The answer came in the form of a brilliant album which proved that all personal differences asides, these five people were meant to make music together. The album was a decidedly 80's sonic adventure - which I mean in a good way - and the production featured Fleetwood Mac at its most polished and gorgeous. It's obivous that Lindsey Buckingham gave the album its edge, and not just because of his guitar playing and top production skills : "Caroline" and the title track were particularly impressive, and the first single ("Big Love") was an instantly distinctive diversion from the mid-80's radio diet of Bon Jovi and Europe. Yet it's Christine McVie who unexpectedly turned out to be the album's strongest card, with beautiful vocal performances, strong keyboard arrangements, and most of all, great songs : "Little Lies" is one of the catchiest, most elegant pop songs of the 80's, while "Everywhere" was simply a gorgeous song that featured the Mac's trademark vocal harmonies as if it was still 1977. Her other songs were the hard-rocking, impressive "Isn't it midnight" - not your typical Christine McVie song at all, yet it became a favourite in their 1987-88 tour - and the sublime "Mystified", a longing ballad where Lindsey's production skills were at their best. There were even a couple of songwriting collaborations between McVie and Buckingham, most notably the album's ultra-melodic closer "You and I (part 2)". Those lucky enough to put their hands on "You and I (part 1)", not available on the album, discovered that it was just as brilliant, and should have been on the album too.

As for Stevie Nicks, her songs from this album have often been harshly criticized. All she got was three songs, and none of them are well-remembered today. For sure, there wasn't a "Landslide" or a "Gold Dust Woman" in the lot; however, it doesn't mean that they don't have any artistic merit - on the contrary. "Seven Wonders", the catchy second single, was a cool midtempo rocker where Stevie's voice was well complimented by the band's harmonies. "Welcome to the room... Sara" had to be understood in the context of her stint in rehab, and I always felt it was a highlight of the album. As for the touching "When I See You Again", Stevie wrote about some universal feelings of confusion, longing, and fear, best expressed through the line "If she sees him again / Will your very best friend / Have been replaced by some other ?". Her voice on that song was expressive, and it embodied the whole ambivalence of the song.

All in all, the only minor moment of the album is "Family Man", sounding like an average pop-dance song and featuring some shaky vocal arrangements that bubbled away in the bridge. The album "Tango in the Night" is a superbly produced album that proved Fleetwood Mac was as contemporary as anybody; it featured gorgeous arrangements, first-rate material, and it did open up the ears of a whole new generation of fans - including this writer, who discovered Fleetwood Mac's music with this album. The fact that it was the last full studio album recorded by these five people, only gives it the additional poignancy that comes with knowing that it was sort of their swan song. I consider it an essential in Fleetwood Mac's long, rich history of rock and roll legacy.

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:

This is a fantastic album!  Mar 17, 2003
By Just.John
Having first noticed Fleetwood Mac on British television in 1983 performing "Oh Diane", I was intrigued when this group returned in 1987. They were obviously very different from everything else I was into at the time. I got into the singles, especially the two Christine McVie tracks which were huge hits in the UK. I didn't actually buy the album until 1989, when I was captivated by Stevie Nicks' "Rooms on Fire", and I have never looked back. This is an incredible record, and although many regard the late 1970s as the Mac's classic era, this remains their most intriguing and engaging work of the 1980s. It began as a Lindsey Buckingham solo album, but he was persuaded to turn the tracks he had already completed into a Mac album. The opener "Big Love" remains the great track it has always been. It is dark, brooding and powerful. It moves into the wonderful "Seven Wonders", on which Stevie Nicks turns in a real tour de force on a wonderful Sandie Stewart song. At the time, the individual members of the Mac were not in good shape, and although there are flashes of pain throughout this album, it is testament to Lindsey Buckingham's skill as a producer and arranger that the album holds together so well. "Everywhere" is without doubt one of the best songs Christine McVie has ever written. Her talent in the band is still underrated, and she held them together through many a turbulent period. "Caroline" is catchy, but vapid, and contains some of Lindsey's less powerful lyrical statements. Side One (as it was originally) concludes with the balm of Christine McVie's tender "Mystified", before taking flight again with "Little Lies". Christine surely wrote the strongest songs on this record. The plaintive introduction to this pop ballad is haunting. Stevie Nicks' backing vocals are prominent, but that was not always the case. Stevie was absent for much of the recording of Tango, thanks to a cocaine habit which sent her to the Betty Ford clinic. She writes frankly of her experiences on "Welcome to the Room...Sara". Christine rocks on "Isn't it Midnight", before the album hits its most tender moment with Stevie's ballad "When I see you again". When I first heard this out of context as the B Side to "Everywhere", I thought it was awful. Who was this croaky woman with the raspy voice? Now it makes much more sense. It is the sound of a desperately sad woman, wondering how it will be to be reunited with the band on which her dreams were founded. Stevie was on a path to self-destruction, and you can hear that in every note of this wonderful song. Lyrically it it stark and utterly effective: "And she stares at the stairs../well, there are many things to stare at these days". Lindsey's response at the end of the track only adds to its poignancy. The album ends on a bright, poppy note with "You and I Part Two". However, rather like a great Smiths song. the bounciness of the melody masks lyrical uncertainty. History has shown us that Lindsey was preparing to leave the band. "Hoping tomorrow will never come...". This was to be his swansong, and the (artistically)disastrous "Behind The Mask" confirmed that there can be no Fleetwood Mac without Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Happily, the fairy tale is not over and the band (sadly without Christine) is about to release a new record, "Say you will". In the meantime, you have to listen to this wonderful album with its 12 magnificent chapters. The sooner it is remixed for DVD-A, the better.

10 of 12 found the following review helpful:

Highly Underrated  May 26, 2001
By Chris S. "cscotts"
A decade after RUMOURS, Fleetwood Mac released what would be there last studio record with Lindsay Buckingham, TANGO IN THE NIGHT. The streak begun with RUMOURS continued here, and while it was highly undervalued by critics, all in all it's quite a good record. The first distinguishing mark here is the immaculate production, co-handled by Buckingham, which relied alot on synthesizers and other production tics often found in '80s music. The record begins with Buckingham's sterling 'Big Love'(probably his best contribution to the group during the 80's), and the aforementioned production is immediately noticeable, sounding not unlike something you would hear on a Kate Bush album--'Big Love', in particular, sounds alot like the Bush classic 'Running Up That Hill'. The second distinguishing factor is the general absence of Stevie Nicks, who contributes two serviceable but not particularly great songs and gets a credit on a third(and best of the three),'Seven Wonders'. As is generally the case(particularly during the 80's), Christine McVie is the saving grace of the group, supplying the albums's two best cuts, 'Everywhere' and 'Little Lies', and also writing in tandem with Buckingham on several others good ones. The third factor is the absence, for the first time, of any sense of this group working as a band. The harmonies usually present among the three leads are barely discernable on many of the tracks, making it sound like they came in to the studio, sang their part, and left. It makes the group sound like a collective with rotating vocalists rather than the cohesive unit we know them to be. These are just observations rather than gripes, because,again, overall, this is a great record, and unjustly dismissed by many at the time of its' release.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

The Last album of the Rumours line-up  Nov 11, 2001
By Julio J. Fonseca
I remember cuts from this album when I was in junior high school. At least four singles got radio airplay... Big Love Seven Wonders, Everywhere and Little Lies. And while this album at times feels like a Lindsey Buckingham solo album, there are some great highlights. For one Stevie's voice has a timbre that is never heard before or since. This is her first post rehab album and it is reflected in the lyrics of Welcome to the Room.. Sara. Check out how she can say the word Baby about 15 different ways in "when I see you again". This song features Stevie on the first several verses and Lindsey finishing out the song. It's an underrated stand out. Also check out Lindseys soaring guitar solo on the title cut. He really is one of the most underated guitarists ever. Even Christine shines on all of her songs. What strikes me as odd.. is that at points it sounds like there is a drum machine instead of good ole mick fleetwood.

At points it sounds a bit 80's and dates itself that way.. but in my opinion it has great value as the last studio album of the rumours lineup of fleetwood mac.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Listen to the wind on the water  Nov 10, 2001
By Cristian Domarchi "Cristian"
Hard album to review mainly because of the facts that surrounded its making, "Tango In The Night" was built from the pieces of an original Lindsey Buckingham solo record, and with the additions of several compositions by female songwriters/singers Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, turned out to be the fifth studio album coming from the "Rumours" incarnation. Having very interesting musical moments, and showing the abbilities of Buckingham as a brilliant pop producer, "Tango" somehow just doesn't have the extraordinary mix of feelings that made albums such as "Rumours" or "Tusk" be mainstream successes. More over, this CD showcases the moment of a pop band submerged into the intrincated music map of the late 80's, and one gets a better impression out of it when reviewing the musical side of it.

Legendary pop star Stevie Nicks was worried about getting out of the world of drugs (who can blame her), and so her contributions to the album are only a few. Apart from his clear backing vocals on "Little Lies", we don't hear much of her on the rest of the album, and her wonderful single "Seven Wonders" (one of the most poetic songs ever recorded) wasn't even written by her, the lyrics being composed by Stevie's friend Sandy Stewart. That song and "Welcome To The Room... Sara", however, are two of the album's highlights for giving us the power to return to the years when Fleetwood Mac had this bewitched singer that could brighten the audiences with her poetic lyrics. "Welcome" features great vocal support from Lindsey and Christine. And then there's "When I See You Again", in which we can hear one of Stevie's weakest lyrics ever... but then again is the musical arrangement what makes this song acceptable. Lindsey is great on his acoustic here, as is Christine on backing, making it a nice piece of work.

Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham dominates the album and delivers the strongest composition and opener, the ambient rock track "Big Love", which features his best lyrics on the album, good arrangements with guitar and the intrincated keyboard arrengements that were the trademark of the majority of the soft rock records in the 80's. "Tango In The Night" is brilliant mainly because of its musical construction, turning a soft pop song into almost a guitar opera, with strong guitar work and great percussion arrangements. But his other songs are not always satisfying: while "Caroline" features some strong arrangements, its lyrics are quite boring; the closer "You And I Part II", co-written with Christine McVie, suffers from the same problem (good music, bad lyrics), and "Family Man" is simply unlistenable and plain silly.

But when you have three composers in a band, and two of them are not in their best moments, you have to be in luck and wait for the third of them to be there. And in my opinion, Christine's songs are what save this album from being an average 80's pop record and turn it into a classic. From the dreamy, legendary, trade-mark Fleetwood Mac track "Everywhere", to the fast rocking, intense "Isn't It Midnight", from the strong and huge mainstream success of the 80's anthem "Little Lies" to the charming "Mystified" (again co-written with Buckingham), Christine shines on "Tango". Her gentle voice fits in perfectly with the arrangements, and her warm songs are always welcomed when the obvious expectative of the album is to be a 'dreamy' record.

Mainly the singles ("Big Love", "Little Lies", "Seven Wonders", "Everywhere") are the most important thing on the album. Those are on the "Greatest Hits" CD. So buy this one only if you are interested in getting deeply into this band's music. For the casual listener, "listen to the wind on the water", skip this one and stick with "Rumours", "Tusk" and even "The Dance" first. This one, being a good album, is not the best of this legendary band.

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