Making Rumours by Ken Caillat

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by David

It's funny you bring up that era because this discussion got me thinking about the reputation Fleetwood Mac used to have at that time. Probably not a lot of you even know or remember this, but in the mid and late 1970s, despite the overwhelming commercial success of Rumours, the band was widely known as having a great deal of business integrity. It wasn't just a confidence trick played on the press, either. Mac was by far the biggest band in the world that was self-managed (Mick & Seedy Mgmt), and it regularly turned down and successfully avoided the crass marketing ploys that all the other big rock bands like the Eagles and Van Halen and albums like Saturday Night Fever and Grease all trucked in. Music journalists used to ask Mick about the band's self-management and he always was very honest about all five of them wanting to maintain integrity: He didn't want record buyers to open a Fleetwood Mac album and find coupons for products and marketing tie-ins, like the Peter Frampton albums. (There's one little address for a fan club on the lyric insert for Rumours, but it's totally harmless, and there was nothing on Tusk.)

Not to say that Fleetwood Mac never gave an interview to a mass-market magazine, because we know that isn't true. But they didn't accept any offers to go from one dumb TV show to another (you can bet your life that Stevie Nicks was asked to go on Love Boat and Fantasy Island and all that crap), and their concerts were run like old-fashioned rock concerts (beer, pot, and tourbooks), and they didn't put their names on lines of clothing.

That reputation of the band back then was palpable and gave a lot of us fans a pleasurable buzz. The next two albums (Tusk and Live) were quirky and personal and maintained the band's reputation for doing exactly what it wanted to do. It was only with Mirage that Fleetwood Mac began to seem corporate in the bad sense of capitulating to commercial considerations.

Nobody else in rock n' roll was selling out to the masses either; Van Halen and the Eagles were not exactly lining up to do guest spots on Three's Company. It just wasn't cool. In fact, primetime television was the medium for musical irrelevance; it was too closely associated with the realm of the unhip- namely variety shows like The Donny and MarieShow, The Barbara Mandrell Show, The Captain and Tenille Show, The Sonny and Cher Show, etc. And by the time Davey Jones guested on The Brady Bunch, he was thoroughly washed up and hung out to dry. On these shows you would routinely see has-beens like Paul Anka, Frankie Valli, Charo, Glenn Campbell, John Denver and pre-comeback Tina Turner. Other than Elton John, no mainstream, relevant rock stars were doing these kinds of shows, let alone those weekly ensemble dramas like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Besides, Stevie and Lindsey were not considered to be high-profile names outside of the band.

It seems that primetime TV exposure was kinda taboo for rock and roll up until around the time when American Idol came on the scene and internet piracy started killing music sales. This is also around the time when rock pretty much vanished from hits radio and started appearing on television- on singing competitions, primetime series and commercials. I think Stevie's appearances on TV these past couple of years is just part of that natural evolution. She still has a name/image that is recognizeable and marketable. She briefly teetered on the edge of irrelevance back in the 1990s, so she definitely appreciates the fact that she is still a marquee name in this day and age. Since radio is not touching her with a ten-meter pole, she knows what she has to do to keep brand Stevie alive and well.