Love the art, not the artist?

[tango87]

Like many other Ledgies no doubt, I have found the events of the past few months frankly rather depressing. Despite the band's reputation for soap opera-style drama, after all this time I was expecting them to roll slowly into the sunset, much as the Stones seem to be doing, with all hatchets finally buried and safe in the knowledge that they've contributed some truly beautiful and influential music to the rock canon. But, once again, they've managed to confound my expectations...

I first fell for the band when Tango In The Night was released - with each new single, I thought, 'Wow, I love this song!'; got the album for Christmas, listened to it endlessly on my Walkman. I knew that album inside out. But I hardly knew anything about the band. The only images I'd seen of them were the ones on the sleeve, and then of course the videos - but we didn't have MTV, and UK TV hardly showed music videos, so they were snatched glimpses at best. I didn't see any interviews with them, had barely any knowledge of their lives at all. I remember a big ad in the Sunday Times for their upcoming London shows, and being utterly confused - there were two men without beards in the picture, and neither of them seemed to be Lindsey Buckingham. I tried to make one of them into Lindsey by squinting very hard, but he clearly wasn't there... Finally I saw a BBC documentary about them, and only then I realised he'd left.

Fast-forward 31 years, and now I know practically everything about them. All the stories, all the rumours and news (fake or otherwise). The result has been that I've found it really hard to listen to their music since Lindsey's firing - music that has been right at the centre of my listening since 1987. Now, when I hear a Mac song, I find myself thinking about all the animosity between them, all the arguments and fights, how they just couldn't keep it together - what a miserable situation it all is, and I put something else on instead.

But maybe that's the problem. In 1987, I could barely recognise them; now, I know way too much. Maybe If I didn't read about all the bitching and fighting and smirking, I could listen to those records again, in the same way that I listen to Roxy Music, for example. I haven't got a clue what Phil Manzanera said to Andy Mackay in 1979, and I'm all the happier for it. After all, there's more than enough drama in Fleetwood Mac's music, why should I need to run to Google to try and find out more? Like a few Ledgies, I work in the entertainment world, and meet a lot of well-known people, and invariably my opinion of them changes once I've met them - and not always for the better.

So maybe that's it? If we still want to love the art, even though we don't love the artist any more, perhaps it's easier if we don't know so much about them...

[BLY]

I got into the MAC in 1976 when there was very little info to get on bands (prior to social media)I had to hope that Hit Parade or Cream magazine would make mention of them. I was a kid obsessed with this band and I am to this day. I still separate all the BS that’s going on and just love the music, when one of their songs come on my play list. I just crank it up and enjoy......
I don’t give a **** about what happened in their personal/business lives.....Does it suck? Yes...but let the music play on.....That’s really all us fans should care about.

[sasja]

Honestly, for me the human interest story part was largely what contributed to this band's appeal, when I found out about them in 79, wow, that long ago, we are all getting old aren't we !

to me personally, the '75 to '80 band music is ok, not that I'd seek it out these days. After that, mweh. I can find far better musical art. In my opinion. LB solo still entices me, he still innovates and creates interesting music. But art... hmm, that's too big a word in my opinion.

Chopin etudes are art, the phrasing and musicality of those, Lux Aeterna is art. Beethoven is art. Fleetwood Mac? Musical diversion ditties. Pop. Soap bubbles. Fun to sing along to or in the background. I personally would never ever call it art though.

But that's just my humble opinion.

[Frankenstein]

Originally Posted by sasja

Chopin etudes are art, the phrasing and musicality of those, Lux Aeterna is art. Beethoven is art. Fleetwood Mac? Musical diversion ditties. Pop. Soap bubbles. Fun to sing along to or in the background. I personally would never ever call it art though.

But that's just my humble opinion.

Would you say that to Bob Dylan?

[sasja]

Certainly would, though his contribution to the world at least is some great beatnik poetry!

[Jondalar]

Lindsey is the only artist in the group.

[DownOnRodeo]

I think Lindsey would say that "art" (of the caliber that sasja mentions) is largely dependent on the equation of time--and thus even the most diversional of pop ditties might be rightly labelled "art" if they withstand the test of longevity.

Lindsey always seems very much interested in creating "art" and avoiding any label to the contrary.

Stevie, one assumes, is angling for the Nobel Prize in Literature with her insistence on six-minute poetry epics, endless references to classical literature, and pervasive use of Dylanesque pronominalization.

Contrast with Christine, who--unlike her ambitious Californian colleagues--has always seemed satisfied if she can successfully create a "diversional ditty," and almost seems uncomfortable if one of her enduring hits is elevated to planes of greater significance. That's my read on it anyway.


Regarding tango87's topic, I find that I can still blithely enjoy the music if it's a Christine song or a Lindsey solo song, for example, but as soon as it's an FM song where the Buckingham-Nicks narrative is salient (or imputable), I find it difficult to disentangle the song from the story. And even over the past 20 years, they've been selling the story as part of the song since The Dance.