See, Fleetwood Mac was never just a rock band it was a commercial enterprise from the moment they signed with Reprise Records in 1969 and traded the blues for raucous rock, then traded again for Bob Welch’s jazz-infused hypnotism in 1971. Unlike many of their ‘70s counterparts, the band evolved from the earliest popular forms of video (pre-recorded performances for television programs) to playing the MTV game in earnest, whether creating elaborate multimillion-dollar music videos, or, years later-as the network cashed in on nostalgia-a reunion concert. Video killed some radio stars, but not Fleetwood Mac. “We thought, Well, video’s not gonna kill the radio star. “When ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ came out, we took it with a grain of salt,” Stevie Nicks said in 2011.
At the center of it all was the golden power couple that could have been: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, tangled together until the day they die whether they like it or not, permanently entwined in the will-they-or-won’t-they, he-said-she-said narratives they created for themselves to perform to various degrees over the past 50 years.
Maybe I’m being hyperbolic here, but I think I’m allowed to be when I ask the first of many questions: Does anyone better exemplify sex, drugs, and rock and roll than Fleetwood Mac? Unless you just awoke from a 40-year-long coma, you probably don’t need me to tell you all the messy details of the infamous British blues-turned-Cal-rock band comprised of two couples and one very tall man-five people whose art was fueled, and arguably made better, by their behind-the-scenes soap operatics. We are who we are and we were dramatic kids going together.
When you were almost married for seven years, and then you’ve been in a band for 30 years, it’s never not going to be dramatic.