When I was in middle school, I had a lot of ideas for music videos. Generally, these ideas were boring and tame — mostly because at the time, I was listening to a lot of really sappy, sad music (I changed from a private school to a public school between seventh and eighth grade and had a bit of a hard time with it). Most of these ideas consisted of one boring act, definitely not enough to sustain an entire video — a woman packing, for example. And instead of ever developing these ideas or incorporating others, I would just do it myself, without even filming. If my idea was a woman running through grass, I’d put the song on, then run out on our lawn. If the song made me think of a woman cuddling by the fire with her cat, I’d turn the song on repeat, then do just that. It’s no mystery why I never tried to make it into the business. I’d be hard-pressed to remember any ideas that coordinate with songs now, except for one: Fleetwood Mac’s “Silver Springs.”

Fleetwood Mac, “Silver Springs” (download)

I had a huge crush on a guy in sixth and seventh grade, and of course felt that I was mature enough to understand love and loss, being as we were so prematurely and painfully separated by my going to public school (our private school only went through 8th). Nothing had ever happened between us and likely the extra year wouldn’t have made a difference (our school was pretty uptight!), but I was convinced that this was a great tragedy in my life.

Around this time, the late ’90s Fleetwood Mac live album, The Dance, came out, featuring “Silver Springs,” which I hadn’t known was a rather rarely performed or even heard song at the time. (more…)

Popularity: 10% [?]

Some no-compromise music fans — especially those with ears tuned to the blues-centric, distortion-fueled sound that comprises the DNA of all quality rock, ever — would say that Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are not only are responsible for making pop music the Superfund cesspool that it is today, but they also poisoned what was one of the greatest blues-rock bands of all time. Other people might have a slightly dissimilar telling of the events we’ll call The Christine McVie-As-Yoko Theory.Still others might say that Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green did it himself, squandering away his genius with drugs and letting his sometimes-fragile mental health go to seed. In this reality, his bandmates, left to their own devices, did what they had to do to stay in business, make a living, and dominate the world’s airwaves.

Whatever your take on the events that shaped Fleetwood Mac’s history — if you want to win a bar bet, ask “I bet you don’t know who wrote and originally recorded “Black Magic Woman”; that, my friend, would be Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac — it’s hard to dispute the contention that Peter Green played some aggressive, wonderfully grungy blues noise. You can bet Jon Spencer heard Green’s records more than a couple times before erecting his Blues Explosion — which sounds a lot like a tribute to “1.0″ Fleetwood Mac. (more…)

Popularity: 12% [?]

February 20, 1980, is a Wednesday. At 12:01AM Eastern time, a deadline passes for the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, which they had invaded the previous December. They do not. Thus, the United States will boycott the upcoming Summer Olympics in Moscow. In hockey at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, Team USA defeats West Germany 4-2 to advance to the medal round. On Friday, the Americans will face the Soviet Union; nobody gives them a chance to win. The European Community places a tariff on certain types of synthetic carpet yarn shipped into the UK. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, dies at 96; the Washington socialite is said to have once remarked, “if you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” At the White House, President and Mrs. Carter host a state dinner for the president of Kenya, Daniel Arap Moy. An experimental onion field at Oregon State University is fertilized. With the New Hampshire primary just five days away, a CBS/New York Times poll notes that many supporters of Republican candidate George Bush don’t know what he stands for.

TV shows on the air tonight include Charlie’s Angels, Diff’rent Strokes, and Hello Larry. Steve Martin sits in for Johnny on The Tonight Show; his guest is Andy Kaufman. Iggy Pop plays Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin. In the UK, Peter Gabriel plays Exeter University and Joy Division plays High Wycombe. The Joy Division show will be released in 2007 as part of the two-disc reissue of Still. In the early-morning hours, after a night of partying, a friend puts Bon Scott of AC/DC into his car to sleep it off. Returning later in the day, the friend finds Scott lifeless. At a hospital, Scott is pronounced DOA.

On the Cash Box magazine record chart for the week, the disco tide continues to recede. Several significant bands rock the Top 40, including Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Eagles, Styx, and Led Zeppelin. A couple of pop acts who haven’t scored major hits since 1971 are back on the radio as well: the no-longer-Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band’s “An American Dream” is at Number 14, and “Three Times in Love” by Tommy James is at Number 41. At a small college town in Wisconsin, a future Popdose contributor and longtime Tommy James fan is glad about that.

“Sara,” Fleetwood Mac (download)
“An American Dream,” Dirt Band (download)
“Three Times in Love,” Tommy James (download)

Popularity: 15% [?]