Fractionals

In addition to cleaning my room, I'm listening to Tusk again. I'm the kind of minor Buckingham-and-Nicks era Fleetwood Mac fan that nearly everybody is; occasionally I'll sing "Dreams" in the shower or enjoy hearing "Go Your Own Way" on the radio, and when coworkers played Rumours a few months back I was surprised but not displeased that I recognized every single song, but I've never felt the urge to investigate further. But when the incredible Tal Rosenberg explained to me why Tusk is in his opinion the best album of all time (or his favourite, or something similar - apologies to Tal, a truly lovely guy, if I'm getting him wrong here), he did so in such a convincing manner that I knew I had to hear the behemoth-esque follow-up to Rumours, a record I hadn't previously heard a single note of (although how my hometown, soft-rock loving radio station had missed out on the Go-Betweens-quality track "Think About Me," I have no idea). And Tal wasn't the only one urging Tusk on me; the equally esteemed Alfred Soto has been on to me to write something about my reaction to the album.

I'd been putting it off, not because I enjoy taunting Alfred, but because I had the worst possible response at first: a completely inarticulate one. Not because I was amazed or disgusted, mind you; on first listen Tusk was lovely, strangely familial (given the situation, I never would have guessed on so many group vocals, or the way all three major voices occur on almost every song to some degree), overly long, kind of patchwork and full of potential. I liked "That's All For Everyone" (the obvious precursor to the New Pornographers' great "Falling Through Your Clothes," a similar kind of slow-motion kaleidoscope), "Think About Me," "Storms" (if nothing else, Tusk marks where I finally have to admit a grudging respect for the these-days-self-caricatured Stevie Nicks), and especially "Walk a Thin Line," still probably my favourite track on the album. I didn't think much of the album's attempts to 'rock' ("Not That Funny," "I Know I'm Not Wrong," "What Makes You Think You're the One"), all perpetuated by Buckingham. "Tusk" itself was kind of neat. I didn't hear the psychosis, the selfishness, I'd been lead to expect.

I still don't hear it, at least not the way I thought I would, but I've been thinking about the way Tal described the selfishness that is very much here (he'd be doing the internet a favour if he wrote about that on his blog, hint hint...) and it's made Tusk and especially the perverse, pervasive harmony/domesticity of the arrangements that much more powerful. The whole damn thing has started to gel in my mind and ears at last, so that "What Makes You Think You're the One" coming right after "Sara" makes sense - and have you heard the drums on "Sara"? They're the ones that started getting me to notice the drums on the rest, including "Walk a Thin Line" - they just might be some of my favourite drums in popular music, at least in terms of how they sound (the line from "Atrocity Exhibition" to "Tusk" in terms of percussion sound = much, much shorter than you might think).

That's the kind of thing that makes me worry that I might wind up obsessing over the sprawling Tusk the way friends like Tal do; because it is big enough, and brash enough, and varied enough (three songwriters helps) that you could convince yourself all of (popular) music is contained therein. Well, maybe worry is too strong; would that really be such a bad thing? After all, Mike Powell managed to transmit his queasy obsession with Death of a Ladies' Man and Gaucho to me and I survived just fine (and actually, Tusk makes for a surprisingly fitting triptych with those two...). For now I'll settle for finally beginning to appreciate relative oddities like the homespun, plaintively stomping "Save Me a Place" and marveling at how "Never Make Me Cry" officially confirms that Christine McVie has my favourite voice of the three (literally, not figuratively). And also trying to avoid the kind of analysis part of my wants to get into (did you know, of the twenty tracks only seven songs are longer than four minutes, and all five of Nicks' contributions are in that group?). And putting in a reserve for myself, so I get next crack at a copy of Tusk at work.