Dad Rock Hall of Fame: Fleetwood Mac

After reading the list on McSweeney's yesterday about what your tastes in classic rock say about you (which I highly recommend), I felt compelled to act on a blog idea that I had been letting marinate for a bit -- a series of posts in defense of "Dad Rock."  Although I can't give you solid parameters of the genre outside of "music (probably soft rock) that your dad likes," it's like what Potter Stewart said about obscenity: you know it when you see it.

I had been thinking a lot about Fleetwood Mac lately after waking up to "Hold Me" on the clock radio last weekend and realizing that I had largely forgotten about them.  Not listening to the radio in the car and a never getting around to completely replenishing my hard drive after it died played a large part in this, but I maintain that the band is great and deserving of recognition as the inaugural inductee into the Dad Rock Hall of Fame.

Although even the band's most ardent supporters would not classify their work as high art, Fleetwood Mac got a lot of things right.  They captured the West Coast sound in ways that so many others have tried to emulate and sold tens of millions of records.  A big key to this success (and a vastly underrated hallmark of so many great bands) was having multiple lead singers -- the three-headed monster of Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and Christine McVie -- each of which had their own distinct style.  Not only did they make some big time jams, they pretty much all had coke problems and slept with one another, which was the emotional catalyst of their biggest album, Rumours (although I think their self-titled album, the first with Buckingham and Nicks, was their best).  It's like if Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice were one of the greatest American (yes, they were British/American but their success came after the Americans joined) rock bands.

Young Stevie Nicks -- a total babe and proof that you can only get two out of three.

With that said, here's some of my favorite Fleetwood Mac jams:

1) Christine McVie's "Say You Love Me" from Fleetwood Mac (1975)

2) Stevie Nicks's "Dreams" from Rumours (1977)





3) Lindsey Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way" from Rumours

4) Stevie Nicks's "Rhiannon" from Fleetwood Mac






5) Lindsey Buckingham's "The Chain" from Rumours



Other jams worth looking up include, but are not limited to: "Tusk," "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," "You Make Loving Fun," "Gold Dust Woman," "Gypsy," and "Everywhere."

--J.J. Gittes