Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac

The original is a seduction; this [album] is food-court flirtation.

The choice to even out the songs throughout Fleetwood Mac's existence is a good move, one that will surely inspire fans of the group's many different to get ahold of the collection of songs included on Just Tell Me That You Want Me.

If you don't already know the Mac, treat this as your way in. You won't be coming out in a hurry.

Wes Anderson's music guru Randall Poster produced this tribute with Gelya Robb, and it's as inspired as their 2011 LP Rave On Buddy Holly.

Where Just Tell Me is good, it's great, with these moments of greatness mostly coming from the elders on the compilation.

It all adds to the feeling that there's no particular point or guiding aesthetic here.

The tinkering these acts do with Fleetwood Mac's songs is mostly on the surface, making them sound either more electronic and alien or more old-fashioned and rootsy, without really illuminating them in any significant way.

Fleetwood Mac connected with listeners because their perfect songs enclosed personal imperfections--they created an illusion of glossy best-coast living, then punctured that illusion with brutal truth. Hardly anyone on Just Tell Me That You Want Me summons that friction.

A tribute album that does what all tribute albums should set out to do--offer original takes on a great band's songs, while reminding listeners what made that band great in the first place.

Just Tell Me That You Want Me falters due to mediocre renditions and some serious song selection issues.

The ones that hit the bull's eye vastly outweigh the shank shots. [17/24 Aug 2012, p.112]

Just Tell Me That You Want Me does suffer from the lack of coherency caused by the inclusion of so many different artists and styles but fortunately, when the subject and the songs are so good, this matters little.

Pleasant as the diversity is, the finished products are what you'd get from any modern tribute album. [Sep 2012, p.94]

Many cover choices are deft... though others like the Best Coast's bouncy take on Nicks' "Rhiannon" and Karen Elson's on-the-nose "Gold Dust Woman" are less revelatory. [No.91 p.61]

Few of the covers exceed the charms of the originals and a couple are a little too faithful, including Antony's lovely, heartfelt "Landslide." But the whole endeavor gets points for digging past the surface.

The last third of Just Tell Me That You Want Me is completely skippable, but at its best stretches, new obsessions complement those of the originals.

Just Tell Me presents 17 cover versions of differing quality which don't gel as a cohesive listen, but it's not without standout interpretations.

With nearly 80 minutes of music that will make you hear these 17 tunes in new ways, and in most cases drive you back to the originals to stare and compare, this is one of the few covers sets that pushes boundaries but still remains respectful to a classic band and its bulging catalog of timeless music.

While there are some lackluster renditions of Fleetwood Mac super-hits the gutsy reinventions of deeper tracks like "Silver Springs" (Lykke Li), "Straight Back" (Washed Out), "Storms" (Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney) and "That's All for Everyone" (Tame Impala) remind us of what set Fleetwood Mac apart from the beginning: stellar songwriting.