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David Quantick on… Fleetwood Mac

And their 1988 ‘Greatest Hits’

By david quantick

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Fleetwood Mac photographed by John Foxx

Has there ever been a weirder reinvention than Fleetwood Mac’s? Other bands have rebooted themselves – Pink Floyd went from Syd Barrett’s tea-and-whimsy psychedelia to a Roger Waters’ glumly narcissistic stadium rock, Genesis from English prog to MTV pop, while David Bowie changed his image on every album, like he was playing Top Trumps with himself – but none of these compare in sheer abruptness and daring than Fleetwood Mac’s. They began as one of the better British blues bands, most notable for Peter Green’s guitar brilliance: and then, like many British blues bands, they fell out of favour with the charts and lost members until the group calling itself “Fleetwood Mac” was, essentially, just its chassis – the rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie – plus the band’s secret weapon, singer and songwriter Christine McVie.

And then everything changed. The band brought on board new members, as it had always done, but the new members weren’t bluesmen (or even blueswomen) they were a romantically-linked pair of American soft rock musicians, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who’d released one excellent album together. And when Nicks and Buckingham joined, they were not asked to fit in with the band’s old image – endless retreads of ‘Oh Well’ and ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’ – but were pretty much left to continue in the direction they were already on. Their songs – wistful, striking, dynamic, emotional and above all radio-friendly – were perfectly complemented by Christine McVie’s material, and everything gelled immediately.

After that, everything was epic. With three brilliant songwriters in the band, Fleetwood Mac were re-energised. Gone were the solos and the blues covers, to be replaced by the new FM sound of California: too rocky to be pop, too poppy to be rock, but entirely catchy with its hooks, harmonies and soaring sound.

The members of the Mac paired off in ways that were less like entries on a rock family tree and more like a three-dimensional chess orgy

The new line-up’s debut Fleetwood Mac did well – amazingly well compared to its predecessors – but its follow-up, Rumours, took over the world. Like the Eagles only awake, like Pink Floyd only with songs about relationships, Fleetwood Mac were the perfect band for the airbrushed, airless sound of FM radio and very good stereo setups. Rumours was Abbey Road for a new generation: and it ate everything that stood in its way.

Meanwhile, Fleetwood Mac reacted to success in a way few bands had done previously: they all went to bed with each other. In a confusing carousel of relationships and desire, the members of the Mac paired off in ways that were less like entries on a rock family tree and more like a three-dimensional chess orgy.  Fleetwood Mac were a soap opera, they were Emmerdale except set in a studio full of cocaine instead of a farm. They were a sealed community reduced to feeding off itself, and they were like if the Beatles were having it off with each other. There was so much bed-hopping and partner-swapping going on that, so legend has it, at one point Mick Fleetwood had an affair with himself. Every Fleetwood Mac song was, it seemed, about another member of Fleetwood Mac – and this tension, this knowledge that the song you were playing on was about you, gave the new Fleetwood Mac songs an edge that contrasted brilliantly with the smooth harmonies and the beautiful playing (that, and the deserts of cocaine that the band walked through every night, like vampire Laurence of Arabias: Rumours could easily have been called The Very White Album).

Philip Larkin once remarked that, after The Beatles had got to the top, they found that they could not get down again. The same is true of all bands and for Fleetwood Mac, after the success of Rumours, they found themselves stuck. Subsequent releases were echoes of Rumours, but the magic had gone: the talent was there and albums like Tusk and Tango in the Night had great moments rather than actual greatness. Tusk was an album that tried to have its coke and eat it: influenced, apparently, by Buckingham’s love of post-punk bands like the Gang of Four and Talking Heads, it is sadly lacking in cover versions of ‘Psycho Killer’ or ‘Love Like Anthrax’ but instead does try to sound sometimes not like Rumours (the brilliant title track) and sometimes just like Rumours (all the other songs). Its (eventual) successor, Mirage, just sounds like Rumours in the 1980s, as does the reformation album Tango in the Night.

Tusk was an album that tried to have its coke and eat it

Which is where this reissued Greatest Hits compilation comes in. By 1988, Buckingham had left, to be replaced by Rick Vito and Billy Burnette, who appear on it, a collection which contains everything a listener might want plus two new songs – Stevie Nicks’ ‘No Questions Asked’ and Christine McVie’s (better) ‘As Long As You Follow’, which are perfect examples of the kind of new songs bands put on greatest hits albums to lure in the fans and disappoint them (they’re certainly not as good as ‘Big Love’ which was absent from the original US vinyl pressing).

It’s a very 80s collection: it sounds amazing on CD and on the radio, and every song is chosen for harmonies as smooth as styling mousse: and there’s not a bad song here. (Oh, and this comp was apparently the last album ever to be released by a major label on 8-track cartridge, which seems to be appropriate: was there ever a more perfect format for the music of Fleetwood Mac than an eight-track cartridge player set in the dashboard of an open top car driving down the Pacific Coast Highway?) And, of course, it presents a version of Fleetwood Mac that only begins in 1975 – and ends in 1988, as did the band, pretty much. Since then they’ve toured, they’ve released records (their last studio album was 2003’s Say You Will), and they’ve had some line-up changes, but this record is their time capsule, and a reasonable epitaph (apart from the extra tracks, obviously).

By David Quantick. Greatest Hits is reissued in North America this week and follows internationally on 28 August.

Tracklisting

Fleetwood Mac / Greatest Hits deluxe

Greatest Hits Fleetwood Mac / deluxe

    • CD 1
      1. Rhiannon
      2. Don’t Stop
      3. Go Your Own Way
      4. Hold Me
      5. Everywhere
      6. Gypsy
      7. As Long As You Follow
      8. Say You Love Me
      9. Dreams
      10. Little Lies
      11. Sara
      12. Tusk
      13. No Questions Asked
    • CD 2
      1. Landslide
      2. Big Love*
      3. Over My Head
      4. Oh Diane*
      5. You Make Loving Fun*
      6. The Chain
      7. Think About Me*
      8. Seven Wonders
      9. Never Going Back Again
      10. Silver Springs (Live)
      *On the original 1988 CD

Maybe

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