REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac "Extended Play" - "a joyous 18 minutes, strongly melodic, filled with dreamy hooks

New music review: 
Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac
By Bernard Perusse

The Montreal Gazette

It wasn't quite the blindside of David Bowie's sudden emergence in January with new music. Lindsey Buckingham had started the jungle telegraph with an announcement at Fleetwood Mac's April 6 concert in Philadelphia that the group would release an EP of new material "in a few days." 

But the actual appearance of the music yesterday on iTunes still came as a surprise in an era when release dates are etched in stone and the hype machine gets going ages before the music surfaces. 

Four tracks from the Mac - one of them a rediscovered oldie - is not the feat Bowie accomplished with 17 unheard songs. But it shares the same decade-long gestation period: this is the group's first fresh recording since the 2003 album Say You Will. 

And it's a joyous 18 minutes. 

Fans will read all sorts of meanings into the lyrics, which are hard not to connect with Buckingham's often-troubled relationship with Stevie Nicks. It is, after all, the backdrop for rock n' roll's longest-running soap opera. 

"It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever," Buckingham said to Rolling Stone. "After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case - there are new chapters to be written." 

"I had a really good time working with him for four days at his house. I got to hang out with his family and his kids, his grown up kids, and really connect with him again. We're pretty proud of what we have done, and we're looking at it through the eyes of wisdom now, instead of through the eyes of jealousy and resentment and anger," Nicks told the same publication. 

""Hello, hello sad angel, have you come to fight the war?" Buckingham and Nicks sing in harmony during the killer chorus of opening track Sad Angel, an uptempo, catchy pop-rocker written by Buckingham. In many ways, in fact, the entire EP sounds like a Buckingham solo release: strongly melodic, filled with dreamy hooks and neurotically self-aware. 

Without You, which, tellingly, comes from the pre-Mac Buckingham-Nicks era, is the sole track penned by Nicks. It finds the two in a grizzled update of the Everly Brothers sound: over a gorgeous, crisp acoustic jangle, Nicks's rough nasality blends with Buckingham's high tenor in a celebration of where the two have brought each other. The perspective might be 40 years old, but it seems oddly poignant now. 

It Takes Time, a stark, but sweet piano ballad, finds Buckingham's protagonist struggling to connect with his own feelings, while Miss Fantasy is quite the stunner: a sunshiny, bittersweet look back, with a chorus that evokes the Beach Boys. As Nicks comes in on harmony, the track soars higher than we could have hoped for. 

No word yet on when, or even whether, a physical release will follow. 

Fleetwood Mac release new four-track EP on iTunes without warning - Immediately goes Top 10

The songs are the band's first new material since 2003, but there is no news on whether an album will follow
Sean Michaels
The Guardian.co.uk

Fleetwood Mac have unveiled their first new music in a decade. Without fanfare or a marketing campaign,

the band released their four-song EP direct to iTunes on 30 April.

The release, simply titled Extended Play, comprises a quartet of tunes: three originals by Lindsey Buckingham and one by Stevie Nicks, written in 1973 when the pair were still the duo Buckingham Nicks. This is hardly a set of sexagenarians' basement tapes: Without You – not be confused with the Danny Kirwan-written Mac song of the same name – and Sad Angel are as shiny as Rumours, and even the lonely piano ballad, It Takes Time, has a dramatic synths/strings coda.

Buckingham revealed plans for the EP at a gig in Philadelphia earlier this month – the band have been performing some of the new songs on their current tour. "It's the best stuff we've done in a long time," he said, promising that the record would be out "in a few days". It took a few weeks, instead, but within hours of appearing on iTunes, Extended Play had appeared in the digital shop's top 10 chart, though it has since dropped.

"We all felt that it would be great to go into the studio and record new material before embarking on this tour and the result has been remarkable," Buckingham said in a statement. Nicks has previously indicated that Fleetwood Mac would only record another full-length if she felt certain fans would buy it. "Big, long albums don't seem to be what everybody wants these days," she told Billboard in February. "[Let's] see if the world does want more music from us … If we get that feeling, that they do want another 10 songs, we can reassess."

One of Buckingham's new songs is an explicit response to Nicks's musical reticence. "At the moment [Sad Angel] was being written, I was really thinking about the fact that [Stevie] and I were not agreeing on the idea of an album," he recently told MSN. "The chorus is, 'Hello, sad angel, have you come to fight the war?' It goes on to talk about 'the crowd's calling out for more' … [Sad Angel and Miss Fantasy] are songs about Stevie and me."

Prior to Extended Play, Fleetwood Mac's most recent new recording was the 2003 album Say You Will. That record reached No 6 on the UK album charts, and achieved gold sales, but fell well short of the band's commercial peak from 1975 to 1987. The band have sold more than 100m albums worldwide.

Fleetwood Mac are currently in the midst of a North American tour, with plans to visit the UK and Europe this fall.

Fleetwood Mac "Extended Play"
Current Top iTunes Albums Charts

# 3 - Canada
# 3 - Ireland
# 5 - USA
# 6 - Netherlands
# 6 - Sweden
#10 - UK
#10 - Finland
#11 - Australia
#11 - Norway
#21 - New Zealand
#25 - Germany
#30 - Belgium
#41 - South Africa
#44 - Spain
#48 - Poland
#54 - Switzerland
#90 - Denmark
#91 - France

Get the EP on iTunes

REVIEW | PHOTOS: Classic Rockers Fleetwood Mac Perform Live in Kansas City 4/30

FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE

KANSAS CITY, MO - Sprint Center

April 30, 2013

Fleetwood Mac gives big crowd reasons to look back and ahead

by Timothy Finn

The Kansas City star

When this tour was announced, the initial reaction was dubious. Fleetwood Mac hadn’t been on the road in more than three years. Its previous appearance in Kansas City exceeded that: May 2009, and back then the band looked as if it might be delivering its unofficial swan song.

Four years later, no one is younger than 63, and its oldest member, bassist John McVie, will turn 68 in November. Yes, the world is turning, and time makes you bolder and older, but Fleetwood Mac somehow manages to keep its chain intact.

Tuesday night, more than 12,500 fans showed up to watch a group founded as a British blues band nearly 50 years ago reprise nearly two dozen songs from the past 38 years of its catalog, including several from the fabled “Rumours” album, which celebrated its 35th anniversary last year.

Surprisingly, this show was more polished and energetic than the 2009 show. The setlist was significantly different, too. It included a brand-new song and one drawn from the days when Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham had not yet joined the band.

As he was back in 2009, Buckingham was the focal point for much of the show, as much for some of his guitar-god pyrotechnics (electric and acoustic) as anything. He was the only one on stage, as drummer Mick Fleetwood pointed out, who didn't leave the stage for a minute of the two and a half hour show. (The four were backed by two singers, a guitarist, a keyboardist and a percussionist.)

Despite that, he was nearly overshadowed by Nicks, 64, who is the gypsy-spirit, if not the soul, of this band. Women of several generations still adore her; at least two who looked no more than one-third her age showed up Tuesday night in Rhiannon costume. And she gave them reason to cheer. She has pretty much given up all the dancing and twirling, and her voice has lost range, but she still sings with plenty of heft in her lead vocals and her harmonies with Buckingham.

From the outset, it was evident this is the Buckingham-Nicks band. They are exes, but in concert that estrangement disappears, like Richard and Linda Thompson or George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Or Sonny and Cher. They took the stage last, together, like a couple. That dynamic resonates through the show. More than once there were displays of affection, during and between songs. Halfway through, they sang “Without You,” a song from their Buckingham-Nicks days, back when they were more innocent and naive, Buckingham said.

The rest of the show was pretty much a greatest-hits rundown. Its 23 songs featured more than half of “Rumours,” several from “Tusk,” a peppy new song called “Sad Angel” that was neither sad nor angelic and one of Nicks’ better-known solo hits, “Stand Back.” They altered the arrangements of a few songs, like “Tusk,” which was slowed a bit and included some surf-guitar in its intro. Otherwise, songs were played like everyone remembers them.

There were several explosive moments, none bigger than “Go Your Own Way,” which included Buckingham’s second-most volcanic guitar solo (the one during “I’m So Afraid” was first) and ignited a voracious and immediate sing-along. “Don’t Stop” was another. Some of the quieter moments were stellar, too, like “Landslide” and “Never Going Back Again,” which was given a bluesier treatment.

The sound was a mixed-bag. I listened from the floor for about five songs, and it was fine. Then I took a spot at the top of the lower-level, where, during the more percussive songs, a noticeable (and distracting) echo was apparent from off the back wall. Otherwise I thought the sound was OK, but others expressed otherwise..

They wrapped up the night with “Silver Springs,” a song from the “Rumours” session, and then “Say Goodbye,” a song Buckingham told the crowd he wrote about 10 years ago to put into some perspective his relationship with Nicks, which now exceeds 40 years.

It was a fitting valediction to a night filled with nostalgia, but in a larger context it seemed like “Don’t Stop” was a better closer. At least for this night, this band sounded like it has a lot more tomorrows to think about.

SETLIST

Second Hand News; The Chain; Dreams; Sad Angel; Rhiannon; Not That Funny; Tusk; Sisters of the Moon; Sara; Big Love; Landslide; Never Going Back Again; Without You; Gypsy; Eyes of the World; Gold Dust Woman; I’m So Afraid; Stand Back; Go Your Own Way. Encore: World Turning; Don’t Stop; Silver Springs; Say Goodbye.

Photos by Joe Ledford - The Kansas City Star
View the full gallery

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REVIEWS: "Angular and propulsive, “Miss Fantasy” has the nervy attitude of Buckingham’s best tracks on the sprawling Tusk"

FLEETWOOD MAC, ‘EXTENDED PLAY’ – ALBUM

REVIEW
by Michael Gallucci
Ultimate Classic Rock
Rating: 7/10

The last time Fleetwood Mac made an album together, they were minus Christine McVie and enough good songs to fill its 75-minute running length. They’re still without McVie on their new four-song EP, but they fixed ‘Say You Will’’s biggest problem by keeping ‘Extended Play’ at an economical 17 minutes. And if it sounds more like a Lindsey Buckingham record than an actual band one at times, at least ‘Extended Play’ is the best thing released under the Fleetwood Mac moniker since 1987’s ‘Tango in the Night.’

In fact, ‘Extended Play,’ which is available exclusively on iTunes, sounds a lot like Buckingham’s recent solo albums, but with a punchier rhythm section and Stevie Nicks’ backing vocals. All of which give the music way more life than if Buckingham – whose insular approach to his solo records often make them sound thin and narrow – would have recorded them himself.

The opening ‘Sad Angel,’ propelled by acoustic guitar and a killer hook, crackles with more energy than anything the band or Buckingham, who wrote and sings lead on all but one of the EP’s four tracks, has done in years. It doesn’t hurt that Nicks and Buckingham still make a great singing team, chiming in on the choruses like it’s 1977 again. The song is the highlight of ‘Extended Play’ and its only real uptempo track.

But the remaining three songs are almost as good, especially the closing ‘Miss Fantasy,’ a shuffling pop number featuring a whispered vocal by Buckingham, with Nicks pushing along the choruses. The hushed piano ballad ‘It Takes Time’ is mostly Buckingham until the final minute, when strings swell around the spare melody. And Nicks and Buckingham share lead vocals on ‘Without You,’ a leftover cut from the pair’s pre-Fleetwood Mac duo days written by Nicks.

Fleetwood Mac have been performing a couple of the songs on their current tour, so in a way, ‘Extended Play’ doubles as a show souvenir for fans wanting new material from the band. It’s not essential Mac by any means, but after all these years, and all these years apart, it’s nice to know that they’re still capable of making some sweet music together.

Fleetwood Mac - Extended Play EP (2013)
by Nick DeRiso
Somethingelsereviews.com

The center point of this new Fleetwood Mac EP is a track thought lost from the Buckingham-Nicks era, a song that once might have just been about being in love but now billows with a very mature sense of acceptance.

“Without You,” presented again as a stripped-down pairing, peels away the recriminations of “Go Your Own Way,” the sad laments of “Dreams,” the lost years when they couldn’t speak to one another, much less work together. What’s left is a friendship forged through a shared history in music, a creative endeavor that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks can do apart but, yet, always seems more fully formed, more complete, when they are together.

Who can blame Mick Fleetwood, then trying to transition Fleetwood Mac from its first life as a blues-rock outfit, for snapping these two up? Now back on tour, though alas again without Christine McVie, they’ve released a zippy four-song cycle that certainly cures the biggest problem with their overstuffed most recent effort Say You Will, a 2003 long player that went way too long.

None of it will make you put Rumours aside but there’s a renewed spark to Extended Play — available now through iTunes — that’s been missing forever. “It Takes Time,” for instance, finds Buckingham in a darkly contemplative mood, whispering over a ruminative piano figure — vulnerable in a way that he never could be with Fleetwood Mac back at their commercial zenith. As he looks back, the track makes stark admissions about the mistakes we only see after a relationship is over.

Maybe they’re better like this, in bite-size morsels.

Angular and propulsive, “Miss Fantasy” has the nervy attitude of Buckingham’s best tracks on the sprawling Tusk, and may be the most perfect pop song Fleetwood Mac has completed since the sad departure of McVie — who always served as a leavening element in the torrid emotional script being written between the ex-lovers Nicks and Buckingham.

“Sad Angel” begins with a staccato guitar signature, as Buckingham launches into one of his patented hurtful yodels, only to be joined by a completely reinvigorated Nicks. Despite its plaintive title, however, this thing rocks — with a muscular rhythmic counterpoint from Fleetwood and John McVie, and one of Buckingham’s most propulsive solos since “Holiday Road,” back in 1983.


FLEETWOOD MAC, ‘SAD ANGEL’ – SONG REVIEW
by Dave Lifton
Ultimate Classic Rock

Earlier today (April 30), Fleetwood Mac released a four-song EP, ‘Extended Play,’ their first new studio material since 2003′s ‘Say You Will.’ While the EP is available for purchase exclusively at iTunes, you can stream the lead track and first single, ‘Sad Angel,’ below.

Written by Lindsey Buckingham, ‘Sad Angel’ opens with some typically kinetic, percussive Buckingham rhythm guitar before his vocals come in, and joined later by the whole band. The rhythm section of John McVie and Mick Fleetwood chug along in typical no-nonsense, muscular fashion, with some keyboards and a few layers of guitars to fill it out.

Even though she sings in tandem with Buckingham for all but the opening 15 seconds, Stevie Nicks is largely invisible. She takes her lines well and the two still blend together very well, but there’s little of her trademark personality on display. Maybe that’s a little harsh, but for a band that has traded so frequently on the duo’s history together, ‘Sad Angel’ doesn’t offer much in the way of tension between its two lead singers.

Not that that’s a bad thing, of course. Throughout the run-up to the release of ‘Extended Play,’ we’ve heard about how those past issues are behind them – note how they’re posed in the press photo above – so what better way to prove it than with a nice, poppy song that is, lyrically, light years removed from their famously autobiographical work.

Or is it? The ambiguous lyrics could be Buckingham acknowledging that he and Nicks need each other, and are never better than when they’re together. “We fall to Earth together / The crowd calling out for more / Hello, hello sad angel / Have you come to fight the war?” they sing in the chorus. It’s hard to tell, because we usually associate Nicks with gypsies or witches, not angels.

If ‘Sad Angel’ is about her, then it’s a nice peace offering as the two of them prepare to write the newest chapter in their incredibly long history together. If not, then it’s still a welcome return to form for one of rock’s most enduring bands.


Read More Press at Extended Play - EP

INTERVIEWS: Mick Fleetwood on the Release of Fleetwood Mac's "Extended Play" and Touring

Mick Fleetwood On Fleetwood Mac: 'It Would Make A Great Play'
NPR.org
April 13, 2013

Not long ago, the idea of Fleetwood Mac ever touring again seemed far-fetched at best. But as of this spring, not only is the band back on the road — according to drummer and founder Mick Fleetwood, they're having an easier time filling seats than in the past.

"We seem to have a band of angels up there organizing what we do down here. ... I don't know; maybe people think we're never gonna do this again, or we're all gonna drop dead or something," Fleetwood says. "But on a positive note, I think it's indicative of Fleetwood Mac's extremely interesting story — that just when you think it's sort of going into a ditch, it comes out the other side."

This week, Fleetwood Mac unveiled another surprise: a four-song EP of brand-new music, released digitally via iTunes and simply called Extended Play. Mick Fleetwood spoke with NPR's David Greene about the band's uncommon staying power. Hear the radio version on Morning Edition tomorrow (the audio will then be archived at the link on this page).

There have been drugs; there have been relationship ups and downs in the band. Does that mean you almost have to come to the edge, and then kind of come back from the edge to keep doing what you're doing? Is that necessary?

God knows I don't know whether it's necessary, but the fact is it happened. And without getting artsy-fartsy or therapeutic, the reality is you have to take responsibility — not only as a person within the group of people, but then you look at it as a collective, which is the band known as Fleetwood Mac. And we have.

A lot of your fans, I think, see you still out there — after all the roller-coaster and the soap opera — and a lot of fans are like, "Wow. Fleetwood Mac, through all the changes, all the years, different faces — they're still here." Are you surprised that you're still here as well?

[Laughing] Hmm ... no. I'm not. I think what I have to confess to is that I had nothing else to do apart from keep this band going. So I'm sort of not surprised.

It sounds like you're almost a prisoner to the band and the idea.

Well, that's an interesting phrase. And in truth, just as of late — the last few years, really — I've had to work at just not being this creature that almost gets obsessed: "It's gotta continue," and "What if ... ?" And I've truly done pretty good at letting go. And it's truly appropriate: We've done way too much, all of us, to be herded into my world of, "At all costs, Fleetwood Mac."

So now, what you see is really pretty much a version of a bunch of people that happen to want to do something. And they haven't been coerced or crafted, or sold their soul to the company store. ... All of that stuff is gone. Which makes this, again, a really, really clear vision of what we're doing. And I can't think of any other band that I know that has gone through the arc of all of these [changes], even before Stevie and Lindsey. It would make a great play, and I hope one day that we somehow do that.

And of course, you've played a role in the play. You've had the struggles that we all know about with drug addiction; there was a relationship with you and Stevie Nicks that a lot of people read about. Is there a song from Fleetwood Mac that you feel like kind of captures your role in the whole play?

I'd say "The Chain." [That song's message should] be written on my grave: "That's what he did. He half-killed himself keeping this bunch together."

Are you playing that song out on the tour right now?

Yeah. It's one of the songs, I think, that if we didn't play, we'd be lined up and shot.

Listen to all four tracks streaming at NPR

Mick Fleetwood The Fleetwood Mac drummer talks about the band's new EP, tour & more

Fleetwood Mac releases new EP today, plays Tulsa’s BOK Center Wednesday
Newsok.com
by: Brandy McDonnell

Fleetwood Mac debuted its first new music in a decade today, dropping an EP appropriately titled “Extended Play” on iTunes. Click here to download and listen.

The EP includes four songs: the poppy tracks “Sad Angel” and “Miss Fantasy,” the wistful piano ballad “It Takes Time” and “Without You” and a previously unreleased track that singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks penned about singer/songwriter/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham back in their pre-Fleetwood Mac Buckingham Nicks duo days.

The majority of Fleetwood Mac’s most famous lineup — drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, Buckingham and Nicks — is touring North American to mark the 35th anniversary reissue of their most iconic album, “Rumours,” as well as celebrating the release of new music.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are bringing their “Fleetwood Mac Live 2013” trek to the BOK Center on Wednesday night. The legendary band previously played the Tulsa venue the last time it hit the road together, on 2009′s sold-out “Unleashed Tour.”

Fleetwood spoke enthusiastically about the planned EP in a phone interview prior to the tour’s April 4 launch in Ohio. Hopefully, the EP will herald the coming of a full-length follow-up to 2003′s “Say You Will,” he said.

Continue to the original site for the rest.

Fleetwood Mac Extended Play EP - Now Available Everywhere!

"EXTENDED PLAY "

OUT NOW!

1. Sad Angel
2. Without You
3. It Takes Time
4. Miss Fantasy


Now Available in the U.S. and Canada Plus
UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | Belgium | France | Denmark | Netherlands | Germany | Norway | Sweden | Switzerland | Finland | Luxembourg | Austria | Greece | Italy| Portugal | Japan | Spain.


Check your countries iTunes for availability.

Released through LMJS Productions LLC (Lindsey, Mick, John, Stevie Productions)

Fleetwood Mac released on Tuesday, April 30th without much fanfare their four song EP with songs “Sad Angel”, “Without You” "It's Takes Time" and "Miss Fantasy".  All four songs are expected to also be released on CD, though no date has been announced. This could possibly lead to a full album from the band depending on how this does - so GO BUY IT!

Fleetwood Mac has been performing “Sad Angel,” and “Without You” on their tour. The latter track dates back to the early ’70s and Buckingham-Nicks. 

"Sad Angel" I've loved from the beginning and it doesn't disappoint.  John's bass is dancing all over this track, in fact on all of them his bass really stands out which is great... LOVE IT!   

WOW! "It Takes Time" is beautiful! and so un-Lindsey with only piano and strings... 

"Without You"... Who could go without?  Loved the old demo.  Nice redux!  Warm sounding guitar.

"Miss Fantasy"  Like this one... so great to hear the full on band sound for a change on a Lindsey song. Stevie's vocals could have been a little more prominent on this, but its cool just happy to finally hear new music.

Thanks Fleetwood Mac!

PRESS RELEASE:

LOS ANGELES, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Fleetwood Mac, currently on a hugely successful 48 city concert tour of North America, have confirmed that they are releasing an EP of new material today titled "Extended Play" exclusively for purchase on iTunes at  http://smarturl.it/FleetwoodMacEP. "Extended Play" includes three new songs "Sad Angel," "It Takes Time" and "Miss Fantasy" written by Lindsey Buckingham and produced by Lindsey Buckingham and Mitchell Froom.  A fourth cut, "Without You" was written by Stevie Nicks and co-produced by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.  "Without You" was a lost song from the Buckingham/Nicks days which had been missing and happily rediscovered when someone posted an early demo of it on YouTube.  The first single, "Sad Angel" is also being released to radio today.  "Extended Play" is the first recording of new Mac music since the release of "Say You Will" over a decade ago.

"We all felt that it would be great to go into the studio and record new material before embarking on this tour and the result has been remarkable – our best group of songs in a long time.  It's a work in progress but we're so enthused by what we've done that we thought we'd share some of it with our fans in the form of an EP now... We're performing two cuts, 'Sad Angel' and 'Without You' in the show and the response has been terrific," commented Buckingham. 

Fleetwood Mac are multi-Grammy winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. Their classic Rumours album released in 1977 is one of the most successful albums in recorded history with sales exceeding 40 million.  It planted itself at the top of the pop charts for over 31 weeks and had four top ten singles.  A special edition of Rumours celebrating its release 35 years ago was recently released on Warner Bros. Records.

For further information and tour schedule:   fleetwoodmac.com

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