Tusk (1979)

Tusk is the twelfth studio album by the British and American rock band Fleetwood Mac, released as a double album on 12 October 1979 in the United States and on 19 October 1979 in the United Kingdom by Warner Bros. Records. It is considered more experimental than their previous albums, partly as a consequence of Lindsey Buckingham's sparser songwriting arrangements and the influence of post-punk. The production costs were initially estimated to be about $1 million but many years later were revealed to be about $1.4 million (equivalent to $6.21 million in 2025), making it the most expensive rock album recorded to that date.

The band embarked on a nine-month tour to promote Tusk. They travelled extensively across the world, including the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. In Germany, they shared the bill with Bob Marley. On this world tour, the band recorded music for the Fleetwood Mac Live album, released in 1980.

Compared to 1977's Rumours, which sold ten million copies by February 1978, Tusk was regarded as a commercial failure by the label, selling four million copies. In 2013, NME ranked Tusk at number 445 in their list of "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2000, it was voted number 853 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums.

Background

Going into Tusk, Lindsey Buckingham was adamant about creating an album that sounded nothing like Rumours. Buckingham commented that he intended for Tusk to subvert the expectations of creating a "Rumours 2 and Rumours 3, which is kind of the business model Warner Bros. would have liked us to follow." Mick Fleetwood decided early on that Tusk was to be a double album. Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, who was dating Christine McVie at the time, offered to host the band at the Beach Boys' studio, which they were planning to renovate. While the band initially agreed to this idea, an attorney for the Beach Boys later told Fleetwood Mac that they would still have to pay for the facility even if they decided not to use it. Fleetwood Mac subsequently backed out of the deal and approached Geordie Hormel, who offered to construct a custom studio for the band at The Village Recorder. Hormel presented them with an option to either purchase the studio or rent it. Fleetwood Mac producer Ken Caillat suggested that the band purchase the studio, reckoning that this would be the cheaper option. However, Fleetwood's attorney opted to rent the custom studio, which was named Studio D.

Buckingham – infatuated with bands such as Talking Heads – was "desperate to make Mac relevant to a post-punk world", according to music journalist Bob Stanley, who commented that, compared to Rumours, Tusk was "unleavened weirdness, as close to its predecessor as the Beach Boys' lo-fi Smiley Smile had been to Pet Sounds. Much of it sounded clattery, half-formed, with strange rhythmic leaps and offbeat tics." Journalist Adam Webb described the Tusk recording sessions as a "cocaine blizzard" from which Christine McVie's then-boyfriend, Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson, "never really came out." Music historian Domenic Priore claimed that, for research purposes during the album's recording, Buckingham accessed the master tapes for the Beach Boys' unreleased album Smile, and that the tracks "That's All for Everyone" and "Beautiful Child" most strongly exemplify its influence.

Recording

After the studio was built, Buckingham queried Fleetwood about recording some songs at his home studio. Fleetwood acquiesced, but told Buckingham that the other members of Fleetwood Mac would need to be integrated during the recording sessions. For certain songs, Buckingham played a Kleenex box as a snare drum and had Fleetwood overdub his own drums over Buckingham's demos. Several of Buckingham's songs were recorded at his home studio on a 24-track machine with him playing all of the instruments, including "The Ledge", "Save Me a Place", and "That's Enough for Me".