"WELCOME TO THE ROOM... SARA" FLEETWOOD MAC (1987)

For October, the Mental Jukebox is dialing it way back to the eighties and going deep. Deep cuts have always been an important element of music listening to me because they’re often the songs that resonate with me most. Deep cuts are usually the ones that the true fans appreciate most. I like my singles and hits, but I love my deep cuts.

Rumours will always be Fleetwood Mac’s piece de resistance. The holy grail. It’s legendary and stands among rock’s greatest albums. I think it’s this stature that has caused other Fleetwood Mac albums to be unfairly diminished. Fans love Tango In The Night and it’s universally recognized as a great album. Yet somehow I think it’s vastly underrated and hasn’t been given the recognition it’s due. We know the hits, but the album tracks are superb, including Track 9: “Welcome To the Room… Sara”.

In the U.S., the big hits were “Little Lies” and “Big Love”. Both of them are great, but I do like the minor hits (“Seven Wonders” and “Everywhere”) and deep cuts the best. “Welcome To The Room… Sara” is one of my favorites because, let’s face it, Fleetwood Mac is Stevie Nicks. The group lives and dies with her. So any song that puts her alto vocals at the forefront is going to be great. Of course, the stellar harmonies and instrumentation didn’t hurt either.

“This is a dream, right? Déjà vu.”

"LANDSLIDE" FLEETWOOD MAC (1975)

The decade in which I was born has given me a strange perspective on its music. I discovered pretty much all of the 70’s sounds – from prog rock to punk to disco – well after they came into the world. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that I discovered what I was missing. I would characterize the decade as one where budding genres leaped off their inspiration pads and came to fruition. For the month of February, Mental Jukebox will feature some of these gems with a different 70’s song each day. #28DaysOf70sSongs

Fleetwood Mac fans might be some of the most loyal music fans out there. To them, Rumours is like Citizen Kane. And Stevie Nicks is a goddess. I’ve never really stopped and wondered why these fans adore this band so much. But it is a peculiar thing. It rivals the level of devotion in Deadheads. Fans that will travel on planes and quit their jobs to see their band open with “The Chain”, close with “Go Your Own Way”, and play a Stevie Nicks ballad right smack in the middle of the setlist. A beautiful, timeless song called “Landslide”.

It occurred to me that “Landslide” might be a microcosm of everything that fans love about Fleetwood Mac. Stevie Nicks’ signature raspy delivery is the centerpiece of the song. Wise beyond her years, written and sung with perspective we don’t often see in a rock star. And then there’s Lindsey Buckingham’s iconic acoustic guitar, steady, un-flashy, but absolutely critical to the sound of the song. The instrumentation is minimal because “Landslide” doesn’t need to be covered in layers. It’s the heart of the song that matters. And maybe that’s what Fleetwood Mac fans are truly after.

“Time makes you bolder. Even children get older. And I'm getting older too.”

"CAROLINE" FLEETWOOD MAC (1987)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

Not even close to the iconic stature of Rumors, Tango in the Night still had its fair share of great music. At least 3 to 4 of the songs still appear on their live setlists. But my favorite track off the album isn’t “Little Lies”, “Big Love”, “Everywhere” or even “Seven Wonders”. It’s the less heralded “Caroline”.

It was written by Buckingham, and the gutsy vocals definitely put his performance in the spotlight. But what makes “Caroline” stand out to me from a solid track list is Mick Fleetwood’s percussion barrage. Less high hat. Less snare. Heavy on the floor tom and tom rack. Just deep, weighty drums that drive the rhythm and assert their presence throughout the song. It’s the one track on Tango in the Night that I can play over and over again.

“Caroline, time recedes with a fatal drop.”

"TUSK" FLEETWOOD MAC (1979)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

USC’s marching band made a cameo on “Tusk” to ensure this already percussion-driven track had all the power it needed to be exceptional at one thing only — which was to shove the rhythm into the foreground. On “Tusk”, a coherent melody is almost indecipherable. It was unlike any other Fleetwood Mac song, but it has become one of their most well-known songs and has frequently appeared on live setlists.

When I listen to “Tusk”, I think they’re talking about male-female dynamics. But the atmosphere screams jungles, warpaint, tribal dances around a fire and dead animals on a spit. Every percussion element plays an integral role in the ritual — from McVie’s bass line to the floor toms. But the most unusual aspect of the song is Mick Fleetwood’s use of non-musical objects. At one point, he’s literally slapping a leg of lamb with a spatula. “Tusk” is rough, raw and uninhibited, making a great song like Peter Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers” seem tame in comparison.

“Hooga haaga hooga. Don't say that you love me. Just tell me that you want me. Tusk.”

"GO YOUR OWN WAY" FLEETWOOD MAC (1977)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

One of the hardest tasks for a music blog is to pick just one song from Rumours. It’s generally regarded as one of the best albums ever produced, showing up on several Top Ten of all time lists. I’ll pick “Go Your Own Way” because, in many ways, it’s quite the opposite of my first #RockBlock entry for Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide”.

“Go Your Own Way” is ironically one of the band’s feel-good, upbeat anthems, even though it was an autobiographical account of the ending of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’ romantic relationship. Like many Fleetwood Mac songs, it has several things going for it that lurked beneath the surface. It wasn’t just a breakup song, it was a track that demonstrated the resilience of the band with everything that was going on personally. The end product was one of the best three-part harmonies from Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie — and one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac bass lines from John McVie.

“Loving you isn't the right thing to do.”

"LANDSLIDE" FLEETWOOD MAC (1975)

Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.

The Fleetwood Mac fanbase is one of the most loyal and devoted followings you’ll ever come across. The affinity for this band’s immense canon of music cannot be denied. But for some reason, this band has often been overshadowed by others when it comes to my own musical preferences. Still, it hasn’t stopped me from noticing and appreciating what Fleetwood Mac has done for rock & roll music. As much as any other band, they have demonstrated a knack for nailing both instrumental complexity and simplicity. “Landslide” is a banner example of the latter.

Written by Stevie Nicks, “Landslide” unleashed the simple power of Nicks’ trademark rasp and gorgeous classical guitar-inspired instrumentation. It evokes themes that are pretty much the opposite of a physical landslide. Serenity. Peace. Control. But the most obvious quality of “Landslide” is perhaps the easiest one to overlook. In a band of several talented songwriters, vocalists and instrumentalists, egos were put aside to let Stevie Nicks be the spotlight. It’s a creative democracy that Fleetwood Mac has forged for more than 50 years.

“Well, I've been afraid of changin''cause I've built my life around you. But time makes you bolder. Even children get older. And I'm getting older too.”

"THE CHAIN" FLEETWOOD MAC (1977)

Fleetwood Mac fans are some of the most passionate music fans I know. And Rumours is their Holy Grail. Really you should listen to this album the way it was intended to be listened to: from beginning to end. But I like to skip halfway into it to Track 7 first and then dart around from there. “The Chain” gave Fleetwood Mac an edge. Verse-to-verse harmonies. Slow, driving beats. The guitar solo in the reprise. And the dramatic pause. These are signature moments in classic rock history.

“And if, you don't love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying, you would never break the chain.”