[TrueFaith77]

Your logic still doesn't hold on the Jeremy/Danny not being the true Fleetwood Mac... because... your whole point is that a similar blanding occurred when Rick and Billy joined... which means according to that same logic... Christine was part of the post-Peter blanding and Stevie and Christine were (like Jeremy/Danny) around for the blanding after Lindsey left. Which means, you ACTUALLY only think that Fleetwood Mac is Fleetwood Mac if Peter and Lindsey are there: Mick, John, Christine, Stevie are all incidental according to your logic.

ETA: Now I understand. Peter Green is the heartbeat (he worked with Jeremy and Danny separately for example). AND Lindsey-Stevie-Christine are, as a unit, the heartbeat.

Your internal logic is sound.

However, to Chili's point--and to your particular standards--do you think the band's blanding began before Behind the Mask, with Mirage, in which the Rumours juggernaut proved to great for them to successfully negotiate?

My pov is conflicted: I admire and enjoy all eras of Fleetwood Mac and I see how that history participated in the three Off-White albums of the late 70s, which I regard as a pinnacle in ALL OF MUSIC. But if THAT brand were smudged, it began with Mirage, no?

Compromised though it may be (as we know as insiders rather than as fresh listeners, I contend), I consider Say You Will to be the greatest American album of the 00s. To put it in perspective, Mirage and Tango (both of which I love) wouldn't make my Top 50 of the 80s (I don't even know if they'd make the top 10 for their respective years!).

I have a friend who believes in the "brand" concept as well. Look at something like Roxy Music where every album must be perfection and for which Bryan daringly retired the name at its greatest financial and international success. For him, the Mac should have ended with Tusk. And he argues that 90s Mac didn't "look" right--and in part he intuits the compromise at the heart of them, in which certain artists may have been forced into the Rumours mold. I happen to think this means he is missing some wonderful moments and wonderful records (even Behind the Mask is a fascinating whole; I feel the cover captures the album's quality of being steeped in American folk/pop lore--of which the Rumours Mac were an undeniable part).

And, THUS, I feel that therefore the definition of the Mac is, in fact, held in the much-hated Time album in which Mick reveals that the Mac is his way of honoring Peter Green. And, THAT is as good a definition of the "real" Fleetwood Mac as I need.

Chili and I won't agree on the worth of revisiting Rumours on The Dance or on the more-than-a-fluke specialness of that phenomenon. However, I think the point is to call something the "real" fleetwood mac or not kinda misses the larger issue of how and where and why and to what point Fleetwood Mac became what it became at different junctures.

Just some thoughts.