Behind the Mask

AMG Review of Behind the Mask

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Fleetwood Mac's only full-length album with a lineup of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Billy Burnette, and Rick Vito proved an artistic and commercial disappointment not so much because Lindsey Buckingham was missing as songwriter/guitarist/singer/ producer as because the group's other writers, Nicks and Christine McVie, didn't pick up the slack, relying on Burnette and Vito to come up with material. They tried: Burnette's "Hard Feelings," written with Jeff Silbar, was a worthy effort. But Nicks's four contributions (three of them co-written) weren't up to her usual standard, and while McVie proved more dependable, turning in the Top 40 pop hit "Save Me" and the Top Ten Adult Contemporary hit "Skies The Limit," her light, romantic efforts needed sturdier work to play off of. Behind The Mask was never less than pleasant, but never of the calibre of the work of the previous lineup, either. Though it went gold, it was Fleetwood Mac's least successful new album in 15 years.