1.8.13

On January 8^th I listened to Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac, Fugazi Steady Diet Of Nothing and Frank Ocean Channel Orange. It was F day! F me, right? (Zing!)

I was way too young to appreciate Fleetwood Mac when their shit was blowing up. It just didn’t really speak to me, although the ubiquitous presence of their classic music is forever etched into my brain.

It wasn’t until the last few years that I got nostalgic for Fleetwood Mac. Some of the harder rock stuff from the 70’s will take me back, in my mind, to the 80's when I was fully digging it, but Fleetwood Mac will take me right into the 70's and childhood. I remember hearing these songs in the car when I was five and six years old. (And I wasn’t in a car seat.)

This is the second self-titled Fleetwood Mac album and it’s the band’s tenth overall release. I had no idea they had such a storied history, but this is the first record with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, so we’re starting here. Speaking of Buckingham/Nicks, what a fucked up duo those two were, huh?

According to my calculations, six of the eleven tracks on this disc are fucking smash hits that anybody in their late 30's and up should be familiar with, unless they’re some kind of dickhead.

Listening to this album with somewhat fresh ears and paying more attention to the lyrics, I noticed one thing for sure. Christine McVie liked to get fucked, get fucked well, wrap her lover up for the night and then write a song about it. I’m assuming if in the 70’s you got McVie in bed and took the ten minutes to make her cum and then slept over, there’s a great chance she wrote a song about it. AND SHE DID IT BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE!

I can just see her in a kimona singing “Warm Ways” over the bed as her man slept.  That song is either about a hot load in her and she loves it, or I’m a total idiot. “Say You Love Me,” is another McVie classic. “Cause when the lovin’ starts and the lights go down, there’s not another living soul around. Woo me until the sun comes up and you say that you love me.” Brilliant? Cheesy? A line about the physical expression of love so concise and accurate it gives me goose bumps? I dunno, maybe.

Quick sidebar – Whenever I hear Lindsay Buckingham’s voice, I instantly think of National Lampoon’s Vacation. “Holiday road” baby! He sings more then he writes on this one, but he did write “Monday Morning," which is a pleasant little number.

Saving the best for last, Miss Stevie “Fuckin’” Nicks! She wrote and sings “Rhiannon” and a little gem she calls “Landslide” on this album. “Rhiannon” is an epic, you know like "Stairway To Heaven" would be considered an epic, “she’s like a cat in the dark, then she is the darkness.” And all I will say about “Landslide” is that if I listen to it in the right state of mind, it will make me cry.

I can not recommend this album enough! Go grab the vinyl from your parent’s album collection, even if you have nothing to play it on, at least just to have it.

P.S. The Fleetwood Mac tribute album Just Tell Me That You Want Me, that came out last year, was a sack of shit! The Mac deserves better! Go fuck yourself Best Coast! There are a million female singers I would have rather heard sing Nicks and McVie classics!

Fugazi’s debut album Repeater was released four months after I started working at my college radio station. I didn’t get it. I don’t get them. I have repeatedly (Pun intended.) tried to get into this band. This will be my last attempt.

I was told by a Fugazi fan that I should start with Steady Diet Of Nothing. Speaking of Fugazi fans, I made the following pie chart, and its pretty generous. (I feel like this blog needs more pie charts.)

“Reclamation” lays down a nice groove, but I can’t get over dude’s vocals. “Nice New Outfit” doesn’t sound too far away from shit I was loving in the early 90’s, it’s just dude’s vocals. Although listening this time to Steady Diet Of Nothing, I am starting to see bright spots I may have skimmed over in the past. A track like “Long Division” isn't helping to win me over, but I did enjoy the disc’s last number, “KYEO.”

At some point last year, I got pretty sick of hearing about Frank Ocean. I don’t give a shit if he’s gay, straight, or bi, just put out a good record. This record is not worth all the hype it got. Kid’s got some fucking talent, he can sing, production is solid. It’s produced so it sounds like it was done in a bedroom, with a tape recorder, but you know it was done with pro-tools and 8,000 dub tracks. I like the vignettes between the songs. I don’t like all the songs. 

“Thinkin’ Bout You” is a solid track, I’d throw this one on while I was banging your old lady. “Sierra Leone” is the perfect example of having too much money to make a record and not enough talent to write a good song. I am so far away from the socioeconomic demographic to even understand what “Sweet Life” is trying to say. What the fuck is up with him and HD TV? “Super Rich Kids” is kinda cool until he busts into the chorus from “Real Love,” while pilfering from “Benny And The Jets.” "Crack Rock” is a little obvious, no? Pfffft!

The lyrics on this album are so bad, it’s like Brick Tamland wrote them. I was waiting to hear “I like lamp,” soulfully sung in one of the songs.

And then “Pyramids” comes out of nowhere. Its nine minutes of fucking awesome. If you’re going to lay down a nine minute jam you better own every freakin’ second of it. Ocean doesn’t quite pull it off, but I still like it. Coulda got away with seven minutes, dude. (I'm using the word dude a lot in this post.)

It’s at this point in the album, I think, “maybe I was a little rough on the first half of this record. But, my Brick Tamland line was so good!”

“Lost,” and “Monks” are fun. “Pink Matter” has its charms, specifically the Andre 3000 rap. I will reserve my final judgment on “Forrest Gump,” because I can’t say if it’s the coolest thing I’ve heard in a while, or the most asinine.

I think when Frank either drops the gimmicks or learns how to use them properly and starts composing some proper songs, there's going to be some great music coming from him in the next few years.