Now, with the coming of a deluxe version of the album, it’s the right time to reassess Tusk as a major work in its own right. Stevie Nicks now had an open ticket to explore any planet or arcane myth which tickled her fancy, while Christine McVie held the middle ground with melodic dexterity. The latter mainly applies to Lindsey Buckingham’s wired creations, which often reach back to Buddy Holly and the raw untamed spirit of rock’n’roll. Tusk is in fact the only album Fleetwood Mac could have made after the success of Rumours their statement of disarray, drug-fuelled mania and personal visions, although often sweet as sugar or stripped down to bare, quivering bones. As a result, they came up with a less direct but, ultimately longer-lasting album, though cursed with such a legend subsequent generations may not give it a fair listen. It was indeed the right time to make a record with no commercial fences to constrain it and they decided to explore rather than replicate Rumours. De Mille movie, as each of the band’s three songwriters followed their personal muses and overfed noses.

Suddenly Fleetwood Mac were in the big league, so enjoyed it to the hilt as they forged their double album with the relish of new superstars and megalomaniac ambition of a Cecil B. The breakups so evocatively documented on that album had now solidified as a divided group, while the astronomical cocaine intake and certain sense of entitlement after years spent struggling also coloured the new album’s creation. Imagine the pressure the band were under when they entered LA’s Village Recorder in 1978 to try and follow the phenomenon that was Rumours (which itself had topped its breakthrough predecessor, Fleetwood Mac). Stevie Nicks at the LA Forum in December 1979 (Image credit: Getty Images)

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