A solid 4 star outing

This CD found the Mac trying to steer back towards a more commercial sound after the musical adventure of "Tusk". It's not "Rumours, Part 2"...it would be far too difficult to live up to that achievement. But it is solidly listenable with no resolute clunkers, making it better than average among their catalogue.



I'll agree with what seems to be the consensus that "Gypsy" is the most realized track on here, an absolutely gorgeous track and lyric. But outside of that tune, most of the best bits on the CD belong to Christine Mcvie. Her "Hold Me" was the album's other big hit. She also turned in the dreamy "Only Over You" and closes it with her wistful "Wish You Were Here".



Other standouts are Lindsey's 50s tribute "Oh Diane" (a hit in Europe for FM) and his percolating "Can't Go Back".



The lowest points are probably Stevie's "That's Alright" and Lindsay's "Empire State", which is not to say that they're BAD, just mediocre.



For fans just getting into the Mac, I would probably buy this 3rd, after "Rumours" and the 'white album' (1975's self-titled debut of the Nicks-Buckingham lineup). After this, the fortunes of the Mac would begin to wane...

AWESOME!!!!!!!

I don't like this album as much as the other Mac albums but I give it 5 stars because of Gypsy, Straight Back, Love in Store, and Eyes of the World. I especially like Straight Back. If you like Sister of the Moon you will like this song.

So I think you should buy this album.

That's alright

When asked why was this album called 'Mirage' in 1982, Christine McVie, with her typical english humour, replied "because that's what the band is now". One feels that isolation in the album, and concludes that it was probably broken only when the extense tour to promote it was over. The album happened as the result of coincidences, since (as it would be the tonic for at least three more upcoming Fleetwood Mac albums) it was going to be a solo Lindsey Buckingham album, in which he, almost confused by the mixed reviews that the raw and experimental Tusk album (1979) had gotten through the press, the fans and even the rest of the band, was wanting to return to a somehow 'popper' approach to the music, without leaving the experiments in its entirety. He took the role as the producer of the recordings of the band (formally, as he already was the main producer since he joined in), and the arrangements were, as always, in his hand. Stevie Nicks was saying, prior to the release of Mirage, that it was going to be 'Rumour-esque'... and it's clear that it was the attempt, although the results were not as succesful, mainly because the quality of most of the songs was far inferior than the ones we could find in Rumours, and because this albums sounds more fragmented.



Still, the results, even though not as brilliant, are not bad at all. The tight and strong rhyhtm section that gives the band its name (Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass guitar) is still there... and in song quality terms, the album is saved, especially because of the two women in the band. Singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks was already beginning to have a very own shining star as a solo artist, having released her wonderful album Bella Donna in 1981, but her loyalty to Fleetwood Mac was untouched and she remained a member of the band after a few dates of a solo tour to promote her own release. But one feels that she was somehow 'punished' for her success, as she's only allowed to perform three of his numbers in this album. She manages to shine, nonetheless, since "Gypsy" is one of the best songs in her album, and even in her whole carrer, an astonishing travel to her youth, and projecting it with suggestive metaphores ("lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice") to her troubeled present. "That's Alright", a simple country-ish rock ballad, is another of the high points on the album, showcasing some of Stevie's roots; and "Straight Back" has to be one of her most underrated rockers ever. It could have used a little more guitar, and perhaps that's the way they'd work it out nowadays, but it is still a great song, with brilliant witchy imagery and strong harmonies by Christine McVie, in one of the few duets between the two women of Fleetwood Mac.



Speaking of keyboardist/singer/songwriter Christine McVie, her songs are also strong and competent. With "Only Over You" being a track that I ALWAYS skip (the only one by her at that), at least two of the others ("Wish You Were Here" and "Hold Me") deserve extreme praises. Whilst the first one features a haunting melody, vulnerable lyrics, a great lead vocal and ends up the album with an oh-so-powerful guitar/piano duel with Buckingham (and it's injustly underrated most of the times), the second one, a huge hit single around the world thanks to its own merits, is a vocal duet with Lindsey Buckingham which proves just how good do their voices sound together, when joined by a catchy melody and the impressive bed of arrangements that Buckingham prepared for the ocassions. It is one of the anthems of the 80's rock. "Love In Store" was also a single, which featured touching harmonies between Nicks and Buckingham, but was a little bit weaker in terms of lyrics.



From Buckingham's side we get two REALLY good songs ("Can't Go Back" is a short and simple way of showing desperation and dispair with very well-crafted short verses; and "Eyes Of The World", in spite of the never-ending repetition in the chorus, is a rocker that works out perfectly as a crowd-pleaser), another pleasant one (the meaningless but catchy "Book Of Love") and two that help the quality of the album to become lower: "Oh Diane", a terrible attempt to pay tribute to Elvis Presley or another 50's idols (strangely enough this was a succesful single in some european countries), and "Empire State", which is not helped that much by the weird instrumental background and the terribly bad lead vocal. He did explorations in terms of sounding, of course, in both his songs and the songs by the girls, and that's what we thank him a lot for.



A mixed bag, really. You'll really like some of the songs in this album, and you'll probably hate some others. Plus there's the problem of the horrible mastering that this had to suffer in the transference to CD, which lets the mix be only partially audible throughout the songs. This needs urgent remastering with bonus tracks (there are lots of studio outtakes; rehearsals like "If You Were My Love" or "I've Been Loving You Too Long"; B-sides or hidden songs from the sessions like "Cool Water", "Goodbye Angel" or "Teen Beat"; alternate versions of songs from other albums like "Smile At You" and so on...), and one really hopes that a reissue would help this album to be more appreciated between fans. For now, buy this version only if you're a really big Fleetwood Mac fan. If not, there are always the compilations to get the hit singles. Oh, and by the way, the title of the album was really an idea of Lindsey Buckingham's aunt.