Fleetwood Mac’s intraband relationships are as legendary as the music they created. Numerous affairs within the band’s ruined relationships and marriages and nearly broke the band apart. A decade after Rumours achieved a rare feat, the Mac convened at Lindsey Buckingham’s house to record Tango in the Night. Buckingham didn’t hesitate to call out former partner Stevie Nicks’ singing on the album, which quietly became one of Fleetwood Mac’s most successful records.
Lindsey Buckingham led Fleetwood Mac’s efforts on ‘Tango in the Night’
Fleetwood Mac made Tango in the Night a decade after Rumours hit shelves. The 1987 record ended a five-year recording hiatus for the band following 1982’s Mirage.
The group recorded the record at Buckingham’s home studio. It’s little surprise that he produced the album, and he was also the one who helped it cross the finish line. The guitarist called it Fleetwood Mac’s most dysfunctional album. With other members living the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to excess, Buckingham hunkered down, took control of the recording process, and helped the band deliver one of its most successful albums.
Nicks was hardly involved, and when she showed up, she wasn’t at her best. Buckingham called out Nicks’ singing several years later, and he didn’t pull any punches.
Buckingham called out Stevie Nicks’ singing on ‘Tango in the Night’: ‘Stevie was the worst she’s ever been’
The band’s lifestyle caught up with Nicks by the mid-1980s. She sought treatment for her cocaine addiction at the Betty Ford Clinic. A doctor later prescribed tranquilizer pills that wreaked havoc and eventually led to another detox stint, per Uncut.
With all that happening, Nicks barely contributed to Tango in the Night. Buckingham said she was present for three weeks, max, of the one-year recording process. When she was there, Nicks was a far cry from the pristine vocalist Fleetwood Mac fans knew. Buckingham trashed Nicks’ work on Tango in the Night in the 2002 Uncut piece:
“I had to pull performances out of words and lines and make parts that sounded like her that weren’t her … Stevie was the worst she’s ever been. I didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t the person I had once known.”
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Lindsey Buckingham describes Stevie Nicks’ singing on Tango in the Night
When you listen to Nicks’ work on “Seven Wonders” or “When I See You Again,” it’s not hard to share Buckingham’s viewpoint. Nicks’ vocals aren’t anything close to what she achieved on songs like “Rhiannon,” “Gypsy,” or “Sara” from earlier in the Mac archives.
Nicks’ distinct singing voice wasn’t at its best on Tango in the Night, and Buckingham called her out on it. Still, the album became one of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest successes.
The album produced several hits and performed well on the chart in the United States and the United Kingdom
Tango in the Night became a massive hit for Fleetwood Mac. It reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the chart for 58 weeks. Four of the album’s songs were charting singles: “Big Love,” “Seven Wonders,” “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere,” which hit the charts again 35 years after the album arrived in stores.
Tango in the Dark became an even bigger hit in the United Kingdom. According to The Official Charts Company, it spent five of its 123 weeks on the chart as the No. 1 album. It lasted longer at the top than any of the band’s other albums. In the U.K., “Big Love,” “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere” each reached the top 10.
The album went platinum three times over, one of only eight Mac albums to do so. (Two of the others are greatest hits albums).
Stevie Nicks had her singing called out by Lindsey Buckingham, and the recording process was a dysfunctional mess, but Tango in the Night became one of Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits.
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