A time traveller from 50 years ago might be surprised if they were to visit the UK now – not so much by the echoes of the politics, with an embattled Labour government and a resurgent far right, but by the prevalence of Fleetwood Mac.
The Broadway hit Stereophonic, written by David Adjmi, opened in the West End this week after becoming the most nominated play in Tony award history (it ended up winning five out of 13, including best play). It invites theatregoers to journey back to 1976 and “plug into the electric atmosphere as one up-and-coming rock band record the album that could propel them to superstardom. Amid a powder keg of drugs, booze and jealousy, songs come together and relationships fall apart.”
If that sounds remarkably similar to the story of how Fleetwood Mac recorded Rumours, then that’s exactly what the album’s producer Ken Caillat thought: he sued the producers for the play’s similarity to his memoir, settling out of court earlier this year, though Adjmi has always denied his play is purely about Fleetwood Mac, regardless of the many parallels.
But Stereophonic is just the tip of the Mac iceberg that has come into view in recent years. Novel readers and TV viewers have enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six, which also used the Fleetwood Mac template as the basis for its story. Their smooth, adult-oriented rock sound also permeated music throughout the last decade, present in records by artists such as Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker, the Weather Station and more. If you want a dancier version of the band, you can go to the club night Fleetmac Wood, playing beefed-up remixes.
And Mac themselves are as popular as ever: in last week’s album chart, the compilation 50 Years – Don’t Stop sat at No 6 (after 340 weeks on the chart), while Rumours is at No 22 (after 1098 weeks on the chart). Nearly half a century on from Rumours’ release, Fleetwood Mac are still very big business.
Partly that’s down to the continued resonance of the story of the album: two couples tearing themselves apart and committing their feelings to tape. (It is perhaps not a coincidence that Abba, another 70s band whose troubled relationships were set to lush pop, are also undimmingly popular.) But it’s also down to the music: Rumours still sounds like a treat when you play it.
“I think Dreams in particular feels very modern sonically,” says Tamara Lindeman, the Canadian musician who records as the Weather Station. “The naked kick/snare/bass line; the way that there almost no instruments inhabiting the mid-range, just a voice; the really tight short reverb; the super short and compressed drums.”
“That’s really modern, and sonically resembles a lot of R&B and hip-hop in a way – it’s similar in how that modern music inhabits those frequency ranges. Also I would say Stevie Nicks’ internal sense of rhythm feels so modern – the way she hangs around the beat, often a little behind and kinda swung. It’s not like how other singers of the time sang.”
Dreams had a flush of viral fame after being mimed to by cranberry-juice swigging skateboarder Dogg Face on TikTok in 2020, and those who attended Fleetwood Mac shows during this century have noticed a change in the band’s audience. Twenty years ago, their live crowd had been predominantly ageing couples, but by the time they played what turned out to be their final London shows at Wembley Stadium in 2019, the presence of a great many young women was startling.
For Lindeman, that development came as no surprise. “Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie both wrote incredible hits. In a lot of ways it was a band led by women – two really powerful voices and writers. For me in particular the songs by Nicks and McVie are the ones that resonate and last – those are the ones you think of when you think of Fleetwood Mac, more than Lindsey Buckingham’s hits. Of course young women are showing up.”
Nicks, whose failing relationship with singer/guitarist Buckingham was one of the themes of Rumours, has become a particular hero in recent years. “She does that thing of writing personally and vulnerably about her experiences, but with this strength that comes through anyway – it’s totally vulnerable but she stays tough, like a superhero of the heart,” Lindeman says.
There are more prosaic reasons for Fleetwood Mac’s continued presence in the culture though, not least the appetite for work they displayed during the first 20 years of this century. While most veteran superstar bands begin to ration their appearances as time passes, Fleetwood Mac stayed on the road for months on end, keeping their name alive. Not for them the handful of stadium shows in major markets: their touring schedules show their willingness to work. Nor did they complicate their message by releasing new music: the focus was always firmly on the past.
It has paid off. Now, two and a half years on from the death of Christine McVie and the final passing of the group (for now: drummer and founder Mick Fleetwood would be open to a new iteration), Fleetwood Mac are the hippest old people in music.
