Fleetwood Mac: "The Farmer's Daughter"

5 February 1981

"A cunning choice from their live album."

— Mike Stand

Indeed. What could be better than to promote a live album with a single recorded in a studio?

We like to think that the live experience is authentic and it's an easy delusion to maintain if we so desire. We don't have to examine the stage to see the setlist and name of the city taped to the stage. We can convince ourselves that the between-song banter ("let's play this song...you know, the easy one...even you can play it!"; oh, the hilarity) is impromptu. We can rationalize that the singer getting choked up in an emotional moment was a one-in-a-lifetime thing and there's no way he or she would repeat the trick the next night.In truth, however, these sorts of tricks are easier to spot than the secrets of a scripted wrestling match. And pop stars know it and that's why most live albums are embellished in the studio.

In 1979 Fleetwood Mac chose to follow the insanely successful Rumours with Tusk, a supposedly difficult double album that supposedly turned millions of fans off. It's difficult now to understand why things fell off so spectacularly for them: for all those catchy if somewhat jarring new wavy tracks from Lindsay Buckingham, there are still the contributions of Stevie Nicks and, in particular, Christine McVie which underscore the fact that they hadn't changed all that much at all. (Songs like "Sara", "Storms", "Brown Eyes" and "Never Forget" hold up against anything else they ever did, to say nothing of excellent Buckingham cuts like "I Know I'm Not Wrong" and "Tusk", probably their finest single) It didn't sell anywhere close to its predecessor but factors such as changing tastes and the two disc set being pricey likely contributed at least as much to their commercial decline.

Nevertheless, there was still enough of an audience out there for them to embark on a world tour that was even bigger than two years earlier when they toured Rumours. Playing well over a hundred shows in North America, Europe, Japan and Oceania in just under a year, Fleetwood Mac's setlists leaned heavily on material from both Rumours and Tusk, as well as their 1975 self-titled album which kicked off the group's Buckingham-Nicks golden era. Being so well stocked in quality songwriters, they weren't much inclined towards padding out their repertoire with cover versions. As such, "The Farmer's Daughter", a deep cut on The Beach Boys' 1963 album Surfin' USA, was never performed on the tour, not even in a backstage soundcheck for a selection of family and friends.

On the Live album released at the end of 1980, "The Farmer's Daughter" features a smattering of cheers at the end and the recording is drenched in echo: just what you might expect if they were playing a lighthearted little number for shits and giggles while warming up for a concert in Champaign, Illinois or Valley Center, Kansas (no matter how obscure, there isn't a US city bands won't play even if they'll bypass metros of several million in other countries); in fact, it was recorded during the Tusk sessions, minus the crowd noise and effects. If live albums could be enhanced in the studio, why not cut songs in the studio disguised as live?

Why did they choose to record it all? It's hard to say but Buckingham was a lifelong fan of Brian Wilson while McVie was in the midst of a relationship with Dennis. The Beach Boys spent the early part of the seventies flourishing creatively with albums such as Sunflower, Surf's Up and Holland but their stock had fallen by the time Fleetwood Mac were on the rise. Their increasingly poor run of albums of late didn't harm their status as a popular live act and the two groups were among the most popular concert attractions in pop. More to the point, the original dates back to their early period as a surf rock group and little if any care seems to have gone into their recording of "The Farmer's Daughter". Brian was already a formidable talent in pop but his compositions were rushed and his bandmates weren't capable enough musicians to do his work justice.

Fleetwood Mac's version indicates what might have been, had Brian been able to record it his way and/or had Carl Wilson been allowed to give it a much more of the delicate vocal treatment it deserved. McVie and Nicks purr their way through a gorgeous recording, with just some simple guitar chords to guide them along the way. It's a little more restrained than much of what's on Tusk, as if ver Mac weren't quite sure what they were doing with it, but that's probably advantageous. It wouldn't have fit on the album and it was likely never in consideration but it's surprising that they couldn't have placed it on a B-side. Instead, they threw it on their first live LP, a curio of what you may have missed had you not gone to see them. Turns out, you would've missed it even if you had been there.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Joe Dolce's Music Theatre: "Shaddap You Face"

And while we're on the subject of fake live recordings, Joe Dolce made a career out of this unfunny cringe-fest loaded with cod-Italian and lazy stereotypes — and with an "audience" joining in at the end! Mike Stand hates it, Tom Ewing hates it, this humble blogger hates it but who can argue with those millions of listeners who were charmed enough by that they helped make this vile record a global smash all over the world in the early part of 1981. Mercifully, it doesn't get played much anymore which no doubt prompts certain reactionary types to cry that it's yet another sign of how depressingly woke we've all become. I say that the song's offensive and terrible and deserves to be forgotten. Who's to say who's correct?

Ella Fitzgerald: "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" / The Flowers: "Ballad of Miss Demeanour"

29 May 1980 (with more on the next page which may be found here)

"Puts you in the mood for slushy romantic '50s films on a Sunday afternoon complete with Clark Gable/Betty Grable (according to gender) and a box of chocolates."

"Clever, quirky, and compelling."

— Deanne Pearson

There's some confusion with this fortnight's singles. Deanne Pearson has two picks earmarked for 'Record of the Week' but has them categorized differently. Ella Fitzgerald's rendition of the Cole Porter classic "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" is her 'Personal record of the week' while "Ball of Miss Demeanour" by new wave act The Flowers is her 'Record of the week'. I initially had the latter penciled in as the subject of this post because of the more definitive title but I reconsidered the matter when I thought about which one would have been her favourite. If anything, it's probably more likely that her personal choice is the one she prefers. It's impossible to say either way so I've made them co-SOTF.

Ella Fitzgerald's recording of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" was already twenty-three years old by the time Pearson had recommended it in Smash Hits. She was signed to the Verve label at the time and was riding a wave of success following several top notch albums. In 1956, she recorded Ella Fitzegerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook with a young arranger and conductor by the name of Buddy Bregman. While he would only work with the Great Lady of Song on one additional Songbook (that of the great duo of Rodgers and Hart), she would cut six additional LPs — many of them two record sets — of material of composers from the golden age of American songwriting. These collections are excellent but the quality of them is so high that it can be tricky for individual tracks to stick out. Is "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" any better than, say, "Love for Sale" or "Begin the Beguine"? Nope. All thirty-two songs from the Porter Songbook are great but too much of a good thing etc., etc.

On its own in single form, however, "Ev'ry Time..." is stunning. Fitzgerald sings it as only she could: her voice sounds like no one in the history of recorded music yet she wasn't the least bit flashy with it and takes command of a song without overwhelming it. No one has ever been able to make her voice wobble like she could: a technical deficiency that was one of her strengths. Cole Porter had been at his peak as a songwriter in the thirties and his material would have been familiar to Fitzgerald but it's for the best that she didn't tackle his stuff until twenty years later. Her voice was never better than when she was in her forties and the quality of the Norman Granz-produced recordings for Verve in Hollywood are immaculate. The LP era coincided with the rise of the modern American recording studio. (Oddly, older jazz artists such as Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington adapted to the medium of the long playing album better than younger acts like Miles Davis and Charlie Parker)

Pearson's 'Record of the week' (doesn't she know that ver Hits is a fortnightly mag?) couldn't be more different from her 'Personal' pick, the former not even being in the same league as the latter and how could it be? Porter's composition is a classic and was good enough that even Simply Red's version from 1987 isn't bad. The Flowers had something fresh (Pearson states that the "new wave of pop is headed by bands such as these and The Teardrop Explodes"; one wonders if the Scottish punk-funk-popsters had hit singles in them like their Merseyside contemporaries — they also toured with the likes of The Human League and OMD so they were certainly adjacent to success) but it now sounds far too much like a post-punk period piece, in some ways older than Ella taking on the Great American Songbook. No one would have heard a jazz vocalist in 1956 and thought "damn, this is the future!" but there almost certainly were people listening to "Ballad of Miss Demeanour" thinking those very thoughts. Pearson is one of them.

I've been doing this blog for long enough that the romance of the post-punk/new wave era has completely warn off. The Flowers (not to be confused with the Australian band of the saand would later become Icehouse) possess many of those traits that ought to have made them seem dated more than forty years later: HI-Ray (aka Hilary Morrison) has those manically robotic vocals that bring to mind Lene Lovich, The Slits and Gary Numan, the bass is ultra sparse, the guitars spidery and they all come together wrapped in a cheap, echoey production. Yet, it's a better composition than many of the tackier tunes I've sifted through over the last three years. It doesn't necessarily suggest a promising future (in spite of what I wrote above) only that this Edinburgh foursome must put on an awfully good gig so go out and see 'em dammit!

Two vastly different records from May of 1980. One was already nearing its quarter century, the other freshly pressed in some dingy Edinburgh shop. One was a standard, the other would stand alone. Today, one of them is a relic from a distant past while the other has since been brought back to life by Lady Gaga. One is timeless, the other very much of its time. The rock era carbon dates many of the genres and artists who have come up through it; the Great American Songbook just keeps carrying on.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Fleetwood Mac: "Think About Me"

Considered by Pearson to be the nadir of ver Mac, even if she acknowledges that the musicianship and vocals are both "quality". She's put off by the song being a filler and I guess that's fair enough though I'd argue that it's just one of many examples of Christine McVie being their strongest songwriter. It is sturdier than your average Lindsey Buckingham composition (though like "Don't Stop" it demonstrates that she was very good at crafting tunes that could easily have been written by his nibs) and has more musical meat on its bones than those flowery Stevie Nicks numbers. That said, "Think About Me" is one of twenty absolutely superb tracks that make up their true masterpiece Tusk and I can understand it slipping through the cracks or getting ignored. Granted, the remixed single version smooths things out a little too much but this isn't pop-rock you should be thumbing your nose at.

Iggy Pop: "Isolation"

17 June 1987

"Why is this so wonderful when everything on Bowie's own LP is so useless?"

— Tom Hibbert

David Bowie, Sparks and, now, Iggy Pop: we've been encountering our fair share of critical favourites as of late. Well, at least to some extent. Bowie always had a on/off relationship with the press and his occasional fallow periods would be duly knocked by the music mags, even if each new post-Tin Machine release would inevitably be hailed as his "return to form". Sparks, as I have already gone into, have only recently been darlings of the hacks, their penchant for changing up their sound being viewed with suspicion by some who didn't understand what they were up to. Still, there's no denying that both Bowie and the Maels have have "enjoyed" favourable reviews of late, with the former's death only solidifying the immortality of his music in the eyes of critics.

Iggy Pop seems to have always been a favourite of journos, even at times when very few other people were listening at all. Lester Bangs was one of the first to take notice, finding The Stooges to be a very welcome continuation of early Velvet Underground (incidentally, another act with a notable Bowie connection — ironically, the legendary writer never had much time for the Dame himself) and the heyday of garage rock. Others would follow suit, especially once his reputation as a godfather of punk has been solidified. Pop isn't the most obviously talented figure so his appeal among journalists may not be overly clear but his commitment to his live shows (even subsequent to his days of self-mutilation), single-mindedness and the fact that he's made the most of his abilities deserves respect and these were elements they were quick to recognise. Growing up, you'd seldom hear his music on the radio or see his videos on TV and he was never in the charts but his name would regularly pop up in print and he'd frequently be listed in end-of-the-year polls. Nobody bought his stuff but everyone with an opinion seemed to like him. (As Brian Eno once said, only 10,000 people bought the first Stooges album but all of them would go on to set up their own underground music magazine) 

The peak periods of Pop's career often coincided with his interactions with David Bowie. When the pop chameleon convinced The Stooges to reform so he could record them properly for their third and final album Raw Power, it came at a time when the producer had just been coming off the breakthrough success of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. They don't have much in common but they are both brilliant LPs. Though Bowie had been playing around with a harder rock sound, it's nothing compared with the harsh, piercing sludge rock of Iggy & The Stooges. Despite his creative impulses, it's possible that he saw Pop's work as just what he would have wanted to do had he been so limited.

Pop was dormant through much of the mid-seventies but then he and Bowie reconnected and the two shared a flat in West Berlin. To say this period was prolific would be an understatement. Each would record a pair of albums in 1976 and '77 and they would all be first rate. Pop's The Idiot, with its Kraut rock beats and warped funk sound, was unlike any other record in his career and was, as Bowie would later admit, a dry run for the remarkable Low and Heroes albums that he would soon record. Lust for Life would arrive later in the year and it would be much closer to a straightforward Iggy album with less of an obvious debt to Bowie. To this day they are an amazing quartet of albums.

Though this had been a fruitful period, the pair would soon go their separate ways and wouldn't reconvene for nearly a decade. By this time, Bowie had become the rock and roll superstar he had always threatened to be while Pop just continued being himself. As I have previously discussed, Dame David took some time off from recording in the mid-eighties and one of his side projects was producing the latest album by his buddy from Michigan with the wrinkles and the plasticine physique. They'd struck gold before so why not this time too?

Bowie expressed some regret that he used his friend as a "guinea pig" on the sessions for The Idiot but he wouldn't need to feel quite so guilty this time round. Where the Dame had been young, ambitious and hungry in '72 and drug-addled, penniless and even hungrier five years later, he was now clean, rich and well-nourished and always up for hitting the slopes in the Alps; for his part, Pop had been rescued twice previously by his friend but now he was relatively sober and taking up golf and wasn't in need of getting his career going again. Yet, it still helped, as his cover of the Johnny O'Keefe 1958 hit "Wild One" (rechristened here as "Real Wild Child") gave him a UK hit single and got him into several film soundtracks of the age — although not as many as I would have guessed. This unexpected smash didn't lead to anything else but not for lack of trying: "Isolation" would be a third unsuccessful attempt at more hit parade action. But it's likely that Bowie's comfortable lifestyle had dulled his quality control: he wasn't going to use Iggy as a guinea pig this time but he wasn't about to drop some mind-blowing new musical discovery in his lap either.

Clearly Tom Hibbert appreciates "Isolation" but I have to wonder if this is due at least as much to his admiration for the artist as the record itself. As ever, Pop puts his all into it, his underrated voice hitting notes usually reserved for his buddy, the former Thin White Duke. The song shares more than a little in common with "Teenage Wildlife" from Bowie's Scary Monsters LP but it must be said that Pop has believability on his side. His friend and collaborator was the consummate performer yet one could sometimes see the performance all too clearly ('Acting Without Acting' as they call it in Curb Your Enthusiasm); Pop's shtick was to live himself out in his act. It's still a performance but still...

Iggy Pop and David Bowie's third go round wasn't nearly as successful as their first two stints together and their work from 1986-87 is now mostly forgotten. The back-and-forth inspiration of old had been diminished to the bare means of Pop grasping his chum's big eighties' sound and Bowie moving back into the heavier world of the former Stooge. And while his partner struggled to get back on track, Pop improved upon the disappointing Blah-Blah-Blah album that they did together and has released a series of respectable records ever since. Bowie may have been the one with the legacy but he could have still stood to learn a thing or two from Iggy Pop.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Fleetwood Mac: "Seven Wonders"

Iggy Pop and David Bowie hit peaks in 1977 but neither came close to the mammoth success of ver Mac, a British blues group that evolved into a California soft rock colossus. Everyone bought Rumours but they swiftly alienated their fans with subsequent album Tusk, a disjointed but brilliant work. Nevertheless, they would remain a big act through the eighties though they were never able to properly follow up their giant billion seller until 1987's Tango in the Night. It was big but it really goes to show how giving the public what they want comes with a price. Sounding like a mainstream country song of the time (if a pretty substandard one), "Seven Wonders" failed to impress anyone as the Fleets feebly attempted to recapture a soft rock sound that they had already mastered and moved on from. The mighty had fallen but at least it was into yet more billions.