Christine McVie (album)

Christine McVie
Cover of Christine McVie's 1984 album, showing McVie sitting behind a piano at the top of a green, grassy hill, looking to the right, toward the horizon
Studio album by
ReleasedJanuary 1984
Recorded1983
Studio
Genre
Length43:48
LabelWarner Bros.
ProducerRuss Titelman
Christine McVie chronology
Christine Perfect
(1970)
Christine McVie
(1984)
In the Meantime
(2004)
Singles from Christine McVie
  1. "Got a Hold on Me"
    Released: January 1984 (1984-01)[1]
  2. "Love Will Show Us How"
    Released: May 1984 (1984-05)[1]
  3. "I'm the One"
    Released: July 1984 (1984-07)[1]

Christine McVie is the second solo album by the English musician, singer, and songwriter Christine McVie, released in January 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.[2][3] It was McVie's first solo effort in over a decade, following her 1970 self-titled album that was issued under her maiden name.[4] The album features guest appearances by Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Ray Cooper, and Fleetwood Mac bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood.[4][5]

Christine McVie produced two singles that reached the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How", which peaked at numbers 10 and 30, respectively.[6] "Got a Hold on Me" also spent 4 weeks at number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.[6] The album itself spent 23 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, peaking at number 26,[6] and reached No. 58 in the UK.[7]

The recording process spanned three months, with the majority of it taking place in Montreux, Switzerland.[5] McVie collaborated closely with guitarist Todd Sharp to write much of the album's material.[5][8] She enlisted Sharp, along with bassist George Hawkins and drummer Steve Ferrone, to form part of her backing band for the record.[5][8]

To support the album, McVie embarked on a three-month tour between April and June of 1984,[9] where she performed much of the new material alongside select Fleetwood Mac favorites.[4] The live band featured Sharp, Hawkins, and Ferrone, as well as keyboardist Eddy Quintela, McVie's then-boyfriend, and guitarist Stephen Bruton.[9][10]

Background

Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie had recorded a solo album titled Christine Perfect in 1970.[4] However, she later expressed a strong dislike for it,[11] arguing that she was "very immature emotionally"[4] and did not feel "artistically together" until she joined the band.[12] After the Tusk Tour ended in 1980, many of the members of Fleetwood Mac began working on their solo careers.[13] McVie later explained that she was not ready when "everybody else was doing it", did not want "that kind of pressure or responsibility", and was "insecure" about her material.[14] It was only after the promotional tour for Mirage concluded, when the band went on hiatus, that McVie considered recording what she regarded as her first "real" solo album.[15][16] Even though touring had left her "shattered" and made her want to "spend time at home,"[16] McVie "inevitably" got bored and "started spending more time in the music room".[5] She also explained that it "had reached a point where [a] record was expected of [her]."[17]

As a result, McVie began gathering material for a solo album and announced her plans to release it by Christmas in February 1983.[15] McVie started working on the project with guitarist and friend Todd Sharp,[8] informing him that the album was a contractual obligation and asking for his help in co-writing the material and assembling a backing band.[18]: 36:16–36:40  Despite previously producing one of Robbie Patton's albums, McVie still felt unprepared to tackle that responsibility on her own and hired Russ Titelman as her producer,[19] explaining that "really [liked] him as a person" and trusted "his decision-making process."[20] McVie did not expect the recording sessions to begin until June 1983, as Titelman was busy working on Paul Simon's Hearts and Bones.[12][15]

For the band, McVie proceeded to recruit George Hawkins as the bassist, since the guitar player, Sharp, had already been chosen.[8] Hawkins had previously played bass on Lindsey Buckingham's song "Trouble", and had also worked with Sharp on some of Mick Fleetwood's solo albums, including The Visitor in 1981.[21][22] The original plan was to complete the line-up with Tris Imboden on drums, but Imboden had other commitments.[23]: 4:23–4:43  At the recommendation of Titelman, they ultimately selected Steve Ferrone as the drummer,[24]: 33:54–34:20  becoming the final member of the band. Ferrone had previously worked with Titelman at a Paul Simon recording session in New York City,[8] and had recently left the Average White Band.[24]: 33:55–34:31  Although Sharp and McVie were initially worried that Ferrone's playing was too "slick" and "upscale" for the project, they changed their minds after running through a few songs with him in his studio.[8][18]: 37:33–38:02 

Recording

The majority of the album was recorded at Mountain Studios, where McVie had asked her manager, John Courage, to book her.[3] Located in Montreux, Switzerland, the studio was at the time owned by Queen and operated by engineer David Richards,[3] who had been highly recommended by Arif Mardin.[20] Richards was also in charge of recording the town's famous Jazz Festival.[3]

A daytime view of mostly brown-roofed buildings and a railway near the shores of Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland
Most of the album was recorded in Montreux, a Swiss town located next to Lake Geneva, at the base of the Alps.

McVie and her collaborators entered Mountain Studios on 26 July 1983, planning to stay there for six weeks to cut basic tracks.[8] Having already done "eight songs in ten days", they decided to "forge ahead and stay there to finish the record."[8] This efficiency was largely due to the significant amount of preliminary work that McVie and Sharp had done before traveling to Switzerland,[5] which included the recording of a series of demos on a Teac four-track machine in McVie's music room.[25] Sharp later commented that they "breezed through the record" as a result of their preparations,[24]: 34:37–34:43  and that they did most of it in three weeks.[18]: 38:07–38:21 

The album was recorded over a span of three months, with additional work taking place in the UK.[5][20] Mountain Recording Studio was a multi-purpose building that contained, among other things, a casino and a coffee shop.[20] Basic tracking took place in a large hall where the Montreux Jazz Festival was held.[20] The drums were positioned in the center of the room, which resulted in some "great live drum sounds", according to McVie.[20] At some point during their time in the studio, Sharp's Fender Stratocaster was stolen, which was the only item that went missing even though the facility housed "expensive microphones" and other valuable gear.[24]: 38:55–39:10 

Following two weeks of initial recording in Switzerland, the band took a brief break while McVie fleshed out some lyrics.[26] Around this time, McVie reached out to Steve Winwood and he agreed to collaborate on a song with her.[26][9] She and Sharp traveled to his home studio in Gloucester, where they spent ten days working on what became "Ask Anybody".[20][24]: 36:07–36:20  McVie also invited Mick Fleetwood to come over and play drums on the track.[9][27] This was the only song on the album not tracked live; instead, Fleetwood overdubbed some tom-toms over a LinnDrum pattern, which he then replaced with full drums.[8] Due to time constraints, a second session with Winwood was later arranged, during which he added keyboards to "Ask Anybody", while McVie and Sharp worked on additional background vocals for the song.[20] Winwood also expressed interest in singing on "One in a Million", and at McVie's suggestion, took the second verse.[20] Although the song was not initially conceived as a duet, McVie felt "it worked out really nicely."[9] Aditionally, Winwood contributed Prophet synthesizer fills to "The Smile I Live For".[20]

Eric Clapton on guitar and Steve Winwood on keyboards performing together on stage
Both Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood made contributions to the album.

After the first session with Winwood, McVie and Sharp traveled to London, where they spent an afternoon at Olympic Studios working with Eric Clapton.[26][24]: 36:32–38:00  Clapton listened to the album and ended up doing the guitar solo on "The Challenge", which McVie thought was "the perfect song for him to play on."[20][26] In about an hour,[26] he recorded three takes using his Blackie Fender Stratocaster connected to a Tweed Twin amplifier.[18]: 45:01–45:25 [24]: 37:09–38:00  During one of the takes, Sharp went to the lounge to give Clapton space to work and saw James Taylor, who had "dropped in for a visit."[26][24]: 40:24–41:12  They spoke for around 45 minutes, but Taylor did not end up contributing to the album.[26][24]: 41:13–41:42 

The next day, Ray Cooper, known for his work with Elton John, came into the studio to overdub percussion.[26] McVie missed the session due to a prior commitment and was unable to meet him.[20] Sharp said Cooper was "brilliant" and later recalled trying not to get distracted by Cooper's "animated" tambourine playing, in order to catch any potential timing errors with the percussion overdubs.[24]: 42:29–42:54 

Both Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie visited Montreux when the album was being recorded.[9] John, who was on vacation with his family, did not play on the album as all bass parts had already been completed.[9] Buckingham was in London in search of a producer for his upcoming Go Insane album, and accepted McVie's invitation to visit the studio.[9] She wanted him to "hear everything" and although she invited him for a vacation, he "couldn't stay away from the studio".[9] He ended up contributing guitar and vocal parts,[9] including a solo on "The Smile I Live For" and harmonies on "Who's Dreaming This Dream".[20]

The album was finally mixed in New York City by Elliot Scheiner and producer Russ Titelman, a process that took approximately two weeks.[20][26]

Writing and composition

It was not until Mirage that McVie began collaborating with other songwriters on her compositions,[20] as her previous work had mostly been written solo.[5][28] She chose to continue this approach for her solo album, believing that it gave her writing a different direction and seemed to "lift" her out of her insecurities.[20] Aditionally, McVie felt that an entire record of her own songs might have become "tiresome",[20] and explained that it was more important to her for the content to be "exciting and innovative" than for it to simply be hers.[5] Therefore, she co-wrote half of the album's tracks with guitarist Todd Sharp, who also contributed three additional songs.[4] McVie later remarked that it was "fun co-writing with someone" and that she found the songs "refreshing."[20]

"I felt that I needed an injection of freshness from another writer to make this a good, flowing, easy-to-listen-to album. So I elected to write with a very good friend of mine, Todd Sharp. The combination of the keyboard and guitar writing together was interesting. We're very compatible as writers."

Christine McVie, on her songwriting approach for the album.[8]

A product of this collaboration was the album's lead single, "Got a Hold on Me", which McVie later revealed was totally fictional, as at the time she wrote it "no one did have a hold on [her]."[5] Sharp mentioned that McVie already had a verse going for the song,[26] and explained that it was written in pieces, coming together in about half an hour.[29] "Love Will Show Us How", the album's second single, was developed from a demo tape on which McVie and her ex-husband John McVie had recorded a riff that featured piano and bass.[30]: 8:55–9:16  She and Sharp spent an entire night working on the music and wrote the lyrics the night after.[30]: 9:16–9:23  Sharp later recalled that the song began "very acoustic and soft" and that, when writing, McVie "started it with her verse."[26]

In regards to her collaborations with Steve Winwood, McVie later explained that some of the lyrics for "Ask Anybody" ("He's a devil and an angel / Ooh the combination's driving me wild") had been written three years earlier, inspired by her relationship with Dennis Wilson.[5] She also recalled that the track "really came easily" and that they "got about six different ideas together and chose the best one."[5] The song lacked a melody, but Winwood "found just the right ambiance, the right vibes, for the words."[31] "One in a Million", in which McVie and Winwood share lead vocals, started out from a "guitar riff and drum groove",[26] though it was not conceived as a duet when Sharp and McVie wrote it.[9]

McVie's other co-writing credit with Sharp, "The Challenge" was, according to her, a song "about life and remorse and rejection."[32] She named it after John McVie's boat,[20] and Sharp recalled that when they began working on it, McVie already had several parts "flushed out".[26] She wanted Eric Clapton to perform the guitar solo on the track, as he and John had played together in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, and she considered it "a nice connection."[20]

"Who's Dreaming This Dream" was written by Sharp along with Danny Douma,[26] with whom McVie had previously worked while recording Tusk[29] and who had also opened for Fleetwood Mac during that album's supporting tour.[33] Douma came up with the song's title and asked Sharp to get "something started" with it, which led Sharp to write the song's first two lines: "If you thought that I didn't care no more / What am I dreaming for?".[26] Regarding Lindsey Buckingham's and McVie's vocals on the track, Sharp noted that Russ Titelman arranged "who did what and where".[34] For "Keeping Secrets", Sharp collaborated with Alan Pasqua, whom he first met while doing session work.[35] Pasqua explained that, at the time, he "tried to write with as many people as he could" and thought Sharp had an "interesting" voice and a "great pop sensibility."[35] After completing the song, Sharp presented it to McVie, who liked it and agreed to record it.[35]

Sharp wrote "I'm the One" on his own and played a demo of it for McVie, who, to his surprise, expressed interest in recording it for the album.[26] Sharp later said: "she really liked it and was very encouraging to me at that time with my writing".[26] The album's third track, "So Excited", was co-written by Sharp and McVie with future Fleetwood Mac member Billy Burnette and featured guitar work by Buckingham.[4] They worked on the song at McVie's while recording demos for the album.[30]: 49:47–50:13  Burnette was unable to attend the recording session, but thought that the song "came out great".[30]: 45:41–45:57 

McVie's only solo composition on the album, "The Smile I Live For",[5] was written in Montreux during the break between the two sessions with Winwood.[26]

Outtakes

In the album's documentary, before the album had finished being recorded, Sharp mentioned that he, McVie and other collaborators came together to make a list of the songs they had written.[30]: 13:45–13:52  Although they counted "sixteen or seventeen or so", some were "disqualified ... for one reason or the other".[30]: 13:53–14:02 

The only official outtake from the recording sessions was "Too Much is Not Enough",[12][5] a studio jam written by the entire band during rehearsals.[30]: 18:36–19:00  Hawkins recalled that the group wanted to create "something rocky", so Ferrone started playing a beat, and the rest of band "fell in".[30]: 18:57–19:12  McVie later explained that, even though it was a "really good and raunchy rock and roll track," she was not satisfied with the vocals.[5] She suggested that the song might have been released as a B-side if she had decided to re-record it.[5] McVie also confirmed that no other unused tracks were recorded, saying: "We didn't over-record like some bands do; we were very compact."[5]

An instrumental version of "Too Much is Not Enough" was included in the album's MTV documentary.[30]: 19:37–26:36  The song was also performed in some of the live shows from her 1984 tour.[36] Jerry Spangler of Deseret News described it as "exciting" and thought that it was a "promising indication that more traditional McVie love songs may soon be forthcoming."[36]

Album cover

Artist Larry Vigon, who had previously worked with Fleetwood Mac on the cover designs for Rumours and Tusk,[37] was put in charge of the album's art direction and design.[30]: 31:05–31:09  He was responsible for choosing the photographer and getting an image that suited "the musical feel of the album."[30]: 31:10–31:22  The original concept for the cover art was a photo of a piano with some of its keys flying off.[30]: 31:34–31:38  Vigon and Jeff Ayeroff, who was Warner Bros. Records' creative director at the time,[30] showed McVie Brian Griffin's photography portfolio, which she "loved".[30]: 31:39–31:47 

McVie was particularly drawn to one of Griffin's landscape shots, which featured a person in "the fields", and decided that she wanted the album's cover image to be taken outdoors.[30]: 31:47–32:00  The team agreed and Ayeroff suggested that they take "the piano out in the field".[30]: 32:01–32:12  During the photo-shoot at the chosen location, it was found that the flying piano keys looked "really silly", as the setting was too "peaceful".[30]: 32:14–32:38  They decided to repurpose the idea and use it for the single sleeve of "Got a Hold on Me" instead.[30]: 32:20–32:29 

A view from Milk Hill in Wiltshire, showing small, grassy hills under a clear sky
A view of Milk Hill in Wiltshire. The album's cover photo was taken in a similar setting.

The photograph for the album's cover was taken two hours outside of London, in Wiltshire.[20] McVie remembered that the place looked "gorgeous", but that it "was so cold that the frost was about an inch thick on the trees."[20] The group arrived at six in the morning and, in order to capture the optimal lighting, waited until three in the afternoon to take the photo.[20]

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."[12]

Release and promotion

Christine McVie was released in January 1984 on LP, CD and cassette formats.[3][1] Fleetwood Mac's lawyer, Mickey Shapiro, who had recently worked on the band's concert project for HBO, helped schedule and coordinate the album's release between the airing of two MTV specials.[38][39]

The first special was broadcast on 22 January 1984 and consisted of a documentary that offered a "behind-the-scenes look" at the recording of the album.[40][41] Filmed in Montreux, it featured interviews, studio footage and other content from the recording sessions.[42][30] The second special, aired on January 28, showcased McVie's "world premiere concert" at the Los Angeles Country Club.[43][44][45] The show, taped in December 1983, marked McVie's first performance as a solo artist since joining Fleetwood Mac.[44][45] It primarily featured material from the album and included the appearance of Mick Fleetwood and Billy Burnette.[43][46] Attendance to the event was by invitation only, with large portion of the tickets given away through a local MTV contest.[43]

Around the time of the album's release, a 7-inch flexi disc containing excerpts of "Love Will Show Us How", "Got a Hold on Me", "So Excited", and "The Smile I Live For" was distributed for promotional use.[47] A few months later, on 5 July 1984, a video version of the album, titled Christine McVie: The Video Album, was released by Vestron Music Video on VHS, Betamax and CED formats.[46][48][49][50] The hour-long video included the 1983 Country Club concert performance, as well as the music videos for "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How".[46] A LaserDisc version of the album, released by Pioneer Artists, was also available.[51][52] It featured shortened versions of the MTV specials, with the documentary on side one and the concert special on side two.[52][53]

McVie also promoted the album with a series of television performances. She was a guest on Solid Gold and Solid Gold Hits,[54][55] where she performed "So Excited" and "Love Will Show Us How", respectively.[56][57] McVie also appeared on American Bandstand, where she was interviewed by Dick Clark and performed "Got a Hold on Me" and "Love Will Show Us How".[58][59][60] Additionally, she made an appearance on Entertainment Tonight to discuss the album.[61]

Singles

Christine McVie was promoted with three singles. The lead single, "Got a Hold on Me", was released in January 1984,[1] peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending four weeks at number 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.[6] The second single, "Love Will Show Us How", followed in May[1] and reached number 30 on the Hot 100 chart.[6] The album's final single, "I'm the One", was released in July, but failed to chart.[1] Billboard described it as a "punchy, percussive tune" that expressed interpersonal dissatisfaction.[62] Additionally, in February 1984, "One in a Million" reached the top thirty on the Mainstream Rock chart.[63]

Music videos were made for the album's first two singles. The one for "Got a Hold on Me" was filmed in London,[5] produced by Jon Roseman and directed by Mike Brady.[43] Larry Vigon, who also worked on the album's cover design, served as the video's creative consultant, responsible for developing its concept and ensuring that "things didn't go astray from the original idea."[30]: 32:58–33:11  Since the song did not suggest any visual storytelling, Vigon explained that they decided to make a "performance situation" that was connected to the music and vocals by showing "people in the background doing all the background parts."[30]: 33:12–33:47 

The video for "Love Will Show Us How" was directed by Allan Arkush[64][65] and featured Paul Bartel as a "symbolism-crazed director."[14] For the video, Sharp was raised on a lift about 30 feet off the ground and given an explosive guitar loaded with a flashpot.[26] He recalled timing the guitar's throw with the pyrotechnics specialist to ensure that he would not get burned when the charge was set off.[26] Sharp also noted that both a medic and a fire marshal were present during filming.[26] Due to his fear of heights and explosions, Sharp had an overall negative experience with the filming of the video.[26]

Reissues

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.[66] In 2022, remixes of "The Challenge" and "Ask Anybody" were included on McVie's Songbird (A Solo Collection).[32][67] On 12 July 2023, for what would have been McVie's 80th birthday, Rhino Entertainment announced their plans to re-release Christine McVie and In the Meantime later that year.[68][69] Subsequently, on November 3rd, a remastered version of Christine McVie was issued on CD, LP, and a cola-bottle clear vinyl edition.[68][69]

Tour

Christine McVie and her touring band posing together on stage, with a giant wave-shaped piano-key prop in the background. McVie is in the middle, surrounded by band members
The Christine McVie band, from the 1984 tour that accompanied the album. Todd Sharp later named as many people as he remembered from the photograph in a 2000 Q&A session.[70]

McVie did not initially intend to tour, but changed her mind when work with Fleetwood Mac continued to be delayed by other members' solo work.[4][16] She assembled a five-piece live band that included three collaborators from the album: guitarist Todd Sharp, drummer Steve Ferrone, and bassist George Hawkins.[10] Eddy Quintela, McVie's then-boyfriend, whom she had met while recording the album in Montreux, was brought in as an additional keyboardist.[9][10] He was added to give McVie more freedom onstage,[9] allowing her to "get out from behind the boards more and be a front person".[71]

In March 1984, McVie announced that, in addition to Quintela, she would also add guitarist Billy Burnette, with whom she had written a song on the album, as a member of the touring band.[5] However, since Burnette had other obligations at the time, Stephen Bruton was chosen to play rhythm guitar on the tour instead, completing the main lineup.[10][72][23]: 1:52–2:03  Sharp and Hawkins had previously worked with Bruton in a band called The Lucky Dogs, which they had formed the early '80s.[23]: 3:00–3:50  The inclusion of both Quintela and Bruton was done to help "fill out the sound".[9]

Christine McVie's solo concert tour took place between April and June 1984, with 34 dates scheduled.[9][73] It featured Baxter Robinson, a "five-piece Los Angeles-based rock group with a good beat",[72] as the opening act.[36][74] The setlist consisted of nearly all the songs from Christine McVie, along with some of her Fleetwood Mac "favorites", featuring tracks like "Just Crazy Love" (from 1973's Mystery to Me) and "Spare Me a Little of Your Love" (from 1972's Bare Trees).[4][75] Other songs occasionally performed included "Too Much Is Not Enough", an unreleased track from the recording sessions,[36] and "Guitar Bug", described as a "bouncy rocker a la Chuck Berry"[72] that was written by Sharp and Burnette.[76][74] At some shows, the band performed with a hanging stage prop that consisted of "huge piano keys bent into a slithering snake shape".[75] Ken Tucker of The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote that the "slinky" keys looked like they "had just slid off a piano and were about to slip off into space", and described them as an "apt metaphor for McVie's sinuous music".[75]

The tour also saw occasional guest appearances. In June, the band's show in Los Angeles, at the Universal Amphitheatre, included a surprise appearance by Mick Fleetwood, though he did not perform.[74] The previous month, McVie and her band performed at the Eisenhower Hall Theatre in West Point, New York, in a special two-hour concert alongside comedian Joe Piscopo, who was then a cast member on Saturday Night Live.[77] Lindsey Buckingham, who played on the album, also attended one of her shows as an audience member, but expressed disappointment with the performance.[78] He felt that it came close to being a "lounge act" because McVie was "resting so heavily on "Fleetwood Mac's laurels."[78]

Reflecting on the tour in June 1984, McVie commented that it was "very different" from the ones she did with Fleetwood Mac, saying:

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.[16]

By 1987, she ruled out the possibility of doing another solo tour. In an interview with BAM, McVie explained that she did not "enjoy the pressure of being the only one up there who everybody looks to for leadership".[79] She instead stated her preference of prioritising Fleetwood Mac, adding that she was "never too keen on the solo thing".[79]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[80]
PeopleB[81]
Rolling Stone[82]
Robert ChristgauB+[83]
Sounds[84]
Knight Ridder9/10[85]

On 11 February 1984, Billboard wrote that while Christine McVie "inevitably" shared Fleetwood Mac's "current melodic thrust," the material and musicians opened up a "persuasive platform" in which McVie "simmered midtempo blues rock", and delivered "several sweetly moody ballads."[86]

The next day, Stephen Holden of The New York Times argued McVie's debut album as a "solo rock star" fell "somewhat flat", as her charm rested on "her beguilingly enigmatic calm," and identified the "blandness" of the songs as one of its key problems.[87] Kristine McKenna of Los Angeles Times wrote a week later that the album was "profoundly pretty" and sounded "exactly" like Fleetwood Mac, due in part to its "glossy production and smooth rhythms".[88] Although she found it "conceptually empty", she highlighted McVie's ability to infuse "mundane, moon/June cliches with a mystical quality."[88] On February 26, Knight-Ridder writer Rick Shefchik gave the album a 9/10, describing the songs as "every bit as catchy" as Fleetwood Mac's work and praising how McVie's "romantic moods" remained uninterrupted, thanks to collaborator Todd Sharp's similar "sturdy" songwriting style.[85]

The next month, on March 15, Rolling Stone's Don Shewey gave the album a two-star rating, arguing that a "long, uninterrupted stretch" of McVie singing tended to get "pretty boring", as her voice was "limited in both range and expressiveness."[82] He concluded that the "sameness" of both the material and McVie's vocals drove the record into a "very dull rut."[82] A few days later, People gave the album a B, writing that it had "loose, good-time feeling", praising its "snappy" tunes "full of rhythmic rock and roll hooks."[81] However, they noted that the "subtle harmonic skills" that made McVie a "peerless ensemble" artist with Fleetwood Mac did not "necessarily translate into a solo act." At times, they also found her singing "colorless" and her keyboard work "overshadowed by her sidemen."[81]

"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."

Christine McVie, addressing some of the album's criticisms in a 1987 interview with Larry Katz[89]

In May, John Swenson of Creem wrote that the album was less of a departure from Fleetwood Mac than McVie's "first record was from Chicken Shack."[90] He likened McVie's songs to Joni Mitchell's, describing them as "eloquent and personal" accounts of her love life, but without the "unseemly exhibitionism."[90] Swenson concluded by calling Christine McVie the "finest Fleetwood Mac spinoff solo album yet."[90] That month, Keith Tuber of Orange Coast magazine considered that the album was "nice" but "slightly disappointing" since it was neither "exciting," "outstanding," nor "exceptional."[91] He ended his review by stating that it was "basically background music."[91]

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."[83] 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".[83]

In a retrospective review, AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Christine McVie as a "collection of soft rock/pop and ballads that are pleasantly melodic and ingratiating."[80] However, he wrote that the album suffered a "rather predictable fate" as it was a "little too sweet and laid-back to be consumed in one sitting," and suggested that its best songs would have benefited from the balance brought by Buckingham and Nicks' work.[80]

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Love Will Show Us How"4:13
2."The Challenge"
  • McVie
  • Sharp
4:39
3."So Excited"
4:04
4."One in a Million" (duet with Steve Winwood)
  • McVie
  • Sharp
5:00
5."Ask Anybody"
  • McVie
  • Steve Winwood
5:26
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Got a Hold on Me"
  • McVie
  • Sharp
3:52
2."Who's Dreaming This Dream"
  • Sharp
  • Danny Douma
3:35
3."I'm the One"Sharp4:03
4."Keeping Secrets"3:32
5."The Smile I Live For"McVie5:05
Total length:43:48

Personnel

Adapted from the album's liner notes.

The Band

Additional musicians

Production

Charts

Chart performance for Christine McVie
Chart (1984) Peak
position
Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)[92] 67
Canadian Albums (RPM)[93] 39
Dutch Albums Chart[94] 49
Swedish Albums Chart[95][96] 19
Swiss Albums Chart[97] 25
UK Albums Chart[7] 58
US Billboard 200[6] 26
Chart (2023) Peak
position
Hungarian Physical Albums (MAHASZ)[98] 39

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