Fleetwood Mac's Most Schizophrenic Incarnation

"Penguin" is perhaps the most hot-and-cold album in the Fleetwood Mac catalog: when it's good, it's great, and when it isn't, it stinks! It has a couple of Chris McVie's best tunes ever--"Remember Me" and "Dissatisfied"--both of which, in my opinion, outshine anything she did in the Buckingham/Nicks era. It also has what I regard as Bob Welch's best song ever, "Bright Fire," which holds special memories for me personally. Moreover, "Revelation," although written by Welch, sounds very much like several of Peter Green's better Mac compositions (which a good thing). However, the rest of the album is mediocre at best and can be a little hard to listen to--the band didn't really know in which direction to head after Danny Kirwan's departure, which is made obvious by the short-lived participation of Dave Walker. (Bob Weston, the guitarist added to fill Kirwan's slot, wasn't long for the band, either, after he started carrying on with Mick Fleetwood's wife Jenny.)

Add it up, and you have a glaringly schizophrenic lineup, which was almost--but not quite--matched by the Dave Mason/Bekka Bramlett/Billy Burnette lineup of the mid-1990s. (I saw the latter incarnation in concert around 1996, when the Mac had been reduced to performing at COMDEX in Las Vegas for some now-defunct software company. Bizarre!)

Flightless...

This CD is another one that finds the Mac transitioning, this time after Danny Kirwan left the lineup, being replaced by both Bob Weston and Dave Walker.



The disc's highest point comes with "Did you Ever Love Me?", a Christine McVie penned pop tune that's buoyed up with peppy steel drums. She duets with Bob Welch on this one to great effect. It's easily the most "hooky" song here. Welch's quasi-apocalyptic "Revelation" also acquits itself fairly well. It has some tasty guitar soloing but doesn't overstay its welcome.

McVie contributes two other songs that are somewhat hummable although far from her best work. ("Remember Me" and "Dissatisfied")



Nadirs on the disc come with country warbler "The Derelict" sung by new member Walker (he makes up for it a bit with his cover of Jr. Walker and the All-Stars' "Road Runner"..it's not great but it's passable..) and the wordless harmonizing of "Caught in the Rain". It's somewhat pretty but really only needed to be a (short) intro to some other song, (perhaps "Bright Fire"?) instead of its own track.



The feeling of disarray here (an R&B raver, a country tune, a couple brisk pop tunes, several midtempo moody AOR songs) also makes this not a very satisfying listen when heard front to back.



Bottom Line: Skip this one. The best track is available on "Selections from the Chain". If you have to have "Did you Ever Love Me?" you're better off getting it there.



1 1/2 stars

The Mac hit a bump in the road...

Don't get me wrong, there are some marvelous tracks here, and there are some of the worst Fleetwood Mac tracks I have ever heard on here.

Let's start with the marvelous. Christine's Remember Me and her Motown influenced Disatisfied. She also shares the lead vocal with Bob Weston(?) on the Carribean influenced Did You Ever Really Love Me? Welch puts in some great tracks as well such as Bright Fire and Night Watch.

The bad tracks on here are the ones sung by Dave Walker, I'm A Roadrunner and Derelict (the worst Fleetwood Mac song bar none).

The rest IMO are forgettable.

Bottom Line: The last to get from Fleetwood Mac's middle years.