| Christine McVie | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Christine McVie |
| Cover: | ChristineMcVie84.jpg |
| Released: | 27 January 1984 |
| Recorded: | 1983 |
| Studio: | Mountain Studios (Montreux, Switzerland); Lower Dean Manor (Gloucestershire, UK); Additional recording at Olympic Studios (London, UK)[1] |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 43:48 |
| Label: | Warner Bros. |
| Producer: | Russ Titelman |
| Prev Title: | Christine Perfect |
| Prev Year: | 1970 |
| Next Title: | In the Meantime |
| Next Year: | 2004 |
Christine McVie is the second solo album by the English musician, singer, and songwriter Christine McVie, released on 28 January 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.[2] It was McVie's first solo recording in over a decade, since her 1970 self-titled album (released under her maiden name), and featured guest contributions by Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood.[3]
It includes two singles that reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How", peaking at numbers 10 and 30, respectively. The album peaked at number 26 and spent 23 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart.[4] In the UK, it reached number 58 on the UK Albums Chart.
Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie recorded a solo album titled Christine Perfect in 1970. However, she later expressed a strong dislike for her debut album,[5] and explained that she did not intend to launch that "first, disastrous solo career," arguing that she was "very immature emotionally", was not "at all ready for it", and that she did not feel "artistically together" until she joined Fleetwood Mac.[6]
Many of McVie's bandmates —Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood— had already begun working on their solo careers since 1980, after the end of the Tusk Tour.[7] She later admitted that she had wanted to record a solo album for a long time, but felt "nervous about it".[8] McVie explained that she was not ready when "everybody else was doing it", did not want "that kind of pressure or responsibility", and that she was "insecure" about her material,[9] but added: "After all, I'd been so used to being a fifth of a band, and suddenly it had reached a point where this record was expected of me."
It was not until the end of the promotional tour for Mirage, when the band went on hiatus to keep working on their separate projects, that McVie contemplated recording what she considered to be her first "real" solo album.[10] She explained that, at first, touring with Fleetwood Mac had left her "shattered", making her want to "spend time at home," fixing up her house, and getting to know her dogs again. However, she "inevitably" got bored and "started spending more time in the music room", as she was "ready for something adventurous, like stepping out the front door."[11]
As a result, on 5 February 1983, Christine McVie revealed that she was assembling songs for a solo album, with the intention of releasing it by Christmas. Although McVie had previously produced one of Robbie Patton's solo albums, she still felt unprepared to tackle the responsibility on her own album, and hired Russ Titelman as producer.[12] McVie did not expect the recording sessions to begin until June 1983, as Titelman was occupied working on Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones during the first half of the year. She met guitarist Todd Sharp a few years prior, when he was playing with Bob Welch, and established an important songwriting partnership with him on the upcoming album.
Although McVie was known for writing songs alone during her time with Fleetwood Mac, she chose to collaborate with a variety of co-writers for her solo album.[13] She explained that an entire record of her own songs might become "tiresome"[14] and emphasized that it was more important to her that "the content be exciting and innovative than it just be… mine." As a result, she co-wrote half of the album's songs with guitarist Todd Sharp, who also contributed three other tracks. Reflecting on the experience, she said:
"It was fun co-writing with someone. I knew that Todd Sharp was the guitar player I wanted, but I wasn't aware when I made that decision that I might do as much writing with him as I actually did. We are very compatible writers, and I think the songs are refreshing. To me, it's an exciting record even bearing in mind that it's just me singing throughout it."The album's two main singles, "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How" were written by McVie and Sharp. McVie later revealed that "Got a Hold on Me" was totally fictional, saying: "at the time I wrote it no one did have a hold on me." Music videos were made for both of the singles: the one for "Got a Hold on Me" was filmed in a studio in London, produced by Jon Roseman and directed by Mike Brady,[15] while the one for "Love Will Show Us How" featured Paul Bartel as a "symbolism-crazed director."
The majority of the album was recorded in Montreux, Switzerland, over the span of three months with additional work taking place in the UK. After two weeks of initial recording in Switzerland, the band took a brief break while McVie worked on lyrics. She subsequently contacted Steve Winwood and asked him to collaborate on a song, to which he agreed.[16] She traveled to his home studio in Gloucester, where they worked on what became "Ask Anybody". McVie later recalled:
"At first, we were both very edgy and nervous about working together so we went down to the pub and socked back a few pints, and then we went to his studio. The song really came easily. We just got about six different ideas together and chose the best one."McVie ended up staying in Gloucester for over a week and asked Mick Fleetwood to play drums on the track.[17] She wrote some of the lyrics to "Ask Anybody" three years prior, about her relationship with Dennis Wilson, but the song lacked a melody. In his studio, Winwood "found just the right ambiance, the right vibes, for the words."[18] A second recording session was later arranged, during which Winwood added keyboards and sang on the chorus, while McVie and Sharp worked on additional vocals. Winwood showed interest in singing in "One in a Million", and took the second verse at McVie's suggestion. Although the song was not initially conceived as a duet, McVie felt "it worked out really nicely." During this session, Winwood also recorded Prophet synthesizer for "The Smile I Live For", McVie's sole solo composition on the album, written in Montreux during the break between sessions.[19]
McVie asked Eric Clapton to play guitar on "The Challenge", a song, according to McVie, "about life and remorse and rejection."[20] Clapton recorded his guitar part in roughly an hour, and Ray Cooper came into the studio the day after to overdub percussion. McVie had to miss the session and was unable to meet him.
Both Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie visited Montreux when the album was being recorded. John was on vacation with his family and did not play on the album since all bass parts were already completed. Buckingham, meanwhile, was in London seeking a producer for his upcoming Go Insane album, and accepted McVie's invitation to visit the studio. Unable to resist getting involved, he contributed guitar and vocal parts, including a solo on "The Smile I Live For" and harmonies on "Who's Dreaming This Dream".
Danny Douma, who had opened for Fleetwood Mac during the Tusk Tour,[21] came up with the title of "Who's Dreaming This Dream", which he co-wrote with Sharp. "I'm the One" was solely written by Sharp and presented to McVie, who agreed to record the song. Sharp recalled that she "really liked it and was very encouraging to me at that time with my writing". He also co-wrote "So Excited", with McVie and future Fleetwood Mac member Billy Burnette, a track which featured guitar work by Buckingham.
The album was ultimately mixed in New York City, which took around two weeks.
An MTV Christine McVie Special was broadcast in January 1984 which, as a presentation, took a "behind-the-scenes look at the recording of Christine McVie's solo album."[22]
"Too Much is Not Enough", was recorded as a studio jam during the recording sessions, but was not ultimately included in the album.[23] McVie explained that, although it was a "really good and raunchy rock and roll" track, she was not satisfied with the vocals. She added that, if she had re-recorded it, she might have considered releasing it as a B-side. No other unused songs were recorded, as McVie said: "We didn't over-record like some bands do - we were very compact."
"Too Much is Not Enough" was performed in some of the live shows from her 1984 tour.[24] Jeremy Spangler of Deseret News described it as "exciting" and thought that it was a "promising indication that more traditional McVie love songs may be soon forthcoming."
Christine McVie was released in 28 January 1984, and was promoted with two top 40 singles "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How", which peaked at numbers 10 and 30, respectively, in the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[25]
The album was reissued and digitally remastered in 1997 as part of the promotion for Fleetwood Mac's The Dance album and its accompanying North American tour.[26] For what would have been McVie's 80th birthday on 12 July 2023, Rhino Entertainment unveiled their plan to re-release her two first solo albums later that year.[27] [28] As a result, on November 3rd, a remastered version of Christine McVie was issued on CD and LP, including a cola-bottle clear vinyl version.
The album's cover photograph was taken two hours away from London, in Wiltshire (a county partly famous for Stonehenge). McVie remembered that the place looked "gorgeous" but that it "was so cold that the frost was about an inch thick on the trees." The group had to be there at six in the morning and wait for the optimal lighting, which did not happen until three in the afternoon. That day, studio shots were also done for the single sleeves.
Jeanette Leech of Dig! commented that the length of the photo-shoot was a "good metaphor" for the album, as it was "the product of a patient artist waiting for the perfect time."
McVie did not initially intend to tour, but changed her mind when work on Fleetwood Mac continued to be put on hold by other members' solo work. She assembled a live band with some of her collaborators from the album, that consisted of: Todd Sharp on guitars, Steve Ferrone on drums, George Hawkins on bass, and Stephen Brunton on rhythm guitars,[29] [30] along with guitarist Billy Burnette and McVie's then-boyfriend and keyboardist, Eddy Quintela.
The tour took place between April and June of 1984, scheduled with 34 stops, and featured The Baxter Robinson as the opening act.[31] The setlist included all but one of the songs from Christine McVie in addition to some of her Fleetwood Mac favorites, featuring "deep cuts" like "Just Crazy Love" (from 1973's Mystery to Me) and "Spare Me a Little of Your Love" (from 1972's Bare Trees). An unreleased track from the recording sessions, "Too Much Is Not Enough", was also sometimes performed.Talking about the tour, McVie commented that it was "very different" from the Fleetwood Mac ones, stating:
"It's a lot smaller scale. We're not doing the limousine treatment this time around. This is something I haven't done in a while, playing in small places. This is a bit like the old days, actually. It's quite fun to do. However, it's nothing I'd take on as a career."[32]
In December 1983, an MTV concert featuring Christine McVie was recorded at the Los Angeles Country Club.[33] This marked the first time, since joining Fleetwood Mac, that she performed as a solo artist and with her own band, and it primarily showcased material from her then upcoming album. Attendance at the event was by invitation only, and a large portion of the tickets were given away through a local MTV contest. The recorded concert aired on 28 January 1984.
On 11 February 1984, Billboard commented that while Christine McVie "inevitably" shared Fleetwood Mac's "current melodic thrust," the material and musicians opened up a "persuasive platform".[34] The magazine highlighted how McVie flexed "her R&B muscles" on "One in a Million", simmered "midtempo blues rock", and delivered "several sweetly moody ballads." The next day, Stephen Holden of The New York Times argued that since McVie's "charm lies in her beguilingly enigmatic calm", her debut album as a "solo rock star" fell "flat" in comparison to Stevie Nicks' career.[35] He found "So Excited" to be the energetic high point of the album, but thought it was due to Titelman's production rather than McVie's "friendly understated singing." Furthermore, he considered the "blandness" of the songs to be a key problem of the album, which "describing typical cat-and-mouse romantic games in the terse, cliched vocabulary of late 70's Los Angeles pop", did not let McVie "meditate quietly in acoustic folk-blues settings." On February 26, Rick Shefchik of the Lexington Herald-Leader gave the album a 9 rating, writing that its songs were "every bit as catchy" as anything Fleetwood Mac had recorded and that McVie's "romantic moods" were not "constantly interrupted" in it, as collaborator Todd Sharp seemed to share her "sturdy" songwriting style.[36]
The next month, on March 15, Don Shewey of Rolling Stone gave the album a two-star rating, arguing that a "long, uninterrupted stretch" of McVie singing solo tended to get "pretty boring."[37] Shewey thought her voice was "limited" in range and expressiveness and found that in the record a "rather mundane, midtempo" love song gave way to another. He concluded by saying that the "sameness" of the material and of McVie's singing drove the record into a "very dull rut." A few days later, People gave the album a B, writing that there was a "loose, good-time feeling" to it, with "tunes that are snappy and full of rhythmic rock and roll hooks."[38] However, they commented that the "subtle harmonic skills" that made McVie a "peerless ensemble singer and musician" with Fleetwood Mac did not necessarily translate into a solo act. The magazine selected "One in a Million" as the album's "most striking track" and found that, at times, her singing was "colorless" and her keyboard work was "overshadowed by her sidemen."
John Swenson of Creem wrote in May of that year that the album was less of a departure from McVie's "current day job than her first record was from Chicken Shack."[39] Swenson described McVie's songs as "eloquent and personal an account of her love life" as Joni Mitchell's, but without the "unseemly exhibitionism." In relation to Steve Winwood's contributions, he said that the "opus-de-funk" "One in a Million" was a "dramatic vocal trade-off" between McVie and Winwood that "reminds you just how good a blues singer Christine is", and argued that "Ask Anybody" was McVie's "most moving vocal performance on the record" because her "gentler, introspective tone" was supported "superbly" by Winwood's "brilliantly understated" keyboard and backing vocals. He concluded by stating that Christine McVie was "the finest Fleetwood Mac spinoff solo album yet."
Music journalist Robert Christgau gave the album a B+, describing the songs as "unimpeachably sensible and unfailingly pleasant" and saying that, except for "The Smile I Live For", they pace "proudly by in full confidence" and "set you humming."[40] He agreed that the "proceedings" were "somnolent", but argued that it was because the "deep satisfactions" of McVie's voice were better appreciated in the company of "brighter and flightier" ones and on a "drummer who isn't Mick and a bassist who isn't John."
In general, the album received mixed reviews from critics upon its release. McVie addressed these criticisms in a 1987 interview with Larry Katz, saying:
A lot of people suspected it [sounded] more like Fleetwood Mac than Fleetwood Mac. I couldn't understand for the life of me why that would be so wrong since I felt that I contributed a lot of the hit songs. Part of Fleetwood Mac's sound was mine.[41]In a retrospective review, AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Christine McVie "a collection of soft rock/pop and ballads that are pleasantly melodic and ingratiating."[42] However, he commented that the album suffered a "rather predictable fate" since it was a "little too sweet and laid-back to be consumed in one sitting" and thought that its songs would sound better if they were balanced by Buckingham's "insular, paranoid genius" and Nicks' "hippie-folk mysticism."
Adapted from the album's liner notes.
The Band
Additional musicians
Production
| Peak position | ||
| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[43] | 67 | |
|---|---|---|
| Canadian Albums (RPM)[44] | 39 | |
| Dutch Albums Chart[45] | 49 | |
| Swedish Albums Chart[46] | 19 | |
| Swiss Albums Chart[47] | 25 | |
| UK Albums Chart[48] | 58 | |
| US Billboard 200[49] | 26 |