Is it inevitable?

[larg]

Hey everyone--been a while since I posted anything really (so busy with midterms, finals, term papers and working!!) but I just wanted to share a few comments and post a question I've come up with. Please read the whole thing through once you start so you get my full message, though. Here goes!

A long, long time ago, when I was in the sixth grade, I fell in love with Fleetwood Mac when I saw them performing the Dance on TV. For Christmas that year, I got the Dance as my first ever CD, and from there, my love of Fleetwood Mac grew. I had to have everything they ever released and absolutely needed to start playing the guitar; after all, I thought, how cool would it be to sound like Lindsey on the guitar?

I remember my naive disappointment when I picked up the Bare Trees album about two years later. I assumed it would be more of the Lindsey, Chris and Stevie stuff I'd fallen in love with. It wasn't, and I didn't understand. So, I did some research and learned the history of the band. I decided that I'd only buy albums by Fleetwood Mac from after 1975 then.

One day I found a casette tape of Behind the Mask in my father's truck. I asked if I could have it and he said that would be okay. Once again, I was confused when I listened to it. Christine sounded the same, and so did Stevie, but those other guys singing didn't come close to Lindsey's voice I loved so much. And the guitar playing? All I could think was, "Yeah, these phonies couldn't EVER even attempt to do Big Love like Lindsey does on the Dance."

My post-75, Lindsey/Stevie/Chris collection nearly complete (including solo stuff) by sophomore year of highschool, I shelled out the money for the 2-disc version of the Chain. Disc one rocked, I loved it, especially the new-to-me stuff like Make Me A Mask. Disc two, however, did not please me at all. I hate to admit it now, but I could not appreciate that bluesy sound. I only liked Oh Well because I had heard it on the Live album from 1980, but I still felt Lindsey's version to be superior. Oh boy, was I ever in a rut!

Fastforward to sophomore year in college, where I stand now. I own every album Fleetwood Mac ever made, the boxed sets, and tons of the solo stuff, not to mention bootlegs and more bootlegs. I also listen to music other than just Fleetwood Mac, which is a huge change from four years ago and before.

Here's the amazing part, though: I can't get enough of Peter Green and the other pre-75 music. I find myself in love with the blues. Mostly all I want to play on the guitar now is the blues.

Was this change inevitable with time? As I matured, did my understanding of music and appreciation therein mature as well? It makes me think of literature, and how I had to read John Steinbeck, H.G. Wells and F. Scott Fitzgerald in highschool because there was no way I'd be mature enough to enjoy the much-more complicated and beautiful works of people like John Milton, Alexander Pope and James Joyce which I now devour in college. Similarly, I could not yet enjoy Peter Green because I needed to be introduced to all of blues through rock and roll first, and Lindsey Buckingham hopping around on The Dance during Tusk was my introduction paragraph, that "hook" that my 8th grade teachers were so insitent on, to rock and roll.

I think that any open-minded fan will eventually grow out of a strict post-75 mind; it's just easier to focus on that alone to explore the nuances of the music, rather than also trying to look at Green, Welch, Kirwan, etc.

So, is it inevitable?

Adam