Tusk (Deluxe Edition)

Two disc set in a slimline double jewelbox. Disc 2 is all bonus tracks. 41 tracks total. STILL SEALED with scratch mark on bar code of slip cover.

A liner portrait of the big Mac, then coming off the commercial bonanza of Rumours, shows them looking anxiously at guitarist, singer, songwriter, and de facto auteur Lindsey Buckingham, a moment given weight by the sprawling ambitions behind this 1979 double album. Buckingham's superb sense of pop craft had catapulted the once blues-based rockers into multiplatinum ubiquity, and he responded not with a safe return to form but with an invitation for his songwriting partners to chase their respective muses. Comparisons to the Beatles' White Album abounded and remain apt: Stevie Nicks twirls dreamily through extended variations on her crystal visions, Christine McVie turns in a reliably fine set of sunny pop-rock cruisers and tender ballads, and Mick Fleetwood and John McVie sustain their reputation as one of rock's most powerful yet deft rhythm sections. Buckingham provides the wild cards, in largely self-recorded plunges into his own skittish psyche, culminating in the massive title song, beefed up by the University of Southern California's marching band, but more cannily in dreamy music-box exercises ("That's All for Everyone") and sudden bursts of gonzo, fuzz-toned rock ("That's Enough for Me"). Better than its detractors thought upon release, Tusk was a brave platinum "failure" that actually charts where subsequent Mac and Buckingham projects would go. --Sam Sutherland

If your personal turmoil and professional musical struggles suddenly yielded more success and money than you could ever imagine, what would you do? A lesser '70s rock band recorded Don't Look Back; Fleetwood Mac made Tusk. Whether it was a firm, middle-finger salute to the weighty commercial expectations foisted upon them in the wake of Rumours' burgeoning successes or a restless creative response to the then-shifting tides of pop music taste, this 1979 20-track double album remains the most consistently adventurous project any incarnation of the veteran band ever attempted. This remastered, double-disc deluxe edition's 21-track bonus disc of demos and outtakes seems to argue for the latter, new wave-fueled influences, bringing together a dizzying range of performances that underscore everything from Lindsey Buckingham's Brian Wilson jones (the warm, inventive harmonies of the band's dreamy outtake of the Beach Boys chestnut "Farmer's Daughter") to Christine McVie's knack for jazz-bluesy heat ("One More Time," which ultimately became "Over and Over") and pop hooks ("Think About Me") and Stevie Nicks's pop-goddess hoodoo (deliciously spare, fragile versions of "Sara," "Storms," and "Sisters of the Moon"). Most of the demos and outtakes here are imbued with a funky, loose-limbed spirit that offer new insight into their creation. But, as on the finished album, it's Buckingham's endlessly inventive creative spirit that dominates, from the chunky-rhythmed "Can't Walk out of Here" and "Out on the Road" (which became "The Ledge" and "That's Enough For Me," respectively) to three separate early recordings that chronicle the evolution of "I Know I'm Not Wrong." Rumours may be ubiquitous; Tusk remains unique. --Jerry McCulley