By Ryan Reed
Rolling Stone Online
October 11, 2019

How an in-studio bathroom replica, juvenile dick jokes, and a Peter Green guitar cameo informed the band’s sprawling, experimental follow-up to Rumours

Fleetwood Mac’s 12th album is both demented and debonair, familiar and foreign — a sprawling double LP that, like the Beatles’ White Album before it, reveled in its own messiness, jumbling together the work of three distinct songwriters. Singer Stevie Nicks and keyboardist Christine McVie carried the commercial weight on Tusk, penning playful pop grooves (the latter’s “Think About Me”) and stormy rockers (the former’s “Sisters of the Moon”) that massaged the same sweet spot as their previous record, the mega-platinum 1977 masterwork Rumours.

But Lindsey Buckingham was unwilling to repeat himself. Savoring the edgier modern sounds of New Wave and punk, the singer-guitarist prepared to march into the unknown — whether or not his bandmates were interested in the journey. That friction ultimately defines Tusk, the band’s fractured masterpiece. 

“The explosion of the punk movement had changed the musical landscape, and the popular conception was that bands like ours, Led Zeppelin, the Stones, Elton John and everyone else from our era, were a bunch of dinosaurs who’d lost touch with the real world,” drummer Mick Fleetwood wrote in his 2014 autobiography, Then Play On. “That wasn’t true, of course — we were in touch and aware of all those changes in culture, Lindsey most of all. He was intrigued by punk bands like the Clash and lots of New Wave artists such as Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson, and he wanted to follow that muse creatively. The issue for him was whether or not he was going to be able to do that with the rest of us.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’: 10 Things You Didn’t Know | Rolling Stone →