You should pick up a subscription to Der magazine...

Heavens no!

Seriously, life is short, don't waste your time worrying that hypothetical people might be hypothetically mildly offended by posts on an Internet message board. I don't think there's been a single actual complaint in this thread about anybody feeling at all put out by an open discussion of the impact of race on pop culture demographics.

I don't think it's Un-PC at all. :shrug: We're not making racist comments, or saying anything derogatory about anyone. It's an honest question posed by a fan. Nobody has been offended who has posted - and why would they be?

Bookie29 didn't seem to be upset about Chris' curiousity. Welcome, btw! :wavey:

Chocolate.

Stop it. ;)

Mmmmm....chocolate.....
http://www.macdesktops.com/Previews/...Preview240.jpg

:shocked: Wait a second...We were having a conversation about...

http://www.c-webb.20fr.com/homer_screaming.jpg

Okay, I'm going to step back slowly, and then I'm going to start running like hell...http://emoticons4u.informationalot.com/cartoon/1279.gif

Me neither. Some of my best friends are Fleetwood Mac fans. ;)

- Jake

Why, are you on the centerfold? :wavey:

- Jake

To add to the list of famous African Americans who love Fleetwood Mac... meteorologist Mark McEwan (formerly on CBS's 'The Early Show') is a major Stevie fan. :nod:

Does FM have any African American fans?

The simple answer is no, not a single one. If they even listen to their music, it must be done in secret. I hope this answers this question once and for all. :shrug:

No, I'm the editor.

Then why does your picture have a staple in the middle? :D

Why are you still staring at it?

Sheesh! I didn't mean to offend you.

I am trying to figure out how you got into that position. :nod: And why the Clown shoes. :shocked:

My best friend's ex girlfriend (who is African American) is a HUGE Fleetwood Mac fan. She also likes the Eagles. She asked me to burn her some Fleetwood Mac and Eagles stuff, because someone stole hers. :laugh: Of course, I burned her a lot of Mac stuff. We can't have a Mac fan without their music, can we?! :D

I saw four of them at the Stevie/Don show in Mansfield, Ma. 3 of them even bought a VIP package.

Yes, bumping another old thread to add to it... ;)

This is funny~ I fall into a rare category of Stevie fans, relatively young (27) and I'm black haha. Completely obsessed too, and hoping to catch them on tour twice this year, once on each coast. I actually just found my old, forgotten fansite I made dedicated to Stevie when I was 16. I can't even share it, it's so embarrassing!!! (Cat Dancer plays automatically on one of the pages)

I was at the mall yesterday and stopped at the makeup counter and was chatting with the saleswoman (also black) about the music they were playing. She asked me who my favorite group was and I said "this will sound strange, but Fleetwood Mac" is practically all I listen to!" She said she loves them too and that the world stops for her when she hears the song "Dreams."

Every black person I have talked to about FM tells me they love "Dreams" :laugh:

Even still, I have never personally known another non-white FM fan. Doesn't change anything for me, of course! :xoxo:

I'm not black, but I'm not white either, and I'm a fan, so nice to meet you bluecalmsea :)

Kanye West is a fan, I believe.

Nice to meet you too! :wavey:

This is an interesting thread. I listen to a lot of music by black artists and when I attend their concerts, there are usually white people there.

Throughout the years, I have attended numerous Fleetwood Mac shows as well as solo concerts by Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie. The only black people that I've seen at these concerts were employees of the venue and members of the stage band: Eliscia Wright, Bobbye Hall, Lynn Mabry, etc... So, no I have never seen a black audience member. I guess our black sisters and brothers just don't feel the need to groove to chiffon, tambourines, heavy handed guitar solos, California Pop, British Humour, Welsh Witches, White Elephant Tusks, platform boots and big love.

Also, as one someone previously stated, I LOVES ME SOME BOBBYE HALL !! "She is OFF THE CHAIN !!!" I sure wish Stevie would bring back Ms. Bobbye Hall for her next solo tour. That hot mama has rhythm!!!!

...what the hell...

Is the point of this thread to somehow insuate that Fleetwood Mac's music is racist?

I don't get that impression at all! Just someone making an observation about fans, I think! :cool:

No...Just VERY Anglo-Saxon.

as a person of color, this offends me.

It is interesting that racism always raises its head when the difference between cultures is mentioned. Like it or not, people from different cultures, backgrounds etc like different styles of music.

Well, considering that the person who started the thread (way back in 2005 :eek: ) was a teenager then, I highly doubt that was his intention.

I am not surprised - it's a totally weird and unnecessary thread!

I think some people in this thread are confusing colorblindness with political correctness. For whatever it's worth, and that may not be much, I can't think of many activists I've encountered who would say that the two are the same thing.

As for why this might be, rock and roll was birthed out of musical traditions of black Americans (although of course there were important influences from the Appalachian folk/country tradition) but popularized for the white mainstream by white artists. Perhaps when that happened that music could no longer speak of the specific experiences of a disenfranchised minority so they continually sought out newer forms of expression. It's hard to separate art from sociology IMO, if you really want to understand it, even though it might be more comfortable to ignore the latter.

There's something possibly to the fact too that if you never see another non-white person at a Fleetwood Mac concert you might not ever feel like it's your place to be. There was an interesting article I read recently at MTVhive.com called "The Only Black Guy at the Indie Rock Concert" that talks about what an analogue of that might feel like. The author is probably not literally the only one, but it's easy to see how he sure could feel like it.

Anyway, things get branded as "for" these people or "for" those people. Some of it is maybe grounded in truth (it was hip-hop music that spoke for the experiences of urban black America in the 80's and 90's, more than other genres, so why would people who live that reality find other genres that don't even acknowledge those realities more relatable?) and some of it is less so. But once that happens it can be a self-feeding cycle. I think the thing that hip-hop and rap was able to do especially the 1990's was come across not only as "for black people" but also "for young people", because it was young and new, it was the new kid on the block. So a lot of young people can identify with hip-hop through a generational identity regardless of race. Rock music OTOH hasn't been the new kid on the block since the 1950's, the only thing that's going to appear edgy to kids now is either very hard rock or very experimental/obscure rock.

I'm aware that I've spoken in gross generalizations and nothing should be taken to apply to every single person ever. Individual variations always happen. Uh, I'll just end with a shout out to Skeetwood Mac, The Melker Project's mashup tribute to Rumours that features a lot of current hip-hop artists like Rihanna, Ciara, Jay-Z, Ludacris, 2 Chainz, etc. If mashups are your thing then some of these are really successful.

What happened to Bobbi Hall?

A few weeks ago she lifted a pic of Stevie and Mick off of Sara Fleetwood's FB page that I had posted there.

Musical artists usually aren't a racist bunch.

That was really beautiful, thanks for sharing. :nod:

Wow, this thread originated in 2005!

As one of those minorities, I actually read every post in this thread, and yours resonated with me the most. It is, indeed, a strange feeling to be one of few non-whites at a Stevie Nicks or Fleetwood Mac, particularly in a metropolitan area where it tends to be more of a mixed crowd. But that's not really the case with Stevie or Mac. It's generally 98% white and 2% everybody else. But feeling uncomfortable in this setting is my own personal issue. I just don't like to stick out or draw attention at a concert. I'm just there for the music, like everybody else. But I have never experienced any racism at any Stevie Nicks or Fleetwood Mac concert. And the Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac fans that I've met in person have always welcomed me with open arms.

I dug out this article that I really liked in Pop Matters, We Were the World: 85 Word Aboard the Crossover Express. It talks about the cultural politics of music from a (not "the", as if there was only one legitimate one) black American perspective with much more authority than I can.

My dad and my uncles were among the first generation of recognizably educated black men. They were high-brow intellectuals with an image to maintain in the Chicago black community. During my toddler years, they mixed in their “white” albums and eight track tapes with communally acceptable black artists. Sinatra, Lanie Kazan, and the Association (yep—“[they] harmonized as good as the Dells,” swore my Uncle Jeff) were their kiddie porn, black people’s “race music”. It was music not be shared in “same” company, racially speaking; a fetish that could cause huge embarrassment and misunderstanding amongst “the peeps”, especially for my black nationalist, black is beautiful, “death to whitey” Uncle Jeff. They had no problem with their reading of Playboy and Esquire being public knowledge, but “that” music was listened to at low volume and with windows—car and home—closed, and was their way of setting themselves apart (and maybe a little above) their working and middle class cousins and neighbors.

Come the ‘70s, and the walls of my bedroom walls blared out with Sean Cassidy, David Bowie, and the Average White Band competing for space alongside Bootsy Collins, a shirtless and unsanctified Al Green, and the Jackson 5. Apartheid in music had vanished, “crossover” was the order of the day, and even some country spun on the turntables at black radio stations. I could go my own way, indeed.

...

We debated openly the messy politics of sexual lust and the respectful co-opting of “race music” as American race and sex politics in became less honorable and more contemptible each passing day until the ‘70s ended.

The ‘80s brought an unabashed and proudly apartheid moment in music. MTV entrenched itself. Music was to be seen and not heard. Artists that looked more carnival geek (hello, Joe Jackson) or over 30 (goodbye, Fleetwood Mac), no matter the beauty and intellect in notes and lyrics, found themselves the musical equivalent of a televangelist, stuck in the 3AM time slot, if their videos rotated at all—as was the case for black artists looking for purchase on MTV. Corporate entities that produced wire hangers and air fresheners bought up every radio station in America, leaving behind a hard-wired playlist not to be diverted from. Music for the respectable misogynist/racist/ageist/homophobe became the flagship of the American Cultural Armada.

The whole thing is a good read, IMO, and good food for thought. It speaks to the fluid dynamics at play when culture meets art (and when doesn't it?).

The only problem is that that's not exactly true. Fleetwood Mac's videos got lots of play on MTV. "Little Lies" even topped the MTV video charts. It was an MTV special that brought the classic Fleetwood Mac back. Solo Stevie, Don Henley, Glen Frey, Tom Petty, the Traveling Wilburys, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Genesis, etc, all were in heavy rotation.

As for black artists on MTV, I think "Thriller" is still considered the most successful video of all time. I watched a lot of MTV, and I never really thought they had a racial diversity deficit. Look at the mainstream success of hip hop. You don't think Yo! MTV Raps! had anything to do with that?

MTV can be partially blamed for the downfall of popular music to some extent, but I think MTV actually did more to narrow the racial divide in the culture of music than not.

I am African-American and I love Fleetwood Mac. I got into the Mac by listening to their music during AM radio during the mid to late 70's as a kid. My first FM album I actually purchased was Tango In The Night. I went back over the years and got all of the Fleetwood Mac albums. I love the Green era and the Kirwan/Welch era too!

I saw the FM in Mountain View, Ca on the Dance tour. I did not pay too much attention but I did notice that there was not that many African-American fans there at all. At the end of the day I go for the music and not to see if there are a lot of black folks there.

Mary J. Blige said she liked Stevie's voice....Dr. Dre was interviewed in the studio once and Rumours was playing and he made the comment, "That's the real deal"...Destiny's Child and Beyonce asked Stevie to be in Bootylicious,...and Queen Latifah once introduced Stevie as, "my girl, Stevie Nicks.....