Fleetwood Mac

Mirage

Solid Mac Offering

Review Score:

(8/10)
Fleetwood Mac's first studio album following the long, messy, brilliant "Tusk", "Mirage" is inevitably a step down. Fleetwood Mac had previously been marked by emotional upheaval and group turmoil, and those qualities had made the "Fleetwood Mac", "Rumours", and "Tusk" albums much more potent. By the time "Mirage" was released, much of that had run its course, and as a result, the album is lacking in the raw emotion of those few albums and has to succeed mostly on its songcraft and production merits. Fortunately, the Mac were still an excellent songwriting unit, and Lindsay Buckingham had become a skilled enough producer to make even the most mundane songs interesting.

Of everything here, the song "Hold Me" is probably the only song on an equal plane with what this version of Fleetwood Mac had done before. Written by Christine McVie and songwriter Robbie Patton, "Hold Me" is a piano-driven uptempo number that features solid duet vocals in the verse by Buckingham and McVie, and beautiful harmonies in the chorus. There are a number of very good songs - "Gypsy" was a successful single, written by Stevie Nicks, and it features some of Nicks' trademark mysticism; the driving "Can't Go Back" and the 50's pastiche "Oh Diane" are both strong Lindsey Buckingham contributions, and a little more in line with the rest of the group than what he contributed to "Tusk". McVie also contributed the ballad "Wish You Were Here", a very pretty song written for boyfriend Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, who would die the next year in a drowning accident; and the bouncy, catchy opener "Love in Store".

"Mirage" is not on par with the best work of the Buckingham/Nicks version of the Mac, but it's also not an inconsequential album. Rather, it's simply a strong collection of solid pop songs written by a group that was very good at it. Fans of this period of Fleetwood Mac will enjoy it.

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