Quote:
Originally posted by EveryHour
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.
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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.