Today marks the release of Just Tell Me That You Want Me, the all star tribute album to the career of Fleetwood Mac. The album has 17 tracks with a diverse list of artists including Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame, MGMT, supermodel-and the ex Mrs. Jack White -Karen Elson, Marianne Faithfull and Daniel Lanois muse Trixie Whitley.
I listened to the album this afternoon at work while doing reconciliations (fun!!!) and found it be somewhat disappointing. I will not attempt to review the album- I will leave that to the professionals at Pitchfork and Spin-but I do have a few observations.
It is funny, because when I was a kid I hated Fleetwood Mac. Only after The Smashing Pumpkins released a cover version of Landslide I started seeing them in a different light and came to appreciate the band's talents. This is well before I discovered that Fleetwood Mac had a first incarnation as a blues rock band led by the reclusive Peter Green.
Just Tell Me That You Want covers most of the bands years including a few Peter Green era songs- the highlight being Billy Gibbons boogie rock version of the 1969 single Oh Well. Other highlights of the album are Washed Out's chillwave rendition of the Mirage track Straight Back and The New Pornographer's rendition of Think About Me from Tusk.
There are three noteworthy flops on the album. MGMT weirds out with vocoder to Future Games and The Kills fall flat with an industrial blues version of the classic Rumours classic track Dreams. The worst song is Best Coast doing their version of Rhiannon. The recording of this track seems rushed and Bethany Cosentino's singing is horrific.
And finally, the best song on the album is Swedish chanteuse Lykke Li's version of the non album B-Side track Silver Springs. Originally Silver Springs was supposed to be included on Rumours but was relegated to a B side after some in-band fighting between Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. Lykke Li brings the track back to life with her haunting voice drowned with reverb, making the song her own but not straying from the emotional depth of the original. Listen below via Soundcloud.
Buy the album Just Tell Me That You Want Me on iTunes
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