FLEETWOOD MAC
TANGO IN THE NIGHT
PRESS KIT
Fleetwood Mac lives. A dozen years after the groundbreaking Fleetwood Mac,
ten years after the monumental Rumours, eight years after the experimental Tusk and five years after Mirage their last studio recording,
Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie and Stevie Nicks are
back, And they have brought with them some of the freshest, most compelling music of their careers: Tango In The
Night, Fleetwood Mac's newest Warner Bros. album.
In a career that's now twenty years long (the original
quartet, led by guitarist Peter Green, debuted in August, 1967), Fleetwood Mac has never been
a complacent band. Now, with Tango In The Night, they have again broken the mold. This is an album which
combines the progressiveness of Tusk with the emotion and cohesiveness of Rumours but which sounds nothing like the
computer-programmed pop music of the mid-80s, it is the work of artists using
their years of experience as an advantage, not an excuse to stand still.
Tango In The Night is the album that will re-affirm Fleetwood Mac as a potent artistic and commercial force.
The group has been involved in a variety of individual activities throughout the '80s. All but John McVie have had solo albums. Christine McVie has had
one; Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood have had two each, and Stevie Nicks
has had three. Still, as Lindsey puts it, "There wasn't much uncertainty that there would be another Fleetwood Mac record, it was just a question of when."
"After Mirage, no one actually talked about another Fleetwood Mac album for
years," adds Christine McVie, but in the back of our minds we were at least thinking about it. When we began work on this album (in late '85), we'd been
out of each other's hair long enough to get together and enjoy it, which is what we did." McVie's
work on the soundtrack for Blake Edwards film, A Fine Mess, may have set the stage for
Tango in The Night. Asked to record a version of the Elvis Presley ballad, "Can't Help Falling In Love," she
recruited Buckingham, Fleetwood and John McVie for the session. "It was a very healthy exercise," Mick Fleetwood recalls. "It got us in the studio, it
felt good, and it turned out really well. it helped oil up the works, so to
speak."
And what was it like reuniting after an extended break? "Surprisingly easy," Christine says. "It's like riding a bicycle; once you get back on the thing,
you realize that it's not that difficult."
One thing that had changed, however, was the band's working environment.
After being what Buckingham called "studio nomads" for Mirage and previous albums, they recorded
at basic tracks at Rumbo, an L.A. facility, and then repaired to the newly-completed studio in Lindsey's Bel Air home for
overdubs and mixing. What's more, in Buckingham and Richard Dashut, Fleetwood
Mac's longtime co-producer/engineer, they had a production team with whom everyone was completely comfortable.
"I think we achieved a lot that goes beyond the actual music that's on the album," Lindsey says. "We arrived at an ideal working situation" Our hours
were very sane -- we worked from two in the afternoon until ten at night. I built a studio, a
"home base" we could rely on. It was an extremely positive atmosphere in which our creative instincts could be nurtured and reinforced.
Fleetwood Mac hasn't always had that before."
What they hare had is the singing and writing of Buckingham, Nicks and
Christine McVie Each has a distinct style: Stevie's is spare, confessional ("Welcome To The Room....Sara"); Lindsey's is rhythmically adventurous and
slightly left-of-center ("Caroline," "Big Love"); and Christine's, by her own description, is more "down to center"
("Everywhere" "Little Lies") Yet Tango In The Night isn't a showcase for three solo artists -- it's the work of
a band.
"When you're contributing one third of an albums" Christine explains, "you have to think in terms of what will go well next to Stevie's singing or
Lindsey's singing, or the character of their songs You want a square meal if you will. For example, I wrote 'Isn't It Midnight'
because we needed something up tempo and driving, a guitar extravaganza. The idea is to give a
complete picture of the five of us."
"Christine has her emotional stance -- how she wants to play the scene, so to speak -- pretty much set, and it stays within that
framework," Buckingham adds. "Working with her songs is a matter of structure, of architecture.
With Stevie, the things that will work best don't necessarily follow any structural rules. You also have to be
careful not to upset the emotional tone she might be going for, because Stevie's acutely aware of the particular way
she wants to express a song."
Tango In The Night offers a balance not only of musical styles, but of technology and feel. "I think there has been some worry about the machines
taking over," says Fleetwood. "People are getting tired of music that's
bloody perfect. There's no air in it at all, and there's no emotion. In my
mind anything that doesn't emote will not last If it's a painting, a piece of writing, music anything -- if it does not affect someone emotionally, its
life span is drastically reduced."
Fleetwood Mac preserved emotional content by putting the technology in the service of the music, instead of the other way around. "We certainly didn't
embrace the more clichéd aspects of current recording technique -- gating, sequencing, all of that," notes Buckingham. "The production applications that
we did use are not the same four or five moves you hear every time you turn on the radio. We developed our own moves" The result? An album of "fresh ideas," as Christine puts it. "Maybe people are ready for something a bit
more musical, with a bit more substance than a lot of what's out there now. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised by this records"
They may also be surprised that there is still a Fleetwood Mac at all; in the rock 'n' roll business, five years between albums is an
eon. Still, as Fleetwood puts it, "I've never thought of Fleetwood Mac stopping. As long as
things aren't forced, I don't see any reason why the band shouldn't be there for its various members to use and be part of. After all, it's still a very
creative situation, "Tango In The Night" leaves no doubt of that.
Says Stevie Nicks: "There's no reason in the world for this band not do
another record. Because I don't think that the group has even touched the
surface of what we could really do yet. The possibilities for change and growing in this band are incredible. We all believe in this dream of
Fleetwood Mac. It's a very tight, intricate group."
Adds John McVie: "It's honest. It's unpretentious. We don't try to be what
we're not. And first and foremost, we're friends. Obviously there are times -- well, you live with anyone for ten or twelve years and there are
disagreements -- but the bottom line is our friendship and respect for each other."
04/87
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Fact Sheet
Tango In The Night
Is Fleetwood Mac's sixth album (the fifth studio album) since Lindsey Buckingham and
Stevie Nicks, replacing the departed
guitarist/singer Bob Welch, joined the group in 1975
Some facts about the first five LPs (all chart numbers are from Billboard magazine):
Fleetwood Mac
Released in July, 1975. Produced by Fleetwood Mac and engineer Keith Olsen, the album was
recorded within weeks of Buckingham and Nicks' joining. It went on to become Fleetwood Mac's first
#l 1 album in the U.S, with sales to date topping the 5.6 million mark. All
three singles
"Over My Head," "Rhiannon" and "Say You Love Me" -- reached the Top 20.
Rumours
Released in February, 1977. Produced by Fleetwood Mac with Richard Dashut, Ken Caillat and
Cris Morris. Rumours has sold nearly '20 million copies worldwide, putting
it in a class with Michael Jackson's Thriller, Carole King's Tapestry and the
Saturday Night Fever soundtrack among the rock era's biggest sellers. It
remained at #1 for 31 weeks, a record for longevity topped only by Thriller
in the last 20 years, and won a Grammy Award for Album Of The Year. Each of the four singles from Rumours made the Top 10 land has sold over
300,000 copies. "Dreams" became Fleetwood Mac's first #1 single, while "Don't
Stop" reached #3, "You Make Loving Fun" #9 and "Go Your Own Way'" #10.
Tusk
A double album, released in October, 1979. Produced by Fleetwood Mac, Dashut and Caillat.
Tusk has sold over four million copies, and peaked at #4 on the charts. The "Tusk" and
"Sara" singles both made the Top
10.
Live
Another double album, released in December, 1980. The album reached the Top 20 and has
sold nearly 1.5 million copies. Along with several well-known hits from the Buckingham-Nicks
era -- "Dreams," "Rhiannon" "Go Your Own Way" -- Live contains a version of "Oh Well,"
a song written by original Fleetwood Mac member Peter Green. Also included are three
studio tracks: Stevie Nicks' "Fireflies," Christine McVie's "One More Night" and the
Beach Boys' 'Farmer's Daughter.
Mirage
Released in June, 1982. Produced by Lindsey Buckingham Richard Dashut, Ken Caillat and Fleetwood
Mac. Mirage became the third #1 album in the Buckingham-Nicks era, remaining
at the top for five straight weeks, and
has sold almost 3.5 million copies. The first single,
"Hold Me" peaked at
#4; "Gypsy" made #12 Those two songs became Fleetwood Mac's
first song
videos.
