"Intuition" Appreciation Thread

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Looking back, it would have been better for everybody involved if Stevie hadn't released "Red Rocks" or OSOTM and the Mac hadn't released the "Tango" video or "Greatest Hits" album and focused all of their energy on making the best album they could, and based on all that's out there, it could have been significantly better.

In my opinion, it really had very little to do with what they released, and almost everything to do with the fact that hip-hop/rap was starting to take over the charts, with grunge following shortly after. A lot of artists who had been extremely popular just a few years prior, found their album sales dwindling as the '90s approached. The teenagers who, in 1983, thought Fleetwood Mac & Stevie Nicks were cool, were now well out of high school, and the new teenagers who made up the majority of the album-buying market, were looking for their own sound -- not something their big brother or... gasp... their parents listened to.

Fleetwood Mac was a dinosaur band, and I really doubt there's anything they could have done about it. Even if they hadn't released the 'Tango' video and 'Greatest Hits,' and even if Stevie hadn't released 'Red Rocks' and 'TOSOTM,' whatever album they did release would have still been viewed by the younger generation as just another album by "that band my Mom & Dad likes."

It still amazes me that the 'Tango' album and most of its singles did so well, because there was nary a soul in my school that would even admit to remotely liking Fleetwood Mac... and I graduated in 1990. I remember a few of the girls liked "Little Lies," but that was it.

So I don't think a "better" album with a different song selection would have changed any of that.