How do you follow up a masterpiece?

It’s a question that every artist asks after releasing a perfect work. Some try the same formula again, hoping lighting will strike the same place twice. Others decide to take a major left turn (see: Radiohead). Some have even gone mad under the pressure.

After the impeccable Rumours, the songwriters behind Fleetwood Mac chose option D: all of the above.

After Rumours, the group was in a unique situation. Due to that album’s success, the group was given a blank check by Warner Brothers to record its follow up.

There was a problem though. Rumours was first and foremost a break up album—between members of the same band. By the time they record Tusk, the breaking up was already done. Christine McVie and bassist John McVie had finalized their divorce. Buckingham and Nicks had put their long-time love affair to an end. Much of the fire that made Rumours such a classic had long since burned out, and now they were left with the charred remains. Buckingham in particular had no interest in doing anything like the previous record, and that resistance drove most of the track listing of Tusk.

I’ve often been interested by the social juxtaposition of Rumours in the broader context of music history. The same year that the Mac released their folk rock masterpiece, an explosion called “punk” happened. The Ramones’ 1976 debut had become a legend, and dozens of other bands took their lead. The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Television, the Talking Heads, and others released their first records in 1977, and it changed the musical landscape forever.

By the time Fleetwood Mac returned to the studio, Lindsey Buckingham became obsessed with post punk, particularly the Talking Heads, and isolated himself in his home studio. According to some rumors, he may have also acquired the master tapes of the Beach Boys’ lost masterpiece SMiLE, a fitting comparison to his own mania. Convincing him to record with the rest of the band became an uphill battle, and three songs on the record ended up featuring no other musicians, such as the jarring second track “The Ledge,” a sort of manic rockabilly tune (the choice to not bury it further in the track list is a bold one, to say the least).

The rest of the band, particular Nicks and McVie, were far less interested in rebuilding their songwriting technique from the ground up. Their own contributions to the record are far less experimental. Christine’s opener “Over & Over” and Stevie’s “Sisters of the Moon” for instance would have felt right at home on the tracklists of either Rumours or their self-titled. Most of their own contributions to Tusk don’t stray too far beyond the Mac’s usual wheelhouse.

If all of that sounds to you like it would make Tusk a fractured work, you’d be absolutely right. Its schizoid nature is only furthered by the uneven split of the songwriting: Buckingham wrote nine of the tunes, compared to McVie’s six and Nicks’ five. Like the Beatles’ White Album a decade earlier, it sounds much more like the work of three solo artists than a single band.

But also like The White Album, it has no shortage of absolutely brilliant moments. “Sara” imbues Stevie’s classic yearning with a woozy ambience. Christine’s “Brown Eyes” patiently rides a restrained, minor key figure that sounds like a frustrated funk. “That’s All For Everyone” finds Lindsey slowing down, offering a delicate, dreamy ballad that rips off Deerhunter about thirty years too early. Then there’s “Tusk,” a warlike tune that features the USC Trojan marching band (and remains a pep band staple today).

For all of its weirdness, seemingly random track order, and disappointing chart performance, Tusk is a strange and brilliant record. Even its most bizarre moments have a sort of charm to them, making it an enjoyable record even at its most obtuse.