should FM release the album without SN's songs?
 

we found out some news yesterday, that seem to push FM album yet another year or 2... or 3... or 5.... how many years has it been thus far for this album?? since 2009 i guess. :shrug:


so my question is:

since they have 4 out of 5 members on board, and 2 out of 3 songwriters, should they release the album without any SN-penned songs?


another thing to think of - FM has:

• released the album with SN and CM, without LB on it, and
• released the album with LB and SN, without CM songs on it

- so it seems about right to release one with LB and CM songs, without SN's songs, no? full circle!

if SN is on board with an album from all 5 at some later time, they can release another album then. Lindsey's songs he recorded with Mick and John have been waiting since the beginning of 2012. it is now more than 2 years later, and seems that Christine's songs have been added to his. WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR??

Debbie, I am surprised you voted yes.

I don't know about "there's no time to waste", but I did vote "yes". I enjoy Chris and Lindsey as collaborators. Stevie always felt like the "bonus member" of that group, and I'm enjoying her recent and fairly prolific solo work so see no reason to insist upon her inclusion. I'd rather not have her just "phone it in" for the sake of it. *cough*TangointheNight*cough*

However, do I think this would happen in a million years? No.

Should FM put out the record without Stevie??? YES!!! Lets' see how good a record without Stevie is and how well it sells...

agree with all you wrote - all very good points! :thumbsup:

also unfortunately agree that FM seems to be a bunch of wusses who can't make up their mind and make firm decisions on anything, and that they'll continue to wait and wait and wait for SN and beg her to phone in it. which is a shame, and completely unnecessary.

My take on it is that she doesn't want to record with FM anymore (and that probably means Lindsey). She keeps putting it off and now she's in Nashville recording solo tracks. I don't understand why she won't just give them a few demos and let them work on it. Lindsey keeps saying he needs her to bring something to the table and she hasn't so far. Instead she's working on a new solo album. I feel like she doesn't want to be there. And as Elle pointed out they released music without Lindsey and without Chris so why not without Stevie? It'll be something totally different and the Stevie fans will get new music from her anyway (assuming she hasn't opened the vault for the millionth time).

I voted to wait for Stevie.

I don't think this news has pushed Fleetwood Mac's album back at all. Christine told more than one journalist that the band was working on material to release "sometime next year"/"sometime after the tour."

Who knows... maybe Stevie's current recording sessions in Nashville had been planned all along, and were the reason Lindsey said she hadn't yet decided on the "how" & "when" of recording with Fleetwood Mac.

Also ~ if she doesn't want to be there and she phones it in what's the use?? If she's unhappy being in the studio we'll get a bunch of crappy songs. Who wants that? I certainly don't.

When she recorded 'Trouble In Shangri-La,' she pulled "Thrown Down" because she thought it would make a great Fleetwood Mac song. She also saved "Not Make Believe" for them, from her 'TISL' demo sessions.

There's always the possibility she intends to do that again, and save a few songs from these sessions for Fleetwood Mac to record. Lindsey suggested more than once last year, that Stevie didn't yet have any new material to bring to the table. So this time spent in Nashville could easily be a "kill two birds with one stone" situation.

Just a thought.

You could be totally right and maybe she does kill 2 birds with one stone. Let's hope so but I don't think they should wait for her to come around. I'm with Elle: you have an album, release it with or without her.

yes my speculation is that Chris and Lindsey have been saying all this stuff lately since they were waiting for SN and were unsure when she'll be on board. that doesn't mean she'll be on board ever for an FM album, but they seem hopeful. Mick's "we're hoping" it will be fast, 2 weeks, tells me they are still waiting for her. and i just don't get that mentality. why wait and beg and try to coerce her for 5 years now, if she doesn't feel like it? let her do what she wants to do, and they can do what they want to, you know?

plus, i just don't get why you think FM should wait? don't you want more stuff out rather than less? :shrug:

i need this Mac album to come out. we've been waiting since 2012.

(and i need LB solo album. ASAP. )

Unfortunately, if they do release an album without Stevie, they really lose all of the "WE'RE ALL BACK TOGETHER AGAIN YAY" media hype that's been built up around them over the past few months. Commercially it's not a smart move at all. Personally I couldn't care less about commercial success for Fleetwood Mac at this point, but history has shown that they obviously do.

i was thinking that too, and that would be great.

however she can add those songs to the next FM album, one they can record next year. instead of waiting for this one to add it to, that same next year because they won't have time to do it this year with the tour already booked and imminent for the whole second part of the year.

why not have 2 albums instead of just 1 in the same time?? (actually 3: FM without SN, SN solo, and FM with all 5, in the next 2 years! wouldn't that be amazing??) :blob2:

My position is this...If Stevie is done recording with FM (and it's her choice) then FM needs to accept that and move on and quit wasting their time trying to "Get Stevie on board" and if they still want to put out new music with just the 4 that's fine...What ever happens just remember that they have all been recording in one way or another and we will soon have new music...

albums don't sell anyway so why would that matter?

old acts release albums for their soul, and tour for the money and media hype. just looks at how many cobbled together old acts in their 60s are touring and raking in money for the last 2 years!! Rumours 5 are legendary and new kids will want to go see them for their legendary hits of the 5, not for the new material. although it's true that hipster kids will care whether they are still relevant and putting out new material.

agree! :thumbsup:

yes, except that soon for the Mac has been over 2 years now...

all great points! :thumbsup:

Thanks :xoxo:

I take your point, but I honestly think this whole planned studio release is motivated by a sense of "well... the fans REALLY want it", which would be lost if Stevie was missing. The "for their soul" argument sounds good on paper, but has this band honestly found working as a fivesome at all artistically gratifying or even enjoyable since 1977? Maybe very ocassionally, but for the most part I think these members wouldn't find it worth the hassle except for the fans. This move seems to be more about rewarding fan response (be it monetary or something more abstract) than anything else.

It's not going to sell anyway. That's the point. Whatever fear they had 20 years ago about their lack of popularity without Stevie is a moot point now. They have to give up that fantasy of going gold or platinum, even with Stevie.

They shouldn't be trying for record sales. Will the record get critical attention? Yes and maybe more so when the press plays the band dissension angle. They might study the album more closely to grade it in light of Stevie's absence. This could bring them more criticism as critic after critic talks about what is missing without her (as they did with SYW) or it could bring them surprise praise. We don't know.

But this is not 1987 when they needed Stevie for record sales. Sadly, they won't be getting those with or without her.

Michele

At this point I think the "for their soul" albums are the solo albums. FM is always an attempt to be commercial / more successful, despite whatever guise it's labeled under, and despite the fact that they're simply not going to be in this day and age.

And if FM were to do a "for their soul," album, then in my mind that would certainly be the point when they wanted it to be all 5 of them.

Otherwise they'd all just guest on each other's solo projects, as they have in the past.

But they get to exploit that same "we're all back together" hype for the On With the Show tour, so I think they will get their mileage out of that and it will be at the box office, which is more lucrative for them than album sales are anyway.

If Stevie were not touring with them, they'd have a real problem. Her presence on the album is not a problem. It could be if they are still trying to connect with a record label like Warner Bros. though. But they shouldn't be doing that. They need to change their mentality and grow (age) with the times.

Michele

exactly! while as 4, Lindsey and Christine obviously enjoy working together as songwriters. so why not release what they can put together instead of trying to force what has not been working for decades?

they don't do any of it for the fans, let's not fool ourselves. :D

Very good point. I don't think they ever have.

I'm not trying to paint any of them as selfless anti-capitalist saints, or anything. Don't get me wrong! ;) But I do think that, money aside, even having a bunch of fans gushing and going "OMG YOU GUYS ARE SO AMAZING ALL TOGETHER I AM SO HAPPY I COULD WRESTLE A RAINBOW" feels awesome and can be a really strong motivator to do something a certain way. Solo projects and a more fragmented incarnation of FM just don't give any of the members that kind of reward on the same scale. And I do think that sort of fanbase "high" is the main reason they want to do this as a fivesome. If it was just for artistic gratification then Lindsey and Christine would already be doing what we suggest. That's not what these guys have on the brain.

I get what you're saying -- but we don't even know that they're still having to beg or coerce her, or that she doesn't want to record with them. Sure, that was true of the very recent past -- but the past is still the past. Stevie's changed her mind before. When she left the band in 1991, she said she didn't foresee herself ever working with Fleetwood Mac again. Ultimately she did, saying that she "woke up one morning and realized I wasn't mad at anyone anymore." Things change.

Also, and I can't stress this enough, the prospect of recording an album last year, meant that it would be just her, Lindsey, Mick & John. Christine's return is a total game-changer.

So Stevie not wanting to record an album last year, doesn't automatically mean that she doesn't want to now. Neither does the fact that she hadn't yet committed to a "how" or "when."

I said weeks ago, that Stevie may have been waiting for Dave Stewart to be available, before she could commit to a time-frame with Fleetwood Mac (if Dave was to be the one producing her tracks). With this latest information, it's very possible that a new solo album had been on the cards for a while now -- and that it's the reason she couldn't definitively tell Fleetwood Mac, "I'll be available from this date to this date," because she didn't yet know.

Maybe Mick is "hoping" that she'll actually be done in two weeks, because they intend to go into the studio with her the minute she's back in LA.

Well, for one thing, I highly doubt they have anything to release yet. Was a month & a half at the Village Recorders (if they were even there that long) enough time for Christine to record keyboards and vocals for Lindsey's five remaining Froom tracks, and for the band to completely record five or six of Christine's songs (some that, by her own admission, were in such raw demo form that Lindsey had to fashion them together)?

Seems like a tall order.

On top of that, they were working with limited involvement from John, due to his health issues. I would hope they'd be mindful to not over-tax him physically just to rush out a new album.

Us "old dogs" waited ten years between 'Tango' and 'The Dance,' for this lineup to work together again. And another sixteen years after that. (We also waited fourteen years between Lindsey's solo albums, and ten years between Stevie's.)

I find the prospect of waiting one more year to be a cake-walk after all that.

I do understand how you feel, though, Elle. And I can't say that I was always this patient waiting for the band members to release material.

yes, but they are in their 60s and 70s now. time is not on their side, anymore.

Except, for Stevie, recording with FM is not "for the soul," so the album can't be that for the 5 of them, since it's not that for her.

Michele

And it's already been 11 years since SYW. There's no need to keep waiting and hope something different will happen, since that hope has been extinguished before.

Michele

If Stevie is done with a brand new solo album in 2 weeks, HELL even an EP, I'll eat my tambourine.

I don't know when she will be done with it, but when will there be announcements about it?

I guess that's why she got her twitter account verified.

Michele

Dave Stewart has been made aware of the fact that Mick "spilled the beans" so we shall see if anyone from "camp Stevie" breaks the silence and tweets about this...Yes Stevie's twitter was "verified" just days before Nashville and is steadily gaining followers on a daily basis...

I think the twitter verification had to do with the Jimmy Fallon guest appearance. She had 1,000,000 youtube views the next day on that video. She's never grossed so quickly on the internet before that. I bet either Stevie's people or the Twitter people were dragging their feet until they saw that huge increase of interest.

She's either going to cut ties with FM after this tour to complete/promote this album or it's going to get brushed under the rug for a while.

plus, just think of the press for this?! the articles are basically writing themselves!!

FM is a band that has been thriving on highlighting the conflict between various band members, whether made up or real. this should generate tons of press and speculations!!

lets see, i'm not good at this but how about:

• lovefest on stage but fallout in the studio!
• inside FM reunion: what is really going on?
• Christine came back, but Stevie still just cannot stand to put up with LB in the studio (just watch that "you wouldn't say that to Bob Dylan" clip to see what we mean!), and had to sit the album out!
• watch their dynamic on stage where we can see all 5 and compare that to what is coming out on the album!?!
• will this band ever find some peace and common language?

another thing to think of:

• Stevie was a part of EP
• Stevie has 9 songs on SYW

yet, most SN fans seem to really dislike both of these. so what makes people think that just because she contributed to the album, her fans will be behind it in droves??

I responded NO. But, not to the " however long it takes part". Because we don't know that Stevie was given a time frame, or a specific date that she needed to comply by. If in fact she was given this information, and then proceeded to keep the band waiting for " however long it takes ", I would probably have a different answer. But we don't know that to be the case. Has Stevie even said she was going to record on this album yet?

no she hasn't. everyone else in the band (other than John) said they are working on the new FM album. but Stevie hasn't and she said she didn't know what she was doing before August of 2014.

so wait i'm confused... you think they should wait for SN, whether or not she's interested? if SN is not interested it would seem that the wait would be forever.... maybe the answer in that case should be "we don't need FM album"?

I have mixed feelings on this.I think they should throw in the towel in if Stevie does not want to record with the band and put up with the BS in the studio .It will flop.I can not blame her for putting up with the stress doing it.

I'm not worried about a new album nor dont want retreads of greatest hits albums.

I'm just so happy that Chris will tour again with them later this year.
Thats the highlight of year so far to see Chris back in the band.

It is strange to see Chris with Stevie in Nashville and who knows really whats going on there but it would be nice to see some thing with the whole band on record with Chris here.

I always say why bother releasing a album these days.It never see the top 40 Us fan are the only ones are going to buy it.It probably wont or get little radio airplay.

We will feel honored if they do a album just for the fans.

My answer " NO " was in response to the poll question, which was, should FM release the album without Stevie's songs? She is a member of the band, and until she says she no longer wants to record with them, that will be my answer. I answered that way because we don't know what her commitment to recording is at this point. If she said, " You know what guy's, I'll pass ", then by all means record and release. If she is undecided because of other obligations, projects, waiting for the availibility of musicians, studio time , then I feel that they should wait a mutually agreed amount of time.

I hate to bring this up, and I am kind of prepped for the backlash but... I think everyone's so focused on Stevie NOT being in the studio with FM that they automatically assume that the rest of the gang is, seriously working on an album.

This is nearly a month old, but looks like Lindsey may not have even been there in the beginning of April (assuming he was with his family). Again, just a guess.

http://i1358.photobucket.com/albums/...ps489676b3.png

But I think everyone's quick to jump the gun and think that Stevie's quitting, FM is going to release an album in he near future, etc. I'm just going to sit back and watch this confusing scenario unfold. Who knows with this band, right? Their dynamic has never been uncomplicated - why start now?