Top Artists – Fleetwood Mac

Rockin’ the Fat Snare on Dreams

This is a rock album — it needs to be played loud and it needs to be played on a dynamic system.

What do the best copies have that the also-rans don’t?

Lots and lots of qualities, far too many to mention here, but there is one you may want to pay special attention to: the sound of the snare.

When the snare is fat and solid and present, with a good “slap” to the sound, you have a copy with weight, presence, transparency, energy — all the stuff we ADORE about the sound of the best copies of Rumours.

Next time you are on the hunt to buy new speakers, see which ones can really rock the snare on Dreams. That’s probably going to be the speaker that can do justice to the entire Rumours album, as well as anything by The Beatles, and Neil Young’s Zuma, and lots of other favorite records of ours, and we expect favorites of yours too.

Side One

Dreams

The drums that open this track and the one monster cymbal crash at the beginning are PERFECTION on the best pressings. If you took ten copies of this album and just played that cymbal crash, I’m guessing you could tell the difference in the sound of every copy. If that cymbal crash doesn’t splash you in the face like a bucket of cold water, you do not have a killer copy. It’s way out front in the mix and that’s the way they want it.

Ideally the bass is very prominent on this track. It should be way up in the mix, loud, tight and note-like, with the guitar and kick drum clearly separated. It absolutely drives the song; the copies that got the bass right on this track really came to life. If you want to know why Fleetwood and Mac are revered as one of the all-time great rhythm sections, this song should provide all the evidence you need. (Try Werewolves of London if this song doesn’t convince you. Same sound too.)

Listen for Stevie Nick’s humming before she starts to sing. On the good copies it’s quite clear.

Punchy bass and punchy drums are key to the best sounding copies of Rumours.

What to Listen For in General

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Listening in Depth to Bare Trees

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Fleetwood Mac

Presenting another entry in our extensive Listening in Depth series with advice on what to listen for as you critically evaluate your copy of Bare Trees.

Here are some albums currently on our site with similar Track by Track breakdowns.

Side One

Child of Mine

A real rocker from Danny Kirwan. If the electric piano is rich on your copy and you have some top end and space you are probably off to a very good start.

The Ghost
Homeward Bound
Sunny Side of Heaven

A wonderfully poignant, even melancholy instrumental track by Bob Welch. Not sure if that’s him on guitar but the playing is beautiful. The high point of side one.

Side Two

This is where most of the best music on Bare Trees can be found. We like every song on this side.

Bare Trees

If this song doesn’t get your blood pumping, you need to turn up the volume another click or two. There is tremendous energy and joy in this song, and it needs to be played loud to get those feelings across.

Sentimental Lady
Danny’s Chant
Spare Me a Little of Your Love

This is a tough track to get right. The Brit is smoother and sweeter, which works on this song. Bad copies can sound hard on Christine’s vocals as well as the chorus.

Dust

One of my all time favorite Fleetwood Mac songs. On a good copy this track sounds so sweet. The texture to the voices is right on the money — neither grainy nor dull.

Thoughts on a Grey Day (more…)

The Fleetwood Mac You Don’t Know – Future Games

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Danny Kirwan is the guy who really takes control on Future Games, the band’s 1971 release. Some of the best songs this band ever did are here, many of them written by Kirwan.

The opening track on side one, Woman Of A Thousand Years, and the opening track on side two, Sands Of Time, are both his and set the tone for the whole side, which is folky, ethereal and extended. The best of these pop songs don’t seem to follow any of the standard pop conventions of verse verse chorus. They seem to wander on a journey of discovery. In that way they remind me a little bit of 20th century French classical music, or some of the longer tracks from Neil Young’s Zuma.

Any Fleetwood Mac greatest hits collection would be a joke without those tracks. They are of course missing from most of the compilations I am familiar with. Sadly, few people miss them because few people have ever even heard them.

This period Fleetwood Mac, from Kiln House through Mystery to Me (both are records I would take to my Desert Island) has always been my favorite of the band. I grew up on this stuff, and I can tell you from personal experience, having played a dozen (or more, I lose track there are so many) copies of Future Games practically all day at some pretty serious levels that it is a positive THRILL to hear it sound as good as it does on the best pressings.

The Fleetwood Mac You Don’t Know – The Self-Titled First Album & English Rose

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Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Fleetwood Mac

You just can’t write better songs than Love That Burns or Black Magic Woman, both of which can be found here. And Albatross, the mellow instrumental that closes out side four, was a Number One hit in the UK in 1969, can you believe it? It was backed on some releases by Need Your Love So Bad, another one of our all time favorite Fleetwood Mac covers. The band was on fire back when Peter Green was at the helm. These two LPs are proof enough.

The material found on this American-only compilation is tough to come by on vinyl; their early albums barely charted in the states and are anything but plentiful. The Peter-Green-led blues band that performed this music was huge in England however, and for me, personally, I would take Fleetwood Mac as a blues band over any other blues band from the period.

Keep in mind that some of these recordings are engineered to sound like old blues songs from the thirties and forties. Don’t expect audiophile sound on those tracks because it’s just not on the master tapes that way.

But it’s easy enough to tell when the material sounds right, and that’s all we are after here — the right sound.

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Buckingham Nicks / Self-Titled

More Lindsey Buckingham

More Stevie Nicks

A superb pressing of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks’ one and only album, with Double Plus (A++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
Rich and Tubey Magical with a massive bottom end – this is a true Bass Demo Disc (much like the first Mac album they sang on)
Recording Engineer great Keith Olsen went for a very rich, very smooth sound, in the tradition of Classic British Folk Rock
“An engaging listen and served as a proving ground of sorts for both artists’ songwriting chops and for Buckingham’s skills as an emerging studio craftsman. Crisp, ringing acoustic guitars and a bottom-heavy rhythm section framed the pair’s songs…”

We really enjoy playing this album here at Better Records. It’s an obvious preview of things to come for these two (and the engineer too!). Check out the wonderful early version of “Crystal.” On the better copies, it is warm, rich, and sweet — just like it is on the better copies of the Fleetwood Mac self-titled LP. In fact, many parts of this album bring to mind the best of ’70s Fleetwood Mac. Fans of the self-titled LP and Rumours are going to find A LOT to like here.

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Fleetwood Mac / Self-Titled – A MoFi Winner

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Fleetwood Mac Available Now

Sonic Grade: B+

Another MoFi LP reviewed, and this one is actually pretty good.

The Mobile Fidelity pressing of this album can actually sound quite good (if you get hold of a decent copy that is). Audio perfection it ain’t, but all in all it’s a very enjoyable record. Its strengths are many and its faults are few. Let’s give credit where credit is due; the MoFi is rich, transparent, sweet, and natural, and you won’t hear us saying that about very many MoFi pressings.

It belongs in their Top Ten, toward the bottom I would guess, due to its own sloppy bottom, but that’s half-speed mastering for you.

Like most new audio technologies it was a giant step in the wrong direction: backwards. (more…)

Fleetwood Mac – Penguin

More Fleetwood Mac

More Recordings Engineered by Martin Birch

This early Reprise LP is a huge step up from most – this copy is full-bodied, smooth and musical – classic Fleetwood Mac sound
One of my favorite songs on the album is one of Christine McVie’s best from this period, Did You Ever Love Me – on this pressing it’s rich and sweet exactly the way it should be
“Fleetwood Mac’s first album made after the departure of Danny Kirwan features the additions of guitarist Bob Weston and singer Dave Walker… This album gave Fleetwood Mac its best U.S. chart showing yet…”

On the best pressings, the sound is positively JUMPING out of the speakers in a way that is completely unexpected. We often talk about the size of the soundfield on a particular pressing, side to side, bottom to top, and even more often about the energy found on one copy relative to another.

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Letter of the Week – One Customer’s Story of Listening in Depth and Seeing the Light

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Reviews and Commentaries for Fleetwood Mac

One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:

Hey Tom,

Sorry to say I will be returning this White Hot Stamper. Did a lot of research before ordering, understand and fully appreciate what you’re doing, seriously sad to not be keeping it. Pretty obviously you are crazy dedicated to this so wanted to fully explain why. Especially since there’s still good odds I would like to try again.

First let me say it was quite the experience unpacking and seeing a cover still in its original shrink wrap. Probably quite a few would consider that alone worth the price. I never even slipped it out of the excellent plastic sleeve you shipped it in, that’s how much instant respect I have for the unbelievably unlikely existence of this thing. It truly is amazing. I bought it for the music not the cover, but still….

The reason I will be returning this is Side 1. Monday Morning was a disappointment, but I really think we are kind of at the mercy of the master here. Warm Ways is a whole lot better, and yes quite a bit better than my copy, with a fair bit more inner detail and palpable presence but overall not much more than I have got from some good 45 or heavy vinyl pressings.

Just so you know, yes I do follow all your suggestions. Warm up, demagnetize, anti-static, all of that and more. Have a demagnetizer much more effective than the Talisman. Been doing all this stuff over 20 years now. Because I hear and appreciate. Cables elevated off the floor. Every wire from the breaker to the speaker been cryo’d. Yes I pulled the wire out of the house, drove it down to Cryo One, had them do it all.

Part of the problem. I hear how much better Side 1 is, it goes into that frame of reference. For over $300 it needs to be at least as great an improvement over my copy as I can get from warm-up, demagnetize, etc. Its not. Well your rating did say Side 2 was a bit better. Frankly, I think you could stand to correct that. Side 2 is a whole lot better. Right from the first track its just way more lively, present, dynamic, punchy, you name it. Not sure why you say Say You Love Me is “rich and sweet and tubey” probably that is one of the stock phrases you use throughout the site because this track offers, relative to the others on this side, less of this.

Which brings me to Landslide, and World Turning. These two tracks totally deserve all the most glowing Better Records accolades! Simply superb sonics. Better even in some ways than my MoFi 45 of Brothers in Arms. Now this is what I was hoping for! The spellbinding sound of these two tracks is almost enough to make me forget Side 1.

Almost. And its not like the rest of Side 2 is bad. Honestly, when it gets to this level (of pressing quality) you can hear so deeply what’s going on it becomes inescapable we are at a level where we are at the mercy of the mastering engineer. Or if not him then someone even further along up the recording chain. You know what I mean. I know you know what I mean. Because, in reading one of your glowing reviews was the comment, basically, “but get real, its Springsteen.” Because for whatever reason he could never be bothered to turn out a good recording.

So I know. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It might very well be no copy of Fleetwood Mac ever pressed gonna have a Side 1 that sounds as good all the way across as this Side 2. But I figure if anyone would know that it would be you.

And that’s kind of where I am. The copy I have right now is worth to me only a fraction of the price. If the whole thing sounded like Side 2 though, then I would be a happy camper. The price would still be dear, but worth it. Find me a copy like that, same price, don’t bother posting it, its sold. Or credit this one down a whole lot. I’d prefer the first option. If it even exists.

Sorry for the email. Guy like you I would love to get on the phone. Which with my schedule, no chance until Wed or Thurs, and I didn’t want to wait. But I still would like to talk. You know the records and now you know a little about me. Maybe you can help me find the few select copies I just can’t live without. I got the feeling if anyone can, its you.

Best regards,

Chuck M.

Chuck,

A few quick thoughts:

Since every stereo plays every record differently, it’s hard to know why our copy did not sound as good to you as it did to us. When it comes back I will personally play it against our 3+ ref copy and see how it holds up.

2.5+ means it came in second in the shootout. Maybe it didn’t deserve that grade, I will find out!

The other issue is a much more subtle one. We play all the side ones against all the other side ones, so comparing side one to side two is something we would never do. It’s apples and oranges in a way, many side ones of albums simply do not sound as good as their side twos, and vice versa, and we note that in some of our listings.

We could honestly say that about a great many records if we took the time to do it.

On F Mac’s self-titled album I am not aware that that is the case, but it could be.

We play tracks one and four on side one to test with. They are the hardest tracks to get right in our experience.

Monday Morning has huge amounts of bass and a slightly gritty vocal, so it’s very difficult to get that song to sound right and easy to spot when it does sound right.

Warm Ways is a piece of cake and sounds at the very least “good” most of the time, so it’s not much of a test for us, although richness, intimacy, space and transparency are obviously better on this track on the better copies.

Anyway, I will check it out when it comes back and hopefully get back to you before too long.

Thanks for taking the time to write.

Best, TP

Tom,

Had Fleetwood Mac all packed to send back, couldn’t quite do it. Last night I pulled it out for a second listen. This time, instead of going head to head with my other copy I had a more normal listening session of playing increasingly good SQ records. I have a pretty good memory for these things which is probably what was bugging me and keeping me from sending it back. Sure enough, listening again one can clearly hear much deeper into the recording than probably anything else I have. (more…)