"Time" Appreciation Thread
 

"Time" has a fetchingly humble quality, does it not? It seems so free of self-importance & haughtiness. It features good songs by Billy Burnett, Bekka Bramlett & Christine McVie, & musicianship that is skillful yet unobtrusive. I think it contains Mick Fleetwood's best drumming during the entire period of 1984 to 2006. If you listen closely to the drum tracks & pay attention to them, you will hear the beauties that I do. His licks have spectral lines & sensitive retenue. The Dave Mason material is poor, but at least it's well engineered. Throughout the album, in fact, the engineering & production bespeak sureness, delineation, proper balance, & even freshness -- coming as it does amid a deluge of grunge magpies. Mr. Richard Dashut is to be commended heartily. "Time" is the album "Behind the Mask" should have been (especially given the fact that Fleetwood Mac's audience was somewhat larger in 1990).

I'm going to listen to "Time" right now!

My favorites are These Strange Times and Hollywood.:thumbsup:

I don't agree that Dave Mason's material is "poor"...those two songs sound just like all his other material...either of those songs could fit seamlessly on either It's Like You Never Left or Split Coconut (my two favorites of Dave's solo material after Alone Together) It just is odd because "that" sound was then part of Fleetwood Mac.

The only thing about Time I DON'T care for is its running order. A quick reprogramming of that and it flows like an unbouldered river.

I definitely agree about the production & engineering of Time being better than Behind The Mask. It is just too bad that they didn't have Dashut at the helm for BTM. It would've been crisper & more defined.

That's right. Richard helped produce Time, didnt he?

never heard this album, but I've always wanted to. I need to pick it up.

I do like the album cover.

Blow by Blow blows as do all the Dave Mason tracks. Really cheeseball, gorgonzola stuff. A cheese ball. Love his work in Traffic though.

Christine shines. Give me Hollywood (Some Other Kind Of Town) anyday. Please add Nights In Estoril and I Do.

I do miss Rick Vito.

Bekka is sweet but too sugar for the darkside of the Mac.

I don't like Dave Mason & Billy Burnette's songs on Time. But, I love the Chris & Becka songs. I actually like Bekka's songs almost as much as Christine's songs. I agree that the Time production is better than the BTM production, thanks to Richard Dashut. Time, as a whole is far, far better than it's given credit for. My favorite songs are "All Over Again", "Nights In Estoril", "Sooner Or Later" & all three of Bekka's songs.

Lyrically, maybe. His lyrics could go from cliché to downright cheesy, but his delivery was such that you never really noticed or cared. His songs, for me, are very similiar to those of Christine McVie.
I can't say that I hear anything close to "It's Like You Never Left" or "Split Coconut" with either of his "Time" songs. Both of those albums (like all of his albums, really) had a much more AOR feel than either of those songs. Then, suddenly he's Mr. Hard Rocker??? Even his last studio solo album, "Two Hearts," was more AOR and could easily have fit in with the Fleetwood Mac sound. What Mason actually did with the Mac came off as cheesy. FWIW, "Every Woman," "Headkeeper," and "She's A Friend" would have fit in well with Fleetwood Mac. (Imagine Stevie harmonizing on "Headkeeper." 'Twould have rocked!)

"Dreaming the Dream" is an exquisite ballad, delivered with just the right vocality: searching, halting, what Beethoven called beklemmt (over the Cavatina of the Op. 130 string quartet).

Bummer that Mac didn't play that one at Konocti Harbor in either '94 or '95 ("Dreaming the Dream," not the Op. 130 string quartet).

They played it in Cincinnati in 1995. One of the only times I ever got choked up at a concert, BTW.

You choked on something, steve? OH MY GOD!! Like a stray bite of pickle, or the beer went down the wrong pipe? I could have choked at Konocti Harbor Spa & Resort because it was a dinner club. You ate your prime rib & rice pilaf, & then you turned your chair around so your back faced the table & your handsome face was toward the stage ... and there WAS FLEETWOOD MAC!!!!

BEKLEMMT!!! BEKLEMMT!!! :blob2: :blob2: :] :blob1: :wavey: :( :o :(

This is absolutely one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac albums (it ranks WAY above Rumours). Everyone is at their best and the music is just perfect. I even love Mick's contribution, "These Strange Times."

Really, I have only one complaint: not enough Bekka. I realize that with so many vocalists in one group none of them would get many songs, but I still think she got the short end of the stick.

I just didn´t like the album, enough to listen it frequently. I did like BTM enough.

By the way, who is Greg LaDanyi (the BTM producer), where they found him? What was his experience?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Ladanyi

Possibly explains a number of things.

The main issue I have with Time is that it is crap - well for Fleetwood Mac anyway. I would have preferred Mick to not soil Fleetwood Mac's name any further, and just gone ahead and re-recorded with The Zoo.

there is one positive though, the production is much better than BTM. :o

I don't think it's that bad.

There are some good songs on it - Christine just can't help herself she always writes good stuff.

I don't see what Dave Mason was doing on it at all (and by all accounts neither did Christine)

I know some people really like it but I cant stand The Strange Times - it drives me completely and utterly barking mad.

Gail

My exact sentiments about Mirage...and to just a slight lesser extent, Rumours.

Ditto. :nod:

Not a bad song on Time....

expect I do skip These Strange Times a lot...kinda freaks me out.

Winds of Change is prob in my Top 10 Favorite 'Mac songs of all time.

:thumbsup: Ditto here!

One of the few times, though, I wish that Lindsey would've made a guest appearance on lead guitar (he made the guest appearance on the wrong song on Time). I can hear a solo similar to his solo on Christine's "The Smile I Live For" on this one. I have to admit (mark the calendar) Mason's solo on that is really pretty wimpy.

"Time" is a class album - I was amazed when I heard it because I'd seen it rubbished so often. I realise that I may well be alone in this view, but I think it's an insight into where the band should have gone instead of "The Dance" and so on.

There isn't a bad song on "Time" (as someone said) - more than can be said for "Behind The Mask" which barely has a good song on it, IMO. I've given it so many chances, but I still can't stand it. Only Hard Feelings and Do You Know get played with any regularity in this house :(

The poor quality of the production (how could Greg Ladanyi do so well on Jackson Browne albums and screw up on BTM boggles my mind) is what keeps BTM from getting more play from me. That's why I seem to listen to the outtakes more than the album itself. The production quality of the BTM outtakes, in most cases, is far superior to the final product (as well as the song choices).

From what I've heard of the outtakes, I'd agree with you there, especially about the choice of Rick's songs. How Stand on the Rock got on there ahead of some of the others, I just don't understand. If Rick had stuck around, "Time" would have been even stronger with a couple of his songs, perhaps instead of Dave Mason's.

If Rick had stuck around, there wouldn't have been the need to ask Dave Mason to join, so yeah, his tunes instead of Dave's.

Hmmm, haven't people been saying this since "Future Games?"

Kiln House, actually.

Some people were saying they'd sold out when "Albatross" and Then Play On were released... although they weren't blaming Mick that time :laugh:

Diss BTM all you want, but that album will always rank high on my list if for no other reason than the fact that it contains "In the Back of My Mind," my all time favorite Billy song (despite that freaky "I know what it's like" intro which I can only assume was Mick's doing).

I never hear you discuss the plasticity of the listening experience: surely that plays as great a role in an album's stature as more logistical concerns (such as what song is on what CD).

I was going to say that, but figured that Jeremy was on that one. "Future Games" was the first without either of their original guitarists, AND it had an American!

You still like that song "Future Games," don't you. What are the chords please?

I do LOVE that song (and the album), but I don't know the chords. I had figured out "Woman Of 1000 Years" probably 10 years ago, but for the life of me I can't remember it.

That's because I don't think of things that way. I look at the greatness of albums in terms of being nothing more than the sum of its parts and if enough of those parts move me, then I rank the album high on my list. If not, it gets low marks. As for Behind the Mask, I love all of its parts with the notable exception of "The Second Time," quite possibly the worst Fleetwood Mac song ever.

I also don't really think of artists in terms of what albums are great because it's really rare for me to listen to an album from start to finish. More often I just compile my favorites together onto a seperate disc and listen to that.

I'm just shallow like that, I guess. :laugh:

Hey! Don't Attack 'The Second Time' - thats a great song :p

Time, i can admit, has it's quirks, but IT IS NOT FLEETWOOD MAC! Mick should have known that you can't go changing the members of the band around everytime someone leaves - It worked with Stevie & Lindsey - i think that he thought that it would work again. I really think he should have gone with The Zoo instead, and tried to make them into something :shrug:

In the same way George W. Bush is a great president? Ummm...yeah, I guess so. :rolleyes:

WTF?!?:shocked: :eek: Do you NOT know the history of the band? When somebody leaves, somebody else joins (in most cases, Dave Walker, Bob Weston & Christine McVie were the exceptions)...that's how Fleetwood Mac works. And, to that end, if Mick & John SAY it is Fleetwood Mac, it's Fleetwood Mac...regardless of who's playing guitar, keyboards, singing or writing the songs.

LOL, that statement about George Bush had me rolling around the floor :laugh:

I disagree about the lineup changes though. I understand that there have been MANY in the past - but I think that the Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham incarnation had become so famous that to try and call any new reincarnation without them as members was silly :sorry:

Although, bringing back previous members would have been a different story...

I think adding new personnel was a legitimate move, though maybe not a practical one, at least the way they went about it. I completely understand why they did it, though. Losing Stevie and Lindsey was nowhere near as devastating as losing Peter Green, relatively speaking. Peter Green, in terms of success, WAS Fleetwood Mac. Yet, somehow, they managed to not only get beyond Peter Green, they ended up becoming a hugely successful band in the process. But, with the "Rumours" band, there were three writers, and the one still in the band had almost as many hit singles with the band as the other two combined. If they could survive Green's departure, why couldn't they have survived Stevie and Lindsey's departure?

The problem, though, is that they became too subservient to the "Rumours" material. During 1987 and 1990 tours, they glorified the past too much and stopped focusing on the band's future. They became a nostalgia act. And, it only got worse with the "Time" band. Their sets, which I enjoyed on one level, made getting beyond "Rumours" almost impossible. In short, I don’t think it was a bad idea to add new personnel so long as they let the new folks do their own music, with a few of the classics. But, by trying to keep the illusion of the “Rumours” band going, they limited their full potential.

You're probably right. But now it is not different. You can say this exactly about the B/N-mac from 2003 an 2004.

Amen to that :nod:

Progress is everything, even if it's not well-received. Once you stop progressing, you are history - literally :(

I go all the way & say that they should have ignored all songs from the members who were gone. Every time the Time band performed an old Buckingham or Nicks or McVie classic, the little thought flitted through the brains of the audience: "Hey, where IS that person?"

Even the name of the band made that little thought flit through the brains of the audience for the 1994/95 shows. Sometimes that little thought was even vocalized. I should know. I heard it vocalized a few times. People eating their prime rib.

You have to re-create yourself if your most recognizable members split. Either luck is on your side & you manage to reinvent a "new" band with the same name to which the public flocks, or you flounder. Fleetwood Mac floundered. We all probably have different reasons as to why it floundered: I think it was bad logistical planning & a complete absence of forward thinking; others might think it was just bad luck & not really the fault of anyone in the band (like Mick & John).

I also maintain that it's next to impossible for a band to reinvent itself after a period of extreme popularity with new personnel if it doesn't have hit songs. The early '70s Fleetwood Macs did all right, but that was probably because they didn't have to combat that period of extreme popularity in their new home country. If they had stayed in England, they'd have faced the same problems that the 1994 Fleetwood Mac faced.

Maybe that was the answer: Fleetwood Mac should have moved to another country in 1994 where the Rumours group weren't stratospheric.