Fleetwood Mac

The Fleetwood Mac saga, after the glorious blues-rock era of Peter Green, spends the first half of the '70s drifting between failed experiments and muzak on largely dispensable records like "Penguin", "Heroes Are Hard To Find" and "Mystery To Me". When, in 1974, drummer Mick Fleetwood recruits Lindsey Buckingham (and, by extension, his partner Stevie Nicks), tasking him with rebuilding the band, no one expects the explosion that follows. Yet the self-titled 1975 album, thanks to "Rhiannon", the honeyed "Warm Ways", "Blue Letter" and above all "Landslide", already stands as a genuine case of renewal (or modernization) for mainstream melodic rock. For the first time in its history, pop decisively adds metaphysical, elegant touches, or moments of pure, simple enchantment, giving unprecedented power to hooks, stereo detail and sheer atmosphere.

The record happily leaves behind Fleetwood Mac's mediocre transitional period, but what truly crowns the reborn duo and the resurrected band (even if it's already undermined by various tensions) is above all the follow-up, "Rumours", one of the best-selling albums of all time (and a worldwide success almost embarrassing given the circumstances), a sign that the formula devised by Buckingham and his collaborators, flawless here, finally received the credibility it deserved.

First of all, on "Rumours" the melodic dimension reaches a near-impeccable level; the individual elements of the songwriting (refrains, instrumental accents, arrangements) balance one another with extreme care. Last but certainly not least, the production, the true masterpiece within the masterpiece, is nothing short of dazzling: more so, and better, than Spector's wall of sound, it manages to bring out every timbre (from vocal harmonies to the understated layers of guitar, steel and organ in the background), granting them the right dignity, catchiness, volume and sense of space. The production of "Rumours" stands as a genuine additional member of the band, a ghost melody woven into every song on the record, a shadow stylus on the turntable.

On a par with other top-tier acts, from Steely Dan to Chicago, Fleetwood Mac with “Rumours” manage to cross every possible shade of pop and new wave. Both the whole and the individual parts (plus their sum) are nothing short of memorable.

“Second Hand News” is the pitch-perfect ouverture, a preludio-anthem as brash as it is enthusiastic, driven along by choruses (almost a churchy sing-along) over crystalline chords and distant distortion, while “I Don’t Want To Know” presses firmly down on the West-Coast, Mamas & Papas-style accelerator. The brief, moving acoustic stomp of guitar and languid vocals on “Never Going Back Again” introduces the airy organ of “Don’t Stop”, which rides boogie-woogie scales and soars into an urgent refrain: the band's ability to craft radiant pop tunes seems to know no bounds.

“You Make Lovin’ Fun”, courtesy of Christine McVie, blends new, more sophisticated temptations with soaring, dreamy vocal calls with perfect nonchalance. And “Go Your Own Way”, with a chorus that sends chills down your spine (suddenly dissolving the verse's nervy off-beats), is an immaculate, breathless dissection.

The fierce, fearless “The Chain” — actually one of Buckingham's boldest pieces of writing, even though credited to the band as a whole in session — moves from a metaphysical subtlety into a proud anthem almost post-Jefferson Airplane, right up to the driving coda that would teach a thing or two even to future mainstream generations (Dire Straits chief among them). “Oh Daddy” picks up that same rarefied quality, this time with a more mischievous air, a flamenco gait, effect-laden guitar strums, a cappella chorus and modulated singing.

Stevie Nicks's unstable personality (confessional, frail, anxious) overflows on “Dreams”, the true engine of the whole album and a worldwide smash hit, built on a sure-handed run of plaintive vocal breaths and the dreamlike guitar counter-melody from Buckingham (arguably his instrumental masterpiece). Christine McVie, meanwhile, reaches her first true nadir on “Songbird”, a sonata carried as much by superb modulations as by melancholy piano legato, in a fairy-tale kind of solitude.

“Dreams” and “Songbird” are thus the two spiritual pillars of the record, two devastatingly effective confessional statements from the band's singers, one an indomitable soprano (Nicks), the other a moved contralto (McVie). But “Gold Dust Woman”, riding a spectral groove in the vein of Creedence, manages to add one more word on Nicks the chanteuse, yearning and gritty.

Anyone who fails to have one of the most worn-out and endlessly "wearable" records in the whole history of popular music etched in their memory after just a few passing listens has only themselves to blame. This isn't just an enormously popular bestseller — above all it's a remarkable example of success that wasn't engineered (not even really pursued, perhaps only half-dreamed of), an alchemy of far-flung styles that eludes semiologists, expert musicologists and record-industry marketing wizards alike, and one of Lindsey Buckingham's greatest achievements (second only to the adventures of “Tusk”, 1979), whose legacy would include dozens of classy, easy-listening singer-songwriters (from Shania Twain to Faith Hill to Sheryl Crow), but also restless ones like Kristin Hersh and Courtney Love, Joan Jett and the least strident, most uninhibited riot-grrrls.

The sound is miraculously 100% fluid, despite the countless struggles involved in getting the project finished (documented, among other things, in the album's various commemorative reissues, the most recent being the 2009 edition, timed to coincide with a new reunion and world tour). The production, which in the meantime shifted the bar for the future by a fair distance, would give plenty of sound engineers cold sweats (and above all, the heads of the major labels too). “Go Your Own Way”, the first single released, still unaware of the stratospheric success to come, is Buckingham's indictment of Nicks, a j'accuse over the end of their relationship (one that Nicks reportedly didn't want included in the final tracklist). Numerous international awards and accolades followed.

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24/05/2009