How were Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac as paradigm-shifting as punk?

"Which musicians obviously started a band because they heard both Rumours and Never Mind The Bollocks?" might also be a good question.

Shiina Ringo.

hmm, i'd say that FM's influence pretty much permeated the collective (American) pop unconsciousness back in the day. so i don't really think their impact can be so easily gauged directly--i.e., the Ramones/Pistols envisioning a new wrinkle in ye olde rock fabric--on whatever individual artists may have claimed some kind of aesthetic association with 'em since. the Mac was just there, man. always. afaic, Rumours defined rock star life as people actually wanted to experience it in their own lives (romance). NVTBHTSP, on the other hand, idealized the possibility of youth rebellion in the wake of more or less crushing teen-age boredom--just happened that kids with guitars found it much easier to mimic punk's musical insurrection than FM's (duh). also, the damn urchin probably couldn't readily relate to coke-huffing millionaires maybe? just ask Courtney.

Well, not saying I necessarily disagree with that, but you certainly don't have to relate to Fleetwood Mac's lives (or even know anything about their lives) to relate to their songs, and sound.

Courtney Love's obviously the big Pistols/FM hybridizer, though. Weird that it took so long for her to be mentioned. Other possibilites I was thinking of: Axl Rose, Redd Kross, X, Liz Phair, the Donnas, Sheryl Crow, Pink, Shakira, Warrant.

d'oh, lilith faire to thread.

And the Dixie Chicks. And maybe Miranda Lambert (though she might be too young to know who the Sex Pistols are.) And Jon Bon Jovi.

http://www.musicobsession.com/Pictures/s/e/seaweed251318.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcrdeRoJs9E

where does Alanis fit into this?

Yeah, her too, I bet. And Sonic Youth. And Cinderella. And Madonna.

What about Fleetwood Mac?

them too.

sonic youth are a perfect example, tho. what with Kim's so. calif roots mediating the distance between Thurston's ny-noise cred and Lee's jam-band tendencies and all. plus she co-produced Hole's debut album.

haha, the difference, rather.

or somethin' like it... *hic*

And okay, duh, not Rumours era exactly, but still; this is presumably the only punk rock standard originally done by Fleetwood Mac, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5Jku_NNW4

Also worth listening to, because why not

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCJ4gHOdixU

Youtube must have 20 different punk bands (though unfortunately not the Count Bishops, who did it better than anybody else) covering "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In."

in the guardian today: "are hawkwind the most influential british group ever?"

i see "rumours-era" has been as loosely defined as "punk" on this thread.

in the guardian today: "are hawkwind the most influential british group ever?"
i'm assuming the answer is a resounding "no"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB19kSIrFNc

in the guardian today: "are hawkwind the most influential british group ever?"
i'm assuming the answer is a resounding "no"?

― tylerw, Friday, August 28, 2009 9:42 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

i think they might not even have phrased it as a question! there was nothing in the article about them being influential, though, it was mainly just about how one of them lives on a farm and is quite a nice dude

anyway we should get the guy that wrote that onto this 'rumours' question is my point

I'd say Womack & Womack's Love Wars, the first three X albums, and Shoot Out the Lights use the same material as Rumours: redacted folk and blues and a sprinkle of R&B on angry sex-pop.

The FM/Sex Pistols fusion question derailed the thread a tad (which is fine...never heard those Rezillos/Rockets songs). But I thought we'd be talking more about Heart (which xhuxk mentions in that review) and Toto (now there's a group of musicians who I bet heard Rumours or the 1975 self-titled and started a band).

And did Stevie Nicks begat Kate Bush and thus the wood sprite wing of popular music (Tori, Sarah MacLachlan, gad! Loreena McKennit, etc.)?

Don't forget Kristin Hersh...

They're fellow travelers, methinks.

Toto (now there's a group of musicians who I bet heard Rumours or the 1975 self-titled and started a band).

No, they went out and bought new mikes.

A lot of already established musicians did indeed start a new band after hearing "Rumours". Or, their old band changed their style into a more streamlined AOR.

like which

Well, I would say Toto is a typical example. Plus Chicago, Yes, Genesis and Supertramp would all become more streamlined and less adventurous.

yeah I don't buy that

genesis went from making music that really doesn't sound like fleetwood mac to making shorter songs that also really don't sound like fleetwood mac because they heard rumours and decided pop songs were alright after all?

I always attributed most of those prog bands tightening up in the early '80s (Rush and Moody Blues and Queen too) more to new wave than to Fleetwood Mac, but what do I know.

Btw, this might tick Kevin off, but I'm also not necessarily convinced that what made punk rock good or interesting is that it "shifted paradigms," assuming indeed it did actually shift any.

No that doesn't tick me off. Not sure it shifted paradigms either. Or it did only for certain groups of people as with any genre. But Simon Reynolds wrote an entire book on post-punk. Where's the book on post-Rumours (not saying there isn't one; just asking)?

I like what Ioannis said above - it may just be that FM's influence was so pervasive that it's difficult to trace their sound in subsequent music.

As a listener, particularly a young listener who heard Fleetwood Mac way out of time (I accessed Rumours through my Mother's own listening habits, in fact), what I heard was music about creating and uncreating relationships - which spoke to a comment I made on another thread where I always heard Fleetwood Mac more as a commune that made music, or a family that made music. Whereas where a lot of the singer-songwriter traditions that pre-dated Fleetwood Mac that I was inaugurated into (Dylan, Mitchell, Young, Browne, etc) felt much more independent. Dylan's relationships are always happening off-screen, and he's reflecting them to us solo now on the album. But on Rumours the relationship appears to be occurring in real time here and now, and some of the bitterness comes from that -- we're not just hearing a kiss-off song, we're witnessing a kiss-off, and here's how you know it's happening now: Lindsey is kissing off Stevie BUT LOOK, Stevie is STILL HERE in the song! She hasn't left!

And in punk music, which I was inaugurated into later on my own, there were similar dynamics. Whatever the fractures and relationship breaks, they always appeared to be happening in the moment -- you were witnessing the disaster as it happened. Anyway, this is possible the relationship for me as a listener, but I was listening to all these bands way out of times (Fleetwood Mac + Sex Pistols both decades later than the impact), so my experience could be totally anachronistic. But if it isn't; it seems like there's this kind of familial dynamic, or social relationship performance.

zo my gaw:

Results 1 - 1 of 1 for "influenced by fleetwood mac's Rumours". (0.31 seconds)
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1.
The Roots: Phrenology review | CD reviews | Music - Times Online
... so the Roots can claim this album was influenced by Fleetwood Mac's Rumours without realising, we assume, that it's about as cool a reference point as ...

looool

I had to click through to check if Chuck wrote that review.

I think X is possibly the best example of this kinda thing--angry sexual tension rock with pretty harmonies?

I still do not understand the love for this band.

I don't understand Urdu.

"I still do not understand the love for this band."

how much have you listened to this band?

"Which musicians obviously started a band because they heard both Rumours and Never Mind The Bollocks?" might also be a good question.

Papas Fritas

"how much have you listened to this band?"

I've owned and sold copies of Tusk and Rumours, I still have a copy of Play On somewhere around here. I like the upbeat singles, I don't like the ballads or most of the album tracks. I'm also not a fan of Steely Dan or Supertramp outside of a couple songs. But I love Babe Ruth.

XP to H00S, I love X too, and I wonder if that has something to do with it.

As a listener, particularly a young listener who heard Fleetwood Mac way out of time (I accessed Rumours through my Mother's own listening habits, in fact), what I heard was music about creating and uncreating relationships - which spoke to a comment I made on another thread where I always heard Fleetwood Mac more as a commune that made music, or a family that made music. Whereas where a lot of the singer-songwriter traditions that pre-dated Fleetwood Mac that I was inaugurated into (Dylan, Mitchell, Young, Browne, etc) felt much more independent. Dylan's relationships are always happening off-screen, and he's reflecting them to us solo now on the album. But on Rumours the relationship appears to be occurring in real time here and now, and some of the bitterness comes from that -- we're not just hearing a kiss-off song, we're witnessing a kiss-off, and here's how you know it's happening now: Lindsey is kissing off Stevie BUT LOOK, Stevie is STILL HERE in the song! She hasn't left!

Mordy, this is marvelous -- maybe the best thing I've read about them in years.

It was all freak folk in the end.

genesis went from making music that really doesn't sound like fleetwood mac to making shorter songs that also really don't sound like fleetwood mac because they heard rumours and decided pop songs were alright after all?

More like, because Phil Collins noticed that Fleetwood Mac and their likes were making a damn lot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Well, not saying I necessarily disagree with that, but you certainly don't have to relate to Fleetwood Mac's lives (or even know anything about their lives) to relate to their songs, and sound.

yeah, yer right about that in a sense, but you also mustn't discount that sound in and of itself can embody meaning. in the Mac's case, their sound (and song structures) make it fairly implicit that these guys & gals are on top of the world, man, and here's how they feel about it (tho in no way are they so smugly reprehensible about it as fellow playmates Henley/Frey/etc. were); they've already won, may the good times never end. welcome to the Hotel California, folx. now what? doesn't exactly add up to a recipe for teen-age insurrection, does it? “omg, those hippies are so old...and boring.”

Mordy, this is marvelous -- maybe the best thing I've read about them in years.

― post-contrarian meta-challop 2009 (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, August 28, 2009

not to take anything away but didn't The Mac already say as much in Silver Springs?

the first three or four album run once lindsay and stevie got involved is better than any punk band's. funny how times change. in 1999 people talking about 1967 the way people these days talk about how epochal/cool man 1977 was would've gotten laughed out of the record store. 1999 on the other hand. . . .

the basic disco beat emphasizes all four beats equally

But the four-on-the-floor drum beat is usually combined with other elements that are swung rhythmically (uneven durations) in lots of disco songs.

I don't think swing or shuffle is so much a question of emphasis as of duration. Four on the floor means all four beats are emphasized equally, unlike rock beats where the 2nd and 4th or 1st and 3rd are accented. This doesn't really have anything to do with swing or shuffle.

disco routinely incorporated syncopated elements (primarily of a caribbean/afro-cuban naure) that were more about dividing the standard 4/4 beat into varying 16th note patterns. but it doesn't change the fact that the underlying beat is not a shuffle.

where's Jordan? surely we can get one of ILM's resident drummers to settle this

verrrrrry rudimentary definition:

rock = 4/4
disco = off-beat, where the beat is on the bass-drum (I guess similar to classic country)?

ok, i just re-listened and i can ~kinda~ see how you can loosely (ie, c.eddy-ly) define "don't stop" and "2nd hand news" as disco-inspired rhythmically, but "go your own way" is a straight up 4/4 rock.

The drummer may insist there's no shuffle in disco - but I'm thinking more of the way other instruments play off the steady drum beat. For instance the "triple step" rhythmic feel of "Don't Stop" has uneven rhythms played on top of a steady even rhythm (3 beats of uneven duration played against 2 even ones).

oh hi.

i listened to "don't stop" and it's absolutely a shuffle. 4/4, with triplet subdivisions between the quarter notes, accented like this: ONE and UH TWO and UH THREE and UH FOUR and UH.

as for disco, i don't think of it as ever being explicitly triplet-based or using shuffle grooves, but it can still swing within that 4/4, duple-meter context (and swinging always at least references the triplet at some level of the beat).

incidentally, i was just listening to this, which has to be in the top 5 funkiest shuffles ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRMTaeoQw2Y

I don't think the swing feel is part of disco per se - just something that was sometimes implied particularly in '70s disco, which to my ears distinguishes it from later '80s dance music.

"The Hustle" was a popular '70s disco dance which involved dancing in a swing rhythm against the steady 4/4 disco pulse.

Also I think perhaps when rock bands adopted rhythmic ideas from disco in the '70s, it was more of that syncopation that is more noticeable, because they didn't take the 4 on the floor itself, but rather the trappings.

Also, this may be a bit of speculation at this point, but I suspect that another element rock may have taken from disco in the mid-70s was a somewhat faster tempo. It would be interesting to see what typical BPMs were for disco vs. rock in the early to mid-70s.

"You Make Loving Fun" seems to be the song on Rumours which doesn't exactly sound like disco but seems to have the most latent disco potential...

(actually, I'm not sure what I mean, except that I think that maybe instead of pining away for Stevie Nicks like punk, it's possible that disco was actually trying to nail Christine McVie)

Well, of course! She's the only one of the bunch who's not a recovering alky.

I think maybe John McVie is the most underrated of the Macsters. His bass playing is huge on "Rumours".

^love the bass-playing on "Dreams"

Yeah, it's great - really makes the song.

"Rumours was to the U.S. what punk was to the U.K."

it was funny reading that hotel california book about the whole elektra/asylum/laurel canyon era and the shot heard round the world for EVERYONE out there from the eagles guys and jackson and linda and everyone in between was sweet baby james! that was the album they all wanted to make and was the template for the whole cali sound. it was their sex pistols moment.

"Steamroller Blues" is kind of a jam.

i was primed and ready as early as 1974 to embrace the buck/nicks mac line-up. linda was my goddess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI9FMwzgY-k

and so, so hott

linda rondstadt seems like such a nice killer lady in "hotel california".. far too sweet to be hanging around those depraved unwashed eagles boys

far too SMART, you mean.

yeah that too

linda, and surprisingly, jackson browne were pretty much the only people who came out of that book unscathed.

frey and stills though, man, they were like the ultimate evil.

which Hotel California book are you referring to, scott?

oh wait: the Hoskyns book.

http://altefritz.com/Images/linda.jpg

que linda

Hey, look! It's our once and future governor. You shoulda captioned that skot.

I hadda read Mick Fleetwood's autobiography once. The only worse was Bill Wyman's. But anyway, the only thing I remember about it because it was so icky was Fleetwood retelling this tale of how he'd started this telephone romance with a fan who'd written him a letter. And he became very smitten with her, he alleged, seemingly on the basis of her telephone voice and what she told him. And he kept wanting to meet her and she kept putting it off. And he became more sexually obsessed with her and when she finally consented to meet him he was bummed because she turned out to be a fat girl. So he wrote that he had been wronged and tried to scold her into admitting she had tricked him. Unsuccessfully.

I have a hard time imagining why anyone would publish a story about themselves like that unless
that person has an IQ of about 70, has lucked into vast fame and fortune by being in the right place with the right people at the right times, and became used to being surrounded by people who never said "boo" to whatever stupid thing entered his mind.

Doesn't stop me from liking Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac though.

Ten possible reasons.

Marcello, that's fantastic. Although I still don't own the 2004 edition with the restored "Silver Springs," it's true that an inessential gap has been filled.

I recently tried to supplement my itunes-bought copy of Rumours with an itunes-bought copy of Silver Springs, which is only available on a Stevie Nicks best-of. The problem is that the version on the Nicks comp sounds so much better than the version of Rumours that I have.

The two-disc 2002 "Very Best of Fleetwood Mac" has a (remixed?) version of "Silver Springs" on it, as well as a nice selection of Peter Green stuff and random rarities/alternates.

I downloaded my version from that comp.

so when is the hollywood biopic about FM and the making and success of RUMOURS gonna happen???