David |
05-05-2006 11:47 AM |
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Originally Posted by Johnny Stew
In my opinion, it really had very little to do with what they released, and almost everything to do with the fact that hip-hop/rap was starting to take over the charts, with grunge following shortly after. A lot of artists who had been extremely popular just a few years prior, found their album sales dwindling as the '90s approached. The teenagers who, in 1983, thought Fleetwood Mac & Stevie Nicks were cool, were now well out of high school, and the new teenagers who made up the majority of the album-buying market, were looking for their own sound -- not something their big brother or... gasp... their parents listened to.
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of course this is true & you are the only one to peg the problem. the band was not a cool band in 1990 so it didn't matter what the album was like. That's why I laugh when people say "oh if they only released this song instead of that song, THIS song would have been a hit"--which is poshposh ridiculous screwyrabbit. I don't care if they released GO YOUR OWN ****ING WAY in 1990, it would NOT have been a hit by any stretch of the imagination. The same is doubly or triply true for today, or for that last beached whale of an album back in 2003.
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Fleetwood Mac was a dinosaur band, and I really doubt there's anything they could have done about it. Even if they hadn't released the 'Tango' video and 'Greatest Hits,' and even if Stevie hadn't released 'Red Rocks' and 'TOSOTM,' whatever album they did release would have still been viewed by the younger generation as just another album by "that band my Mom & Dad likes."
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true true absolutely true. I was working for a newspaper at the time in sacratomato & I hung out with the pop music critic & there's no ****ing way in hell that fleetwood mac would have got major airplay or had a big hit with ANYTHING they did. Get off the crack, people.
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It still amazes me that the 'Tango' album and most of its singles did so well, because there was nary a soul in my school that would even admit to remotely liking Fleetwood Mac... and I graduated in 1990. I remember a few of the girls liked "Little Lies," but that was it.
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yes that was amazing to me too stew. I think what drove that album was little lies & everywhere being so popular on adult-contemporary. remember back then adult-contemporary was a lot different from what adult-contemporary grew into in the early '90s with guys like dave matthews & sarah maclaghlin when it grew some balls. But back in the '80s, adult-contemporary was dreck unfortunately & those fleetwood mac songs were VERY popular on those stations & those people bought the album. You could walk into ANY hairdresser or haircut shop in 1987 & you would hear everywhere or little lies on the radio station. It was ridiculous.
but yes you are absolutely right that by 1987 even, fleetwood mac (despite its hit album) was definitely slipping out of coolsville. a few things helped prop it up: the aforementioned popularity of the adult-contemporary side of things, also the continued airplay & support on mtv, which was still showing fleetwood mac videos (or just plain videos) in 1987 & still covering the band's doings on MTV IN THE NEWS.
but I'll tell ya, stew cause you may not know this being quite a bit younger: fleetwood mac's luster in the public eye----that growing sense in the public that they were old farts----began even well before 1987....I began to notice such a phenomenon even by the time they headlined the us festival in 1982. LOTS of kids questioned just who the hell they were even then, & bitched about why the hell stupid fleetwood mac was headlining. the band had nothing in common with missing persons & other progressives in 1982, which was the stuff played at teenager parties & school dances--NOT fleetwood mac.
from there it was just a pretty steady decline. Concert attendance tells you nothing because even though it seems like a lot of people, it ain't---not compared with all the people buying albums or listening to radio. The concert audience is an extremely miniscule part of that. besides most of the people who filled up the forum when stevie or whoever came to play were just out for a party----you probably wouldn't have caught them dead with a stevie nicks cassette of Wild heart in their car, paradoxically enough.
that's the fleetwood mac story according to david o. :eek:
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