Tango in the Night Tracklist
Released in April 13, 1987, Tango In the Night is the fourteenth album by Fleetwood Mac and the fifth and final studio album by the famed “Rumours” era lineup of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. Tango In the Night is the band’s second-best-selling album behind Rumours and spawned several hits for the band (“Little Lies,” “Everywhere,” “Big Love,” “Seven Wonders”).
The album, however, had a complex origin. After Mirage, Fleetwood Mac had scattered as members pursued solo careers and tensions between the band were high after Stevie Nicks' solo career took off. Much of the material for Tango In the Night, was planned for a solo album Lindsey Buckingham was working on. Stevie Nicks only contributed vocals for three songs (“Seven Wonders,” “Welcome to the Room Sara,” and “When I See You Again”) due to her touring to promote her third solo album and was in the throes of alcohol addiction. As such, most of her songs were frankensteined from multiple recording sessions from the scant two-week period Nicks was with the band.
The album would be a smash hit, but would force a breaking point in the relationship between Buckingham and his bandmates. Bitter that he had sacrificed a hit solo record for the band, Buckingham quit the group when informed of his bandmates' intention to embark on a tour to capitalize on the album’s commercial success.
“Tango in the Night” Q&A
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What has producer Richard Dashut said about working on the album?
Dashut told Salon:
It wasn’t like Rumours or Mirage or Tusk, where I had to look over it and respond more to the performances and give instant feedback on an artistic level. With Tango, it was more… Lindsey [Buckingham] had such a grip on it, and had such a vision of what he wanted to do, that at that point, my job became just nurturing him — or enabling him to do what he needed to do. And then, of course, add to it what I could based around which direction I felt everything was going. […] It absolutely holds up upon listening. It’s probably one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac records, that and Tusk.
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What has engineer Greg Droman said about working on the album?
Droman told Salon:
We mixed in sections. We would mix a verse, and then stop and reset everything and figure out what we were doing on the chorus, do that, and piece it together. We would take easily a week to mix a song. Sometimes we’d mix a song and Lindsey [Buckingham] would think of another part he wanted to put on, and we’d start the whole thing all over again. [After recordings started glitching] we ended up putting the tapes in the refrigerator overnight. We tried everything, because we were freaking out. That was all we had; there was no backup or anything back then.
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Has the album received any RIAA certifications?
Yes! The RIAA certified the album as 3x Platinum in 2000, selling over 3 million units.
