from soulful ballads/lullabies to her trademark witchy personna. 

Another comment was that it was more like collection of three separate solo artists put together for a compilation album. It might have been interesting had the tracks been ordered by composer eg a side each for Nicks and McVie and two for Buckingham, like Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma", or adoption of a Rod Stewart fast side/slow side approach.

Personally, I thought "Tusk" was a tremendous LP and I could still remember every song on the track-list. Indeed, it is some achievement in that I didn't think there was one bad song out of the 20, but I could understand why some people struggled with the vastly different styles covered over the 70+ minutes of music.

Choosing the title track as the first single from the album certainly sent out a clear message that the group were going in a completely different direction from the previous two albums from the new incarnation of the band since Buckingham and Nicks joined, and "Tusk" is one of the highlights. However, there are many candidates for the accolade of best song on the album, and "Storms" would probably get my vote if forced into a decision.

"Over & Over" is a superb opener to Side One. Slow, dreamy and with a gorgeous vocal from Christine McVie, it sets a slightly false impression of what is to follow, and might lead the unsuspecting listener to think it was a continuation from where Rumours left off.

However, any such notion would be quickly dispelled by "The Ledge", all fuzz box guitar, shouted vocal, a bouncy, almost compelling danceable rhythms and an indication of Buckingham's desire to be David Byrne. It was the first of three tracks on Tusk recorded featuring just Lindsey, and apparently even the Stevie Nicks sounding backing vocals were Buckingham's voice going through some alteration device.

McVie's "Think About Me" is similar to her "Don't Stop from Rumours. "I don't hold you down, but maybe that's why you are around".

"Save Me A Place" is slow, strange number with simple chords but it works. Again it is just Buckingham.

Side One closes with "Sara", the first song from Stevie Nicks. Over 6 minutes long, the bass and drums drive the rhythm, and together with dreamy backing vocals and hypnotic vocals, build to the crescendo ending. If asked to describe a typical Nicks song it probably would be this.

"What Makes You Think You're The One" begins Side Two. With heavy drums and piano, it is quintessentially the sound of the Buckingham songs on the album.

"Storms" follows and is a beautiful song, like "Dreams" but, in my opinion much better. For most parts it is just a slow plucked electric guitar and Nicks' voice, and I love the backing vocals towards the end of the song. Buckingham always seemed to be able to add an important structure to Nicks' songs.

The slow "That's All For Everyone" was allegedly inspired by the legendary unreleased Beach Boys' LP "Smile", which Buckingham reportedly gained access to.

"Not That Funny" is another fuzz guitar and heavy drum song although it has a nice keyboard break before again the side ends with another Stevie Nicks song. "Sisters Of The Moon" has a strong bass line intro and great guitar, and is a standard Nicks overblown drama, similar to "Gold Dust Woman".

A Nicks song starts Side Three. "Angel" starts more like a McVie composition with a "You Make Loving Fun" toe tapper keyboard rift before leading into more familiar territory. To add to the collection of misheard lyrics I'd always thought Stevie was singing about John Denver and a 4 hit song but was disappointed to learn the lyric was actually "like a charmed hour and a haunting song"

Buckingham's "That's Enough For Me" is more Zydeco and "Cotton-eye Joe" rather than Talking Heads/new wave, but doesn't suffer in any way because of it.

McVie's mournful "Brown Eyes" has superb backing harmonies and strong drumming, but perhaps is more notable for ex-Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green being credited for the guitar on the outro.

"Never Make Me Cry" is the album's "Songbird", and the side finishes with "I Know I'm Not Wrong", with more fuzz box guitar and heavy drumming. It has a great melody and a fab instrumental synth break.

Side Four starts with "Honey Hi", another lightweight, dreamy McVie song, with more lovely harmonies and a nice guitar outro.

Nicks' "Beautiful Child" is another great song, with a slow tempo and some lovely piano. "Your eyes say yes, but you don't say yes".

"Walk A Thin Line" has a slow tempo and plodding drums, but is saved by its strong harmonies.

The title track comes as track 4 on side 4 and bizarrely features the USC Trojan Marching Band recorded in the LA Dodgers Stadium, tribal drums, a strong bass riff, jagged guitars and Red Indian style vocals. Remarkably, it is much better than that description sounds, and became the highest charting song for Fleetwood Mac in the UK in the Buckingham/Nicks era, and remained so until "Everywhere" was released in 1987.

"Never Forget" ends the album, a slight McVie song to book-end the rest of the material. It has a great vocal and is another one of my favourites on the album. "Stars must be my friend to shine tonight"

As already stated, "Tusk" remains a truly great LP, without a bad song out of twenty. It stands the test of time, and to this listener has aged much better than Rumours.

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Over & Over
2. The Ledge
3. Think About Me
4. Save A Place
5. Sara

Side Two :

1. What Makes You Think You're The One
2. Storms
3. That's All For Everyone
4. Not That Funny
5. Sisters Of The Moon

Side Three :

1. Angel
2. That's Enough For Me
3. Brown Eyes
4. Never Make Me Cry
5. I Know I'm Not Wrong

Side Four :

1. Honey Hi
2. Beautiful Child
3. Walk A Thin Line
4. Tusk
5. Never Forget

 

Released 1979
UK Chart Position : 1

Singles :

Tusk ( No 6 - 1979 )
Sara ( No 37 - 1979 )
Think About Me ( - 1980 )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

 

There can't be many people of a certain generation who are not familiar with most or all of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours", with it reportedly being the 12th best selling album of all-time globally, and the story of it being written and recorded as both Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks relationship and John & Christine McVie's marraige both ended, and Mick Fleetwood discovering his wife was having an affair. It certainly added spice to the lyrics.

It seemed the only time the couples could speak to each other was in the recording studio, and the outcome was a tremendous album in spite of it all. The four singles were all top 10 hits in the USA, although apart from "Dreams" only had modest success in the UK as the country enjoyed the punk/new wave revolution in 1977. Part of "The Chain" was famously used as the theme tune to popular UK TV show "Top Gear", whilst "Songbird" was one of the most notable songs on Eva Cassidy's posthumous release in 1998, suitably entitled "Songbird"

Side one begins in a similar manner to their previous eponymous named album, with an uptempo Lindsey Buckingham song, with "Second Hand News" being the lead-in song just as "Monday Morning" was on "Fleetwood Mac".

"Dreams" comes next with a prominent bass line and crisp drum intro and a suitably dreamy vocal from Stevie Nicks. The song was also a big hit in 1998 for Irish band "The Corrs".

"Never Going Back Again" is the shortest and simplest song on the album. At just a shade over 2 minutes long it is just Buckingham's vocals and plucked acoustic guitar, with just some backing vocals towards the end.

Christine McVie's first contribution is "Don't Stop", a bouncy piano based number with vocals shared between her and Buckingham. It has been used in a number of political campaigns, most notably Bill Clinton's.

"Go Your Own Way", the first single from "Rumours", is another track written by Lindsey Buckingham, with electric and acoustic guitar intro leading into a pop-rock song and a catchy chorus. It is the most bitter of his songs on the ending of his relationship with Nicks.

The side ends with the beautiful "Songbird", which features just Christine McVie at the piano and some faintly strummed acoustic guitar deep in the background.

Side Two opens with "The Chain" which is essentially two pieces tacked to-gether. Starting with menacing drums, bass and plucked guitar it leads into quite a bombastic song, before the familiar bass and manic guitar outro. It is the only track credited to all 5 band members.

Next up is Christine McVie's funky "You Make Loving Fun, which again has some crisp drumming and a soaring chorus.

"I Don't Want To Know" is Buddy Holly, country-rock inspired song by Nicks, and features great harmonies between Nicks and Buckingham.

The album ends with two of the slightly weaker tracks, McVie's slow and sombre "Oh Daddy" before the album closes with the overblown melodrama of Nick's "Gold Dust Woman", which for me goes on too long. It does have one of the best lyrics on the album though " Rulers make bad lovers, you better put your kingdom up for sale".

Overall, it is still a great album, and there isn't a bad song on it. 

Track Listing :

Side One :

1. Second Hand News
2. Dreams
3. Never Going Back Again
4. Don't Stop
5. Go Your Own Way
6. Songbird

Side Two :

1. The Chain
2. You Make Loving Fun
3. I Don't Want To Know
4. Oh Daddy
5. Gold Dust Woman

Released 1977
UK Chart Position : 1

Singles :

Go Your Own Way ( No 38 - 1976 )
Dreams ( No 24 - 1977 )
Don't Stop ( No 32 - 1977 )
You Making Loving Fun ( No 45 - 1977 )