no respect?

[dudden22]

Originally Posted by GateandGarden

I'm with ya. Everything but the clothes

The hair too, and big hair bands from the late eighties like Warrant.

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by David

...keeps them from attaining the ranks of bands like the Doors & the Who.

No, what kept them from that was when Peter Green left the band. They were WELL on their way to being even greater than Led Zeppelin or The Who. Peter Green was almost to the point of making Eric Clapton irrelevant.

[golddustwoman77]

My best friend is a HUGE Beatles fan, and she has to fight the same battle. She has to argue with people that the Beatles are Rock N Roll too and not totally pop! I find myself, like many of us, doing the same thing! I tell people that Fleetwood Mac, like the Beatles, can't be pigeonholed into one genre. They are rock, pop, blues, and a little country rolled into one. Then, I have to give examples: rock: I'm So Afraid, Come, etc. pop: Think About Me, Over My Head, etc. blues: Oh Well, Stop Messin Around, etc. little country: That's Alright! You could go down the Beatles song list the same way. I think, in some cases, what truly makes a legendary band is the fact that they are experimental, and you can't lump them in the same genre. The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac are both examples of that, and that is probably why both bands have had fans for decades.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by David

Nobody in his right mind would put the Mac in the class of the Beatles in terms of impact. That's just nuts -- there's no comparison in those terms. The Beatles were & are monumental: their influence stretches light years beyond pop music into many other arts & even beyond the arts into other cultural realms.

However, many rock critics have -- with solid reason -- compared some of Fleetwood Mac's best pop music to that of the Beatles. Fleetwood Mac's achievements in production, instrumentation, vocal arrangement & engineering have been noticed in that sense -- by critics like Stephen Holden, Robert Hilburn & Ken Tucker.

I think all in all, though, that Fleetwood Mac's reputation among large numbers of people is that of a "light rock" or even insubstantial pop band, & that reputation keeps them from attaining the ranks of bands like the Doors & the Who.

I tend to agree with Hilburn, who once said that Mac's music wasn't consistently top-level enough for the band to be called great, but that they were nonetheless a "fascinating, vital attraction." He was specifically referring to the band in performance, but I would expand it to include both studio & stage activity. I would also call the band intermittently great, but a group that has been fouled up often by its own inherent flaws -- flaws in conception, direction & execution.

Thank you for that very intelligent response. It was obviously well thought out and insightful. I learned something new about my favorite band today.