What genres did Fleetwood Mac cover?
 

The Beatles...one of my other fave bands, were famous for creating music in so many different genres; Rock, Pop, Reggae, Metal, Country, Ragtime, etc etc

I was thinking...throughout their career Fleetwood Mac have created songs that can be attributed to a variety of different genres too (and there are so many different sub-genres too)...

Rock: I'm So Afraid, Sisters of the Moon, Isn't it Midnight etc
Pop: Little Lies, Hold Me, Everywhere etc
Blues: Need Your Love So Bad, I Loved Another Woman etc
Blues Rock: Station Man, Rattle Snake Shake etc
Country: That's Alright, Never Going Back Again, When the Sun Goes Down
Reggae: Paper Doll, Forever
Calypso: Did You Ever Love Me
Classical: Oh Well Part II
Lullaby: Show Me a Smile
Metal: The Green Manalishi, Oh Well
New Wave/Alt Rock: The Ledge, That's All For Everyone
Jazz: Hypnotized (????)

What other music genres are there that you can think of?

The Tango album Wikipedia page describes its genre as pop rock & soft rock. I don't label IIM as pop rock or soft rock, I agree with you it's just rock. But I've always had a hard time trying to understand what they identify as pop music. The definition is so wide, that actually I don't consider it as a music genre per se, I see it more like the commercial approach they give it to a song. It's actually confusing, I mean I wouldn't say Little Lies or Everywhere are pop songs in terms of music genre, because in that case a pop song to me is Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and it doesn't sound like Christine songs, I wouldn't put them in the same basket with Cyndi songs. But I agree all of them were popular on radios. Does that make LL or HM a pop song? I don't know.


The live version of Over My Head in the 1980 album, I've always felt that intro sounds as country.

Blood On The Floor is a classic, dark country song that sounds like someone like Lefty Frizzell or Hank Williams would have done.

Aside from Station Man, I didn’t really consider the wide variety of the Kiln House album. In fact, that’s probably the reason I ‘hate’ that album so much; it’s so damned varied I find it really incoherent and a random selection of song genre with little common thread.

[QUOTE=Villavic;1305253]The Tango album Wikipedia page describes its genre as pop rock & soft rock. I don't label IIM as pop rock or soft rock, I agree with you it's just rock. But I've always had a hard time trying to understand what they identify as pop music. The definition is so wide, that actually I don't consider it as a music genre per se, I see it more like the commercial approach they give it to a song. It's actually confusing, I mean I wouldn't say Little Lies or Everywhere are pop songs in terms of music genre, because in that case a pop song to me is Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and it doesn't sound like Christine songs, I wouldn't put them in the same basket with Cyndi songs. But I agree all of them were popular on radios. Does that make LL or HM a pop song? I don't know.[ /QUOTE]

I think of Go Your Own Way as a rock song, so there’s no way I can then say Little Lies or Everywhere are also rock songs. I agree Girls Just Want to Have Fun is a completely unapologetic pop song, but one thing it has in common with Everywhere is that both are joyous songs. Even Isn’t It Midnight, which I might agree is a rock song, sounds more pop because to me, Christine’s voice is so beautifully melodic, it’s hard for me to classify it as rock. Save Me I find to be more rock, because she has a, I don’t know, a more aggressive tone on that song. Honestly, I can’t think of any song as rock on Tango, even Caroline or Tango.

I would not consider any of their music as heavy metal. Although a heavy metal band did cover Green Manalishi and did a great job with it (Judas Priest).

A few more cateories can be added:

Psychedelic rock - Safe Harbor -- Welch was majorly into that stuff and it was huge in 1974

California Rock - This existed in the 1970s and 1980s. There were lots of big CA bands like The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt in the mid 70s and Fleetwood Mac got added to that list because of Stevie and Lindsey. I can remember in music class in 8th grade and on the black board was "California rock" examples: Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles

Folk music - clearly lots of Tusk songs can easily translate to Folk music. I hate it when people call Tusk Punk or something. It was made with the approach of Punk music but its very folksy in places. The only thing Punk about Tusk is the album cover.

Spoken Word: Thoughts on a Grey Day

Shoegaze: No Questions Asked

R&B: I'm a Roadrunner

Family Man has a flamenco flair within a synth pop aesthetic, whereas the verses for the song "Tango in the Night" have some new age elements. You could maybe classify "Oh Diane" and "This is the Rock" as doo wop music.

Bang your head against the wall category: Second Time and Affairs of the heart

So GYOW is a rock song to you (I agree) but not the Tango song??? Please explain that. :confused:

[QUOTE=bwboy;1305279]I agree with much of your sentiment. I think the definition of ‘pop’ music has evolved over the years. Obviously it’s evolved from Popular music. That was fairly straightforward 70 years ago, or whatever. But obviously the stuff thats charting and popular now isn’t necessarily what you’d describe as ‘pop’.
In my head, pop music is just lighter, catchy and, in some cases, more ‘throwaway’ music (but not always). Pop is more synth-based. Rock is always guitar-based music, with other ‘real’ instrumentation. Rock is just ‘heavier’ than pop. Hard rock is heavier than rock. Metal is heavier than hard rock. Thrash metal is heavier than metal etc etc.

I don’t think it’s possible to find an absolute definition. And some songs will always be borderline and often straddle 2, 3 or maybe more genres.

From Tango….
I’d consider Isn’t it Midnight, WTTRS, SW, TITN and maybe Big Love as rock.
Everywhere, LL, You and I pt 2, Mystified as pop.
No idea how you’d describe Caroline, FM or WISYA.

Shoegaze? Really. Not sure I can get behind that :shrug:
You think?
Btw- do you know Swervedriver, Lush or Ride?

Well, when you put it like that :thumbsup: Yeah, I guess Tango in the Night would classify as a rock song. And while I wouldn’t call Caroline or Big Love rock songs, I also wouldn’t argue with anyone who said they were.

Would the (horrible) TITN remixes count a club/dance songs?

I think some of them do. I wonder who was behind those versions. Was it a Lindsey idea? Mick's? Did the record label impulse to do it? Cause it was the 80s and I remember lot of 12", dance mixes of Culture Club, New Order, DeBarge, Soft Cell, etc. Many of them were very cool. So maybe somebody thought it would be a good idea to record those versions. But that doesn't fit the Mac sound, even though Tango was an 80s album. Big mistake.

But I never heard any of those Tango remixes on the radio. Actually it was a surprise when they included in the Tango Deluxe. I didn't even know they existed. I guess local DJs here were enough wise. Yes horrible is the right word.

I'm sure if we added in the Jeremy Spencer original solo album which was pretty much a Fleetwood Mac album minus Peter (mostly) or the Vaudeville Years album we could find a few more genres somewhere

I have never understood the difference between Blues and Rhythm and Blues.
At what point did Fleetwood Mac- type Rhythm and Blues morph into modern R&B?
They are worlds apart.
I don’t get it.

Jellybean Benitez.

Good heavens, no.

And they belonged nowhere near the Rhino deluxe. The fact that they take up an entire CD should lead to an indictment under the Fleetwood Mac Patriot Act.

I did hear the Little Lies and Big Love remixes on the radio a few times. I posted a few months ago but the famous remixer worked with Lindsey on the Big Love one at his studio at his house. He was the guest DJ on Studio 54 on Sirius and I was flicking by and heard his story meeting Lindsey at his house. He actually did 2 remixes but they only released one. I cannot recall all of my comments that day but they are in the Unexepected Fleetwood Mac section. Never thought I would hear FM on Studio 54 but he played the alternate dance version of Big Love.