Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker on "Destiny Rules" Doc

[4Buck]

From April 9, 2004 Entertainment Weekly:

Television -- VH WONDERS

The music channel gets its groove back with sharp riffs on pop culture like Best Week Ever: by Ken Tucker

……Another remarkable special was Fleetwood Mac: Destiny Rules, a documentary that premiered in March and aired a few times: E-mail VH1 and get them to rerun it. Filmed during the making of the band’s 2003 Say You Will album, Destiny Rules falls outside VH1’s geezer zone for its universal depiction of the eternal pop paradox: the clash and synthesis between commercial and artistic impulses. We see the supposedly flighty Stevie Nicks tell a record exec she “prayed to the commercial gods” when writing the title song, and watch Lindsey Buckingham – a unique combination of industry pro and willfully eccentric creator - resist releasing an album that will “put the safest things out and marginalize” his own more atypical, adventurous work. This was a squirmily raw look at the inner life of a rock group. The Best Week Ever folks might poke fun at Stevie when she brings in a “spirit catcher” to free the creative vibe in the studio, but they could never deny Buckingham his poignant dignity when he says, “I can’t say I have an ally in the band right now.” Any channel that provides this sort of sincerity, as well as programs weekly pop-culture criticism like Best Week, can’t be accused of cheesy nostalgia …very often, anyway. Best Week Ever: A-