Poll: Would Fleetwood Mac have broken through as a huge band without SN?
 

I don't know how to do this! Start a poll! But I thought it would make a good counterpoint to Danielle's sure to be evocative thread!
(I have to vote 'No'. I think 'Over My Head' and others may have been hits, but i think it was SN and LB who made the band become 'huge').

Well, they had already been trying for 10 years with mixed success. They were on the cusp, but they just needed something. I feel like Lindsey was what they needed in a guitarist and producer, and with just Lindsey in the band, they would have been much more successful, with the same hits. Stevie brought her songs, her image, and the drama of her undying/dying love for Lindsey. With both of them together, it pushed Fleetwood Mac over the edge into mega success.
Sometimes, I feel like we forget that most of their most successful songs have been Christine's. So, without Stevie, they still would have had those.

What they needed was LB's production skills. Without him Chritine's songs would have been very good but probably not classic.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Christines songs are really no different before or after 1975. Did You Ever Love Me was every bit as likely to have been a big hit as any future single. It's all just luck that Over My Head happened to be the one.

Even aside from the production, the harmonies on Christine's post-1974 songs distinguish them from her earlier songs, if nothing else and Over My Head is a prime example of this. I can see arguing that her songs are no better with the advent of Lindsey and Stevie, but I certainly can't understand the position that they're no different.

Michele

Aww, I'm glad someone else loves Did You Ever Love Me :D. I actually think some of Christine's pre '75 songs beat out her Rumours era stuff. Another personal fav is Prove Your Love... very ethereal. Christine was actually the mystical one before Stevie... she even wore shawls onstage. But I digress...

I definitely don't think FM would have had an album that sold 40 million copies worldwide without Stevie Nicks. She was simply the foil. Lindsey was straightforward rock, Christine was straightforward pop... but Stevie was the one who threw a wrench into the starched and pressed sound, and made the band interesting. Lindsey once said Stevie's "inside out" lyrics allowed the band to get looser, and experiment more. And that's where they started to get interesting, and finally make an identity for themselves. You could argue Bob Welch was the Stevie of the early '70s using that same logic... but he didn't look nearly as good in low cut tops and chunky boots :laugh:. Stevie definitely brought in the sex appeal, and sex sells!

Stevie and Lindsey made Fleetwood Mac accessible to the American audiences and since the United States' charts were the worldwide staple at the time, the British blues band needed that Californian edge to make it. And make it they did.

That's definitely an interesting way of looking at it. Why do you think Bob Welch didn't help the band break into the US market then?

I should clarify: I also don't think Fleetwood Mac would've been as successful with the new 1975 lineup had they just hired Lindsey or just hired Stevie.

If the band only took Lindsey, I feel like they would have been in a position similar to that of the original Peter Green lineup but without the "Green is God" spark, for an obvious set of reasons. They would have had a phenomenal new guitarist emerging in 1975 with the potential to be something exquisite-- and yet I feel that so much of Peter Green's popularity is due to the outstanding hype and opportunity tied to 1960s British blues. Of course Peter deserves every ounce of praise he recieves as a musician, but I think that he came around at the perfect time to be recognized and fully credited for his work. That era was truly special and Green got the chance to really make something out of it. Although they are similar musicians in some ways (I think of their "tortured soul" element primarily), that just wasn't going to happen for Lindsey, nor did Fleetwood Mac expect that in asking him to join the band. I do, however, think that songs such as "I'm So Afraid" and our modern renditions of "Big Love" show their similarities if you take all technicality out of it. Yet at this point, Fleetwood Mac wasn't ever going to be a boys club band-- Christine served as a focal point of the new incarnation of Fleetwood Mac post-1970 and to become as successful as the Rumours lineup eventually became, I think the band needed another singer/songwriter who both contrasted and complimented Christine's sound. Long story short, I feel that a 1975 Fleetwood Mac without Stevie would have been way too divided. Lindsey (hyper-emotional, angsty, emotive, inventive, powerful) plus Christine (delicate, bluesy, relatively simple, detached, calm) would have just created all contrast and little compliment.

I feel like Stevie is the balancing factor. Although Stevie can be just as (if not more) emotionally intense as Lindsey in her work, she also is delicate and vulnerable, ultimately feminine. She has the emotive strength of Lindsey and the soft beauty of Christine-- and yet I feel like Stevie (if you look at her whole career) is debatably less consistent. So yes, she may be the best of both worlds in a sense, but she doesn't always have those two forces in balance with one another. Had the band miraculously discovered Stevie and not Lindsey and found another random, somewhat uninspiring (and yet still decent) guitarist (not singer) instead... the band would have just been too feminine.

As I've said before, its that trinity that made Fleetwood Mac so unbelievable. Its easy to discuss the power of those harmonies and the equilibrium of the incessantly strong personalities.... but I really credit their success to the totally different elements that each writer brought to the table. And the best part is that one person would beautifully compensate for another's weaknesses-- Lindsey and Christine more than made up for Stevie's lack of musical/instrumental insight. Christine and Stevie softened Lindsey's edges up with songs like "Songbird" and "Sara". And Lindsey and Stevie brought the emotional pull that Christine doesn't consistently show through her songs.

What a trifecta.

I had to go back and search for this, but I think you said it best in a post about what it would be like if Stevie had left instead of Christine:

"Without Christine, you lose the one who kinda pulls all the loose strings back in again. She musically complimented Lindsey specifically, but just in general, I see her as the balancing force.

Without Stevie, you lose the emotional pull that brings people to love Fleetwood Mac to the level that we do, I think. I think she brings something so personal to the band that people can't really shake it off... she gives Fleetwood Mac a specific punch that Christine and Lindsey just don't.

They were a perfect union of three-- a trinity-- for a reason. Each of the three songwriters compliments the other two in an irreplacable way. Without Stevie, I'm sure the popularity of the band would dramatically fall... and its not like Christine and Lindsey could go redefine Fleetwood Mac and draw a new pool of fans in because a) they are over 60 years old in a young market and b) I'm not so sure the spark is there without Stevie."

I completely agree. I think if you take one of the 3 out of the band, it wouldn't have become near as huge as it was. But I think of the three, Stevie is the most necessary because of that emotional pull and that specific punch.

Absolutley no!!!!!! :)

But Stevie & Lindsey weren't accessible to American audiences only a year & a half earlier. Was it just not their time? I think what really initially launched Fleetwood Mac was AM radio, which grabbed a couple of the hook-laden songs the band had recorded -- "Over My Head" & "Say You Love Me" -- & played them over & over in late 1975 & 1976. AM radio was a bigger market factor in 1975 than FM radio (which overtook AM radio in markets in 1977).

From the early 1970s to about 1976, the biggest-selling hits were AM radio heavy rotation hits, from Elton John to K.C. & the Sunshine Band to the Isley Brothers to the Jackson 5 to Diana Ross to all the one-hit wonders (like Coven -- "One Tin Soldier," which was the most popular hit in the country at one time & it was played on AM, not FM).

That's an interesting idea. I definitely think that AM radio had a vital role in their success from what you're saying (I wasn't there, so I'm just trusting you :laugh:).

But regarding your comment about Buckingham Nicks' lack of success just a year prior... I mean, Fleetwood Mac wasn't completely unheard of in 1974. From what I can tell (again, I wasn't there), the media was interested in Fleetwood Mac's complete shift of sound and willingness to bring in two Californians with a flop album. Bob Welch started this transition, so yeah, I'm sure it wasn't all Lindsey and Stevie and their magical appeal to everyone instantly. But I do think that its easier for a previously established band to draw in new fans while redefining itself... in comparison to the always iffy struggles of a brand new artist or group.

Uhm - check out Wikipedia - - - They already WERE a huge band.
They had TREMENDOUS success back in the late sixties and very early 70s. The ONLY reason they were in a "slump" was that Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer had left the band. But i.m.o., people underestimate just how HUGE they were before that. These people once outsold the Beatles in Europe. That's sayin' something. Long-term fans are still wondering whether this new front lineup that John and Mick are playing around with is gonna work out. ;)