Re: reply
 

Yeah, and if Mick and John didn't have Stevie and Lindsey, their attempts at a Fleetwood Mac album would suck on the charts. But since when do chart positions matter if the music is good?

If you call doing drugs, never getting married and sleeping in strange hotel rooms glamourous, more power to you! I think we tend to think having money and playing on a stage night after night is heaven. I'm guessing it wouldn't be for everyone. And I think Christine paid her dues with FM and decided to live in a different kind of glamour, "family, friends and home."

Well, it's not on the charts now, but it did debut at #3 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, and did quite respectably sales-wise (approx. 800,000 copies sold)... all things considered.

As much as I was hoping it would hit #1 (and it still might have, if it had been released just one week earlier), I realize we shouldn't hold it up to the numbers 'The Dance' did.
'The Dance' had a lot of amazing buzz behind it, given the monumental occasion of having all five members of the 'Rumours' lineup back together after a decade, and being that it was also the 20th anniversary of 'Rumours,' and that the concert was aired on MTV, VH1 and PBS stations several dozen times for months.

Even if Christine were still an active member of the band, I believe Fleetwood Mac's days of selling several million copies of a brand-new studio album are behind them.
Outside of the occasional dark horse, new albums by classic rock artists just don't sell in the millions anymore... and more's the pity.

Do any new albums sell in the millions anymore? I mean, a lot of people just download the songs... Not me though.

I miss her too!

I didn't miss her much on SYW, since I was expecting her not in the album, same goes for the tour.

Still, I hope that her new album comes out!

Of course I miss Christine. As much as I love SYW, I think that there's something... missing. I don't know what it is. It could be her harmonies, her piano-playing, whatever. It's really weird, but I don't miss her songs as much as I miss her harmonies and her piano playing, and I happen to love basically all of her songs. Hopefully she'll get that damned solo album out soon.

Oh, about the "SYW IS NOT A FM ALBUM!" thing; Come on, people. It's a Fleetwood Mac album whether you want to call it one or not. Just because (insert former FM member here) isn't on an album doesn't mean that it's not a Fleetwood Mac recording :nod:

I would have thought Mick and John would have missed her the most, as this was the first Fleetwood Mac album since "Future Games" back in 1971 in which Christine didn't contribute songs. Those three went through the British blues, Benifolds, superstardom, fall from grace, and return to grace in the span of about 31 years.

Did I miss Christine? Yes and no.

Yes, I feel SYW wasn't as nicely balanced as the other albums with Lindsey and Stevie. It could have been a better album had it been edited down (and put the songs that didn't make the album on the bonus disc for the die-hards). There were places where I really missed her vocal harmonies, too.

However, as a guitarist, I love hearing how Lindsey and John filled the musical void left by Christine (especially on "Smile At You," which is probably one of the best John McVie basslines I've ever heard). As a music fan, I loved that the band was able to go off in some directions that they probably would not have gone in had Christine been there. While I really love Christine's songs, we generally hear the same ones tour after tour. To put it another way, I'd gladly go without hearing YMLF, "Songbird," or "Everywhere" for the umpteenth time in favor of witnessing Lindsey go mad on a song like "Come." (And, I'd be happy if they'd drop "Don't Stop," but that'll never happen.)

Overall, I don't feel that SYW, album or tour, suffered from Christine not being there. It was a different experience, and the band IS different. The dynamic has changed. But, it still sounds like Fleetwood Mac. I thought I would agree about it sounding like Buckingham Nicks II before the album came out, but the sound is just so far removed that it's much more Fleetwood Mac. And anyway, Buckingham Nicks, to me, sounds like "Bare Trees" era Mac, with some elements of Peter Green thrown in.

>>>We have Buckingham in his own words on why he left the band......and we hear from various FM members on why Christine left the band......

But did anyone ever hear CHRISTINE'S words on why she>>> herself>>> left????

:nod:

If some of you genuinely, in your heart, miss Christine so bad that you cannot even begin to swallow the current Fleetwood Mac...so be it. But I do wonder if some are so focused on her absence that it's almost like you can't give youreselves permission, if you will, to like the band without her. Maybe if you think of it as Johnny Stew has presented here, you won't be so sore. And I ADORE Chris. She should ultimately do what makes her happy, or else we'd have a thread right now saying, "Boy, Chris sure looks unhappy this Mac tour.":)

And then there's my situation: the reasons I don't really love the band now have nothing to do with Christine's absence/retirement.

Another point I want to address is the view (common even among the bandmembers themselves) that the sound is more guitar-based because Christine is out of the picture. That's ridiculous. Christine was never Keith Emerson or Billy Joel. Her keyboards on FM albums didn't occupy a central place like the playing of those guys. In fact, the parts she recorded on most of the songs were generally a subtle addition to the rhythm, not a lavish piano arrangement in the spotlight. Even on "Songbird," you could argue (& I do) that the piano arrangement & performance are a subdued rhythm guitar effect (which helps it blend so nicely with the actual acoustic guitar on the track).

So what's my point? I don't know. I can't remember. I think it's that, if the band's sound in the past ("Tusk" or "Mirage" or "Tango") wasn't guitar-based, it's because the BAND decided to make itself sound that way (Lindsey's doing, possibly), not because Christine was there bashing away on her piano or her synthesizer. Conversely, if the band's sound is more guitar-based nowadays, it's because the band decided to sound that way, not because Christine's keyboard playing is virtually absent. The fact is that there are plenty of keyboard & synth parts on the "Say You Will" album, & many of them are a LOT more central to the mix than any number of keyboard parts she concocted in the past.

Further, many of us know by now that a lot of what sounded like keyboards on albums like "Mirage" was actually guitar. So if something like "Straight Back" sounds too "keyboardy" to you, you can probably blame LB for the fakeout.

To take your point, David, and make a direct example... on SYW, the "synth" on "Everybody Finds Out" is NOT a keyboard based synth, it's Lindsey playing the part on guitar fitted with a hex pickup routed through a guitar synth.

Is anyone SURE about this? I've read this before, and that "synth" line sounds too "real" to be guitar.
Now, I don't have a guitar synth, so maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about!:laugh:

Homer...
 

I've heard a guitar sound (over the phone) EXACTLY like a synth where I would have SWORN it was a synth, but it was not. It's AMAZING and very cool sounding...obviously. :laugh:

It's even debatable whether the whole McVie - Buckingham dynamic would be able to work after such a long time. Their last real collaboration was during the making of Tango In The Night because I believe "Temporary One" has no significant Buckingham touches in it.

I know some people have been suggesting that Chris and Lindsey were never friends, maybe even disliked each other although they still worked together musically. I'm not going to discuss that one in detail but it might be a valid point. Could "Behind The Mask" be about Lindsey or not (as someone suggested on the Legboard)?

I do not mind Christine's absence because her keyboards were never prominently on any Lindsey song after Rumours and I believe Stevie's tracks on SYW wouldn't necessarily benefit from her playing.

But Chris definitely doesn't need Lindsey and Stevie to make her music work either. I think all of her songs on Time range from good to great. She's very capable of surviving on her own and I'm glad Ken Caillat has been helping her with the upcoming one.

Just put it out already! :nod: