Fleetwood Mac’s catalog is as legendary as the band’s drama-filled history, but as far as the band’s “Most Underappreciated Song,” Lindsey Buckingham’s choice might surprise fans.
In a new interview with Vulture, Buckingham named “Tusk” as the band’s “Most Underappreciated Song.”
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“It wasn’t so much about the song than it was the whole album ‘Tusk’ and the fact that everyone was expecting ‘Rumours II.’ We gave them something totally different,” said Buckingham. “When ‘Tusk’ came out with the song and the album, people either got why we did it and appreciated the departure we’d made, or it alienated them. You might make the case for saying that ‘Rumours’ as an album was overrated, and it wasn’t. It was just the success detached from the music, and it became about the success at some point. You lose maybe a certain faction of people when you move that far to the left.”
He added, “I always joke that I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when Warner Bros. first sat down in their boardroom and put the whole album on and played it collectively. And they were probably going, ‘What the hell is this?’ Because they didn’t really know what they were getting. I think that that was probably part of the reaction from part of the audience too — it was alienating in a certain way, which ultimately turned out to be constructive.”
Buckingham concluded, “I think ‘Tusk’ has stood the test of time and it’s one that resonates with fellow artists more in a lot of ways. It also has become understood in terms of why it was done and is appreciated for that. But in the moment, it definitely divided up the room.”