Return of the Mac

There was some discourse around Fleetwood Mac on Bluesky recently, about how they far outstrip most of their peers in terms of popularity with the young'uns, and someone drolly observed that the best way of telling if someone was 45-55 was if they didn't like Rumours, because everyone else did (or something like that).

That rings somewhat true, as when I was first getting into music in a big way (mid-90s) there was definitely lots of negativity towards them (when the 60s, new wave/punk and the 80s were the main influences on current bands) but I think that had pretty much gone by the turn of the century.

So perhaps it was there being "soft rock" that was held against them for a while. Perhaps, as someone suggested, it was that they were very feminine for a rock band. Perhaps it was they'd had mainstream hits like Everywhere, Little Lies and Big Love, pretty recently, so there hadn't been time to feel nostalgic about them. Or perhaps it was merely Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox presenting the Brits, and the Reynolds Girls rather jacking to Fleetwood Macking that did it.

I do remember Rumours being Number 16 in my first Greatest Albums Ever Made book from 1995, so it can't have been all negative. But, really, Rumours is a pretty undeniable album.

Though I denied it for quite a long time. I don't think I really listened to it properly until 2008ish. I by and large thought I knew it, knowing a lot of the biggest songs, which I recognised were good songs, but, apart from You Can Go Your Own Way, hadn't fully connected with. 

Funnily enough, as I'd never really listened to Eva Cassidy, it was hearing Songbird for the first time that really connected me with Fleetwood Mac. It was undeniably both the kind of thing  I liked, and, more importantly, a thing I liked.

So, following on from that, Christine McVie was the member of the band who seemed most likeable and intriguing, which I think is quite a common view. Though not as common as the view that Stevie Nicks is one of the great icons of rock'n'roll.

It's a view that slightly crept up on me, as my first impression of here was a couple of slightly odd Top of the Pops appearances in the 80s. I believe the band's mid-90s live album and video, The Dream, was a massive hit in America, and in particular, Stevie N's theatrical, inflamed singing of Silver Springs to Lindsey Buckingham. It's great stuff ...

And then the soap opera burst back to life when Buckingham was kicked out of the band by Nicks a few years ago, And continued to say delightfully scathing things about her high school boyfriend, decades of resentment finally getting their full expression.

Well, it seems they've made up a bit, combining to reissue their album 'Buckingham Nicks' which first drew them to the attention of Mick Fleetwood in the mid-70s.

And it did make me realise I get pretty invested in the lifelong tensions of the heroes of rock'n'roll. Heart warmed when one hears Simon and Garfunkel had a conciliatory lunch. Heart saddened when one hears Baez hasn't heard from Dylan in years. What of Morrissey and Marr? Will they reconcile? Will Dave and Ray keep it together? Jagger and Richards?

Anyway, the five most streamed Mac songs on spotify are Dreams, The Chain, Everywhere, Go Your Own Way, Landslide, which tells you that it was a pretty special band to have three such great writers and singers and two big beardy English men to be the band's name and keep the beat.