Five Fleetwood Mac Covers That Don't Suck

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2013 has been so good to us that we’re actually starting to feel a little on edge. After being treated to the first My Bloody Valentine album in 22 years over the weekend, we awake to news that Fleetwood Mac are coming to the UK for a long overdue arena tour. We thought we’d celebrate this news by sharing five Fleetwood Mac cover versions you might actually find yourselves enjoying.

More information about their upcoming tour can be found here.

5. The New Pornographers – Think About Me

One of the only tracks really worth lifting from last year’s Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac, The New Pornographers take on the 1980 Tusk featured number and really make it sound like one of their own without compromising the integrity of the Christine McVie penned original. Having lied low on fans radars upon it’s release, the Canadian band weigh down the bouncy guitars with psychedelic howls without flattening, them while A.C. Newman’s smooth vocal’s prove pretty irresistible .

4. CFCF – Big Love

‘Big Love’ originally appeared on 1987′s Tango In The Night, and was in fact the first single to be taken from that record even though Lindsey Buckingham had intended to use it as part of his third solo album. The glossy finish, jangly guitars, highly stylised and slick production techniques of course made this song ripe for the picking by one certain Michael Silver, aka Canadian producer CFCF. Covered on his 2009 album Continent, ’Big Love’ is transformed into wonderfully breezy, balearic, late night disco offering. Twisting the song to fit modernity Silver manages to retain a sense of the original, the call and response keys mimicking the ”ooh/ahh” vocals of old.

3. Julia Holter – Gold Dust Woman

Famously featured on Rumours, ‘Gold Dust Woman’ was apparently recorded at 4 am after one of the band’s famous long studio nights and, according to Cath Carroll’s Never Break The Chain, just before the final take Nicks wrapped her head with a black scarf, veiling her senses to tap into something more genuine. Although Nicks herself admitted in an interview with Spin in 1997 that she wasn’t really sure what the song was about, that there was a lot of cocaine around and she fancied it gold dust. The song also resonates with after taste of a bad relationship and just trying to get through it, which is something Julia Holter captures nigh-on perfectly in her rendition for Mojo’s recent Rumours Revisited covers album. The hazy synths, delicately layered husky vocals echo that sense of being lost , the breakdown at the end just absolutely nailing the songs intended sentiment.

2. Caitlin Rose – That’s Alright

Taken from her debut album Own Side Now, released in 2010, Caitlin Rose’s version ‘That’s Alright’ is utterly arresting. The Mirage featured number was originally written in the Buckingham/Nicks days of 1974 even thought it didn’t see it’s official release until the band’s 13th studio album in 1982. With her lulling Nashville drawl Rose manages to capture the bitter honesty of a song Fleetwood Mac never played much live themselves, the gently strummed acoustic guitars carrying the songs sentiment on their back as the lyrics own up to the singer’s shortcomings but find victory through that defeat.

1. Lykke Li – Silver Springs

Undoubtedly one of Fleetwood Mac‘s (well, Nicks’) finest moments, amazingly ‘Silver Springs’ never made it onto a studio album. Controversially left off 1977′s Rumours, it was one of the many songs recorded throughout the sessions that documented the fractious inter-band relations – in ‘Silver Spring’s case: the break-up of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Timely then that it ended up as a b-side to ’Go Your Own Way’ – Buckingham’s very own kiss-off to his relationship with Nicks.

Although profusely keeping her private life as just that, tales of burned out love are something Lykke Li has pretty much built her entire career on. With Wounded Rhymes reeking of heartbreak and longing – pop noire at its finest – there was no artist better suited to cover the Nicks classic than she. The only other song really worth lifting from last year’s Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac, the Lykke Li track understands the original in a way we never quite thought possible.

Ridding the original of its smooth FM soft rock – breaking the melody down to its bare bones – Lykke recites fragile after brutally fragile verse, with each instrument used drenched in reverb, making those aching notes hang in the air that little bit longer. At the song’s peak, it’s the delivery that cuts the deepest. The regret and longing, sung with Li’s Swedish puppy dog eyes – “I know I could have loved you, but you would not let me” – is deeply effecting and, almost perversely, demands repeated plays – just so you can feel as bad as her.