I thought the previous album is better. Not that Rumours is bad, it’s pretty good. But I also think sales were helped by FM.
Why did it succeed? Three good singers and songwriters (enough to fill an album), Stevie was hot and Christine had her own appeal. Solid rhythm section. Besides the current turmoil, there was the past (Peter Green, Danny Kirwin). The sleazy manager who once sent out a bogus band. Catchy songs. Maybe a lack of competition in melodic rock.
Quoting this for emphasis. Check the arrangement on “Tusk”: acoustic guitar, drums, electric bass, and a marching band. The song turns out aggressive as hell partly due to the subject matter, and partly the way it builds to the whole ensemble. I don’t know where Buckingham learned to put a song together, but Jimmy Page had nothing on him in that department.
As to his guitar playing: it speaks volumes that Mick Fleetwood was actually impressed with Buckingham after being in a band with both Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. Tell anyone who doubts his greatness to listen to “Never Going Back Again”, remind them that it’s one guitar, and have them get back with you later.
I change the channel on some Joe Walsh songs, and if they announce they’re going to be playing the Eagles on the radio, I’ll stay off that station for an hour or so. I’ll happily change the channel on some Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood Mac songs. BUT! There are other songs of theirs that I’ll not only get goosebumps and crank when they come on the radio, but I’ve actually been known pay money to play them on the jukebox, even though I have the records back home. (damn, I just admitted to owning Buckingham/Nicks Fleetwood Mac records, didn’t I? 
)
Heck, I think my wife is the first woman I dated that didn’t either secretly or not-so-secretly want to be her. I don’t know what it is about her mystique that generally makes woman not dislike her for her looks, but it works. Not to demean the tastes of 51% of the population, but maybe it’s because she doesn’t have threatening breasts? My wife doesn’t particularly dislike her, she just wants to be Kim Gordon instead.
And yeah, you can’t discount that rhythm section at all. They’re not bizarre soloists, but they’re beyond solid together, and they pull off as many hooks as the other members. I dare you to find a decent bass player (of, ahem, a certain age) that can’t play the break to “The Chain” on demand.
Really, my first answer was far too concise and specific as to why they were a success in the 70’s. The general answer is: They had something to appeal to almost anyone. I know a few people that probably actually hate everything released by that incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, but they’re rare. Even in my world that’s generally comprised of people that see themselves as punk or some variety of post-punk/rap/jazz/psychedelic/dance/metal melange, there’s still a Fleetwood Mac song they’ll admit kind of liking in a completely non-ironic way.
Sort of think of them as the Outkast of the 70’s: Catchy songs in a variety of styles coming out all of their orifices, with musical and lyrical depth to back them up.
For those of you interested in Lindsey’s guitar work, go see one of his solo shows. Holy cow, I was in absolute awe.
Quality and zeitgeist.
There is a DJ in Sacramento who was on an easy-rock station until the 1990s, and I swear he had one CD deck taped shut with *Rumors *in it; he played at least 6 cuts from it every single day.
Then he moved to a classic rock station and only plays about 3 cuts a day from that album.
These are/were NOT short-playlist stations.
Since you mixed your bullet point labels, I therefore can nitpick - MTV wouldn’t have helped Fleetwood Mac in 1977, since it started up in 1981. Apparently (according to the wiki MTV prehistory) there were some small video outlets out there in the 1970s, but no really mass market channels (heck, the Beatles made music videos in the 1960s).
However, I agree that FM radio exposure did help alot, much as it helped Boston and Kansas and Yes etc. in that period (I was born in the mid-1960s, so Fleetwood Mac would have been background noise for me by the late 1970s)
Not much left to say. About all I can add is that their story line helped. They were a soap opera long before the Rumours album.
Star guitarist Peter Green went crazy. Jeremy Spencer disappeared to join a cult. Danny Kirwan was lost in a bottle. While they tried to deal with all this, their manager wanted somebody to tour to support the fantastic songs being written by Bob Welch (“Future Games,” “Sentimental Lady,” “Hypnotized,” all FM staples) so he sent out a totally fake Fleetwood Mac. Lawsuits and bitterness and news stories.
They had great songs, a dedicated fanbase, and dramatic write-ups in the rock press. Then they added a camera-ready California husband-wife team and released their best album to date, Fleetwood Mac. Was Fleetwood Mac a better album than Rumours? I’ve always thought so. “Rhiannon” was on every radio all the time. The album sold like crazy in an era where California rock was dominant.
This album raised awareness of the group and primed the audience for the next album. That album happened to be exactly what the audience wanted and was sent out in a rock media frenzy about the group’s sex lives. If you tried to script how to produce a gigantic smash album you’d come up with something very much like Rumours.
If you look at thebest-selling albums in rock you see broadly similar stories all the way through the list. A group or individual produces several top-notch albums, develops a fan base, becomes a media topic, and then releases an album perfect for the times. It may not be their best album in the minds of fans, but it’s their best-timed album. You can see this because their next album, no matter how good, will sell 60-80% less. (There are a couple of exceptions, but mostly that puts it off by one album.) People get caught up in the frenzy rather than the music. Frenzy always sells.
Did Lindsey write “Go Your Own Way” in vain?
In the run-up to Rumours, the McVies broke up, Nicks and Buckingham broke up, and Fleetwood and his wife broke up. The album carries a ton of emotional freight.
They were both talented and lucky.
Fleetwood Mac rocked JUST hard enough to get a lot of airplay on AOR radio stations (the stations that played Zeppelin, Floyd, the Stones, Tull, etc.) but they were also mellow enough to get a lot of airplay on AM and pop/Top 40 stations (alongside Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow, etc.). They were able to appeal to teens AND to their parents.
The acts that can do that (like the Eagles, Chicago, Elton John and Billy Joel, for instance) can sell a LOT of records.
As I recall the recording sessions were a fucking car-crash. Recriminations, love, hate, revenge, back-biting all being committed to vinyl, still raw and bleeding.
The perfect recipe for a brilliant album, You have to feel that they mean it…and they did…all of it.
Plus for me, one of my other great childhood loves was F1 and “The Chain” is ingrained into my head as the title music for the BBC coverage. How can I not like Fleetwood Mac after that?
Besides the talent and storylines, the late 1970s were also an era of increasing album sales. The Eagles and Peter Frampton sold a huge amount of records. Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” was on the top 200 for 741 weeks. Why albums sold so much is a little hard to explain. Three tv channels, little VCR or cable, recording buying boomers getting jobs and had little debt, tape recording existed but primitive. Sometimes when things get on a roll, they are irresistible.
And, again, Stevie Nicks was a killer cutie-with talent. Back then, as now, there wasn’t a lot of good music. It all seemed to be locked up by the big names. And, it was starting to suck. Mac wasn’t overly famous at the time, but, they had a strong solid foundation with their talent. Rhiannon, an extremely good song, and doubly so considering what was contemporary with it, came out, with a semi-stoned acting hot and talented singing chick. IIRC, wasn’t Landslide on the same album? At any rate, they two songs oozed sexuality. Again, what was coming out? Beatles going to crap, Deep Purple sucked, Zeppelin going down. DSotM had been around since 72, Eagles were in a transitional period…CSN&Y, great, but still, retreading older stuff. Fleetwood Mac was being discovered.
They were great because I wanted to have sex with Stevie.
Beatles going to crap? In 1976?
“Landslide” is on Fleetwood Mac. Second track on Side 2. 11 songs in all, and IMO only 2 of them are weak-ish, both Christine’s. She makes up for it by having two of the strongest and most popular songs on the album as well.
In a way, that’s your answer right there. In the early to mid 1970s, if you were a rock music fan you listened to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and heavy metal. By the end of the decade, people were simply sick of all the thunderous heavy bass, interminable guitar solos, and 20 minute jam sessions. A band playing light, breezy, well-constructed ‘pop’ rock music must have been a welcome relief.
Also, rock music was becoming increasingly about bombastic, empty “anthems” about partying all night long, rockiin’ out forever and never selling out to the man (mannnn…) Along comes Mac and their earnest songs about relationship troubles, a central topic of “Rumors” that anyone can relate to, and still can. After a certain age (about 25), people can no longer get enthused about rocking & rolling all night and partying every day.
Fleetwood Mac also seem to be particularly repesentative of the post-hippie California lifestyle that was very much in vogue - casual sex, cocaine, EST, self-actualization, the jet-set, and malibu beach. Despite the fact that the band - and many of its members - originally came from England, they just were quintessentially Southern Californian at a time that Southern California was in its heyday as the “place to be.”
You’d have to get in line. Behind me. :mad:
Hell, we all did.
Coming up mid to late 60’s, the British Invasion, Girl Groups, Motown & other soul were playing on the radio. Great stuff. Then there were the singer-songwriters at the local clubs and coffeehouses–where genuine Blues artists like Lightnin’ Hopkins & Mance Lipscomb would appear. Over the next years, I didn’t stay stuck in the past (unless you count all those Depression era records), but didn’t care for the overblown stadium rock. Roots, blues, country–what would later be named Americana. And hearing at little local venues the criminally unappreciated Little Feat & a visiting Yankee–that Springsteen fellow. The early punks were a bit rough for me but I found that scene a good antidote to the “overblown stadium rock.” Hey, Blondie–remember the girl groups? My record collection was weird & select & all over the place. (It still is.)
Then I heard “Go My Own Way” on the car radio. And found myself buying a Top 10 LP for the first time in years. Because they were just good. Having women in the mix helped.
Hmmph. I’ll stick with “The Band That Sang California Lady.”
“Go Your Own Way.”
One of the greatest kiss-off songs ever written and two of you get it wrong in this thread. On top of that, it features some of Mick’s best drumming during the guitar break.
Imagine what it must have been like for Stevie to go out, night after night and have to sing harmony on a song that is basically calling her a whore. Of course, Lindsey had to do the same on Stevie’s songs. Made for very passionate performances.
So, Quintas, any thoughts on all these posts to your OP? Has this been helpful or just a big Meh?