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Against all odds, it seems, Fleetwood Mac epitomizes the Nietzschean doctrine of eternal return. Now in its 42nd year, the onetime English blues-rock outfit still has its original namesakes nailing down the rhythm section—spider-limbed drummer Mick Fleetwood and artfully unobtrusive bassist John McVie—even as the rest of the group’s personnel is prone to arriving and vanishing through a revolving door.
Keyboardist Christine McVie, once considered the soul of the Mac, left years ago, ceding all vocal duties to Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Onetime lovers and full-time erratic pop geniuses, Nicks and Buckingham used their volatile chemistry and push-pull harmonies to galvanize the band in the late ’70s, turning it into a multiplatinum soft-rock monster.
Each has enjoyed stellar-to-middling solo careers (Buckingham, in particular, is in full stride after two recent return-to-form LPs), and a late-’80s meltdown saw such replacements as Bekka Bramlett and Dave Mason in the lineup. Yet the Mac we all know and love has again been a going concern for a full decade.
Rumours, the 1977 album that proved to be the Thriller of the T.G.I. Friday’s set, remains not only a pop classic but a memento mori to the music industry: No album will matter so much to so many ever again. Rumors did abound, however, about the possibility of Sheryl Crow taking McVie’s chair on the current tour. No go, apparently. It’s a shame, since Crow’s earthy grit could double the witchy factor, harmonizing on “Gold Dust Woman” and “Rhiannon.” But in the raging ego-fest that is the Mac, maybe that’d be just one too many divas in the kitchen.
— Steve Dollar
