Instead of pushing the rhythm (Buckingham's acoustic guitar and John McVie's bass playing take care of that) he's punctuating it, playing against the grain. Fleetwood is swinging away, but not in the fluid roll pattern most rock drummers use. Mick Fleetwood's drumming adds a new dimension to this style. The Byrds touch is Lindsey Buckingham's province, and it's used most successfully on the single, "Go Your Own Way," which employs acoustic guitar backing throughout, with best effect of the choruses. The formula is vintage Byrds: Christine sings the verse simply, with sparse instrumental background, and the chorus comes on like an angelic choir - high harmonies soaring behind her with 12-string electric guitar counterpoint ringing against the vocals. Christine McVie sounds particularly vital on "You Make Loving Fun," which works for the same reason "Over My Head" was a smash. Taken individually, only McVie's voice has much character, but she anchors their vocal arrangements, since Nicks' low range and Buckingham's high range approximate here dulcet, evenhanded timbre.ĭespite the interminable delay in finishing the record, Rumours proves that the success of Fleetwood Mac was no fluke.
Vocal harmonies are the meat and potatoes of California's pop identity, and Fleetwood Mac is now one of the genre's main proponents, with three lead singers of comparable range. With that and the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac suddenly became a California pop group instead of laborious blues/rock jams they started turning out bright little three-minute singles with a hook in every chorus.Ĭhristine McVie now leads a classic vocal group working out of the oldest popular tradition, love songs. The medium of transformation is almost always a hit single, but such turnarounds often swamp a band in notoriety it can't live up to.īut in Fleetwood Mac's case the departure of guitarist Bob Welch - who'd reduced the band to recutting pointless and pretentious versions of old standards - amounted to the biggest break they ever had. You never can tell when a band will undergo that alchemic transmigration from lead to gold. Rock & roll has this bad habit of being unpredictable.
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