Songoftheday 3/14/17 - Hey you the one with the laughing eyes, you the one with the haunting stare...
from the album Behind The Mask (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day comes from the British/American rock group Fleetwood Mac, whose 1987 album Tango In The Night had scored their four top-40 pop hits in America with "Everywhere", "Seven Wonders", and a pair of top-5 singles with "Big Love" and "Little Lies". However, Lindsey Buckingham had had enough of it for awhile, and called it quits from the band, causing them to hire on guitarists/singers Billy Burnette and Richie Vito for the tour behind that album, and also to contribute to the two new tracks on the group's Greatest Hits album. The single from that compilation, "As Long As You Follow", topped the Adult contemporary radio chart in Billboard, but just missed the pop top-40 in the winter of 1989.
A year later, the now six-member lineup of Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Vito and Burnette released the fifteenth studio album under the Fleetwood Mac name, Behind The Mask. The first single from the set would be another Christine McVie-led track, written by her with then-husband Eddie Quintela (like "As Long As You Follow"). "Save Me", produced by the band with Greg Ladanyi, would be a touch harder than their easy-going last single, with Mick's drums taking a more prominent position with Vito and Burnette's guitars...
Fleetwood Mac - Save Me by jpdc11
"Save Me" became the eighteenth and so far most recent top-40 pop hit for Fleetwood Mac in May of 1990. The song did much better on rock radio, reaching #3 for two weeks on Billboard's Mainstream Rock list, while it also climbed to #6 on their Adult Contemporary chart. Internationally, in Fleetwood and the McVie's native UK, the album became their fourth #1 set, though the "Save Me" single stalled down at #53. The song had its greatest success in Canada, peaking at #7 (their eighth top ten hit there and biggest since "Hold Me" in 1982), while going to #16 in the Netherlands, #27 in New Zealand, and #36 in Germany.
The next single from the album, "Love Is Dangerous" (written and sung by Nicks and Vito), went to #7 on the American rock chart, while the third, "Skies The Limit", was a top 10 hit on Adult Contemporary and made the pop top-40 in Canada at #26. Another track from the album, "In The Back Of My Mind", co-written by Burnette, who sung it with Nicks and McVie, was a minor hit in the UK at #58.
Shortly after touring behind the album, Stevie Nicks and Richie Vito left the group, who hired on former Traffic member Dave Mason as well as singer Bekka Bramlett for their next album, Time. That album stiffed badly, not even appearing on the American albums chart, and single "I Do" only appearing as a minor entry on the Canadian chart in 1995. Fleetwood would dissolve that version of the band shortly after.
The split, which seemed like forever since it was years from when Buckingham was on board, didn't last long, and in 1997 Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood and the McVies for a recorded live concert, released in album form as The Dance, which became one of their most successful releases, reaching #1 on the albums chart in American and selling over 5 million copies. The record was mostly their older work, though they included four new songs. Their performance of "The Chain" from the show reached #30 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and was nominated rock a Grammy for rock group vocal performance, which the Wallflowers took home with "One Headlight". Two of Stevie's songs reached the top ten on the Adult Contemporary radio list - "Silver Springs" (#5) and "Landslide" (#10). The former earned them a Grammy nomination for Pop Group Vocal (losing to Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity"), while the latter landed on the pop Hot 100 at #51 and reached the Canadian top-40 at #38.
In 2003, the band regrouped this time without Christine McVie for their most recent studio album Say You Will. The lead single "Peacekeeper" (led by Buckingham) went to #10 on the Adult Contemporary chart, #16 Adult Top-40, and snuck in to the main pop chart at #80 (their most recent appearance). The title track, written and sung by Nicks, was a moderate hit on the AC (#17)/Hot AC (#21) charts. They continued to tour in different years since, with Christine returning in 2014. However, a new studio album has been late in coming, with Nicks reluctant to interrupt her solo career for the band's errant schedule shifts. There's been word of a set without her, but so far nothing has come to light.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's a clip of the band on tour behind the Behind The Mask album (albeit of shifty quality)...
...and lastly, the album version of the song (with better sound)...
Up tomorrow: Here they come, this R&B trio.
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