Fleetwood Mac Backup Singers?

[drzubritsky]

Although the purist in me says that I should prefer the "raw" 3-vocalists-only approach of the 70s & early 80s, I actually find much of the harmony vocals on their live recordings from those eras to be quite ragged (I'll probably get crucified for that opinion). Sometimes the problem is with the vocal arrangement (e.g. Stevie taking the high harmony on the "Dreams" chorus). But more often I suspect they just weren't working that hard to make their voices blend...effective harmony singing requires tight concentration on the other singer(s) and continually adjusting your own voice to maintain an effective blend.

In any event, using the additional singers to augment the harmony vocals certainly created a fuller, richer vocal sound (compare the chorus of "Rhiannon" on The Dance with the 1980 Live). Where I object to the female background singers is when they are used to provide standalone backup vocals, such as their "runnin' in the shadows" refrain on the GDW coda. This veers much too close to the sound of Stevie's solo work.