When Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac as the new lead guitarist, along with the singer Stevie Nicks, the duo managed to improve that band’s sound. Besides performing, they also took up songwriting duties and created multiple rock classics. Their inclusion in the band brought instant commercial success that Fleetwood Mac failed to achieve with their previous works. The band’s self-titled album, which arrived in 1975, topped the album charts over a year after its release.
The follow-up record, ‘Rumours,’ was even further commercial success with its pop rock-oriented sound. It became one of the best-selling albums of all time with its incredible sales figures. Following ‘Rumours,’ Fleetwood Mac decided to go more experimental in their subsequent record, ‘Tusk,’ released as a double album in 1979. Even though the album was a commercial failure compared to the massive success of the previous record, it still had a special place for Lindsey Buckingham.
What Fleetwood Mac Song From ‘Tusk’ Does Lindsey Buckingham Like The Most?
Although Lindsey Buckingham was still considered a newcomer in 1978, he took an active role in Fleetwood Mac’s decision-making process and led its creative direction. He had established himself as a prominent figure within the band in a short time with the tremendously successful works that made them one of the top rock acts of the period.
Thus, during the making of ‘Tusk,’ there were no objections from other band members when Buckingham expressed his wish to be more experimental in that album. The era’s post-punk movement had influenced the singer, so he explored a more radical style with complex songwriting arrangements. However, the album sold only four million copies, a failure compared to the previous album’s ten million copies sales figures.
Despite its commercial failure, it is still one of Lindsey Buckingham’s favorite albums from the band. In an appearance on Entertainment Weekly last year, the guitarist listed the album’s title track as the song he liked the most from the album. Buckingham had played the melodic riff of ‘Tusk’ in a rehearsal, but then Mick Fleetwood encouraged him to make a song out of it.
According to the musician, the title track, ‘Tusk,’ was a perfect reflection of what he tried to achieve in this album. It mirrored his wish to go after a more experimental sound for Fleetwood Mac. Buckingham also explained that his desire had never been conforming to external expectations. So, he was always in favor of pushing their limits in each album. Hence, the album ‘Tusk’ is pretty significant to him because it introduced him to that new path to pursue a different creative direction.
Lindsey Buckingham’s words on ‘Tusk’:
“I was very interested in confounding external expectations, not bowing to those expectations and starting to paint ourselves into a corner creatively by continuing to try to make ‘Rumours’ 2 or 3. For that reason, not just the song ‘Tusk,’ but the album ‘Tusk’ is probably my favorite album. Not necessarily for the music, but for why we did it — and it set me off on this alternative path that was a tightrope to walk between the big machine of Fleetwood Mac and the small machine of solo work that followed.”
You can listen to the song below.
