They're a band that has always struck me as ineffably eerie and creepy -- not Stevie Nicks or Lindsey Buckingham so much -- they seem mostly just along for the ride (although Stevie Nicks's dark-eyed gypsy princess stage persona was, in itself, both compelling and haunting). But Mick Fleetwood always seemed like this ghoulish, creepy figure. Maybe it's his scarecrowlike 6'6" beanpole self, or his (and most of the band's) rampant fucking each other, but if any band was a bunch of vampires sidling through society and the pop culture, it'd be Fleetwood Mac. I would be unsurprised. And the cocaine-cool mid-70s sound of the band at their commercial apogee is just creepy, too -- it's hard to really classify them. A Rock band? A Soft Rock band? A band to snort coke to? I don't know, but that combination just always raises the hackles on my neck, makes me wary and faintly alarmed by them. And I'm sure it centers around Mick Fleetwood, who is like a stand-in for Satan. He just seems sinister to me.
Without him in the mix, Fleetwood Mac would likely only be vaguely off-putting, but put him in there, and they just arc into sublime spookiness. And throw their massive success in the 70s into it, and makes them even more creepy to me, somehow. Like everything falling into place, and this band of Anglo-American vampires sank their teeth into the pop culture and took a long drink from it. They are, perhaps, the PERFECT Baby Boomer band, one of those zeitgeist bands that reached the Boomers at the perfect age to dig their icy grooves...
"Dreams"
"Oh Daddy"
"Rhiannon"
I just get creeped out by them. Maybe it's the keys they choose for their tunes, or the tightly produced, compressed and generally quiet sound. I mean, songs like "Don't Stop" were somewhat more reassuring, since they kind of hit along more conventional Pop-Rock lines, but I always factored tunes like that (and the Buckingham tunes) as a kind of reaction against the slithering evil-seemingness of Mick Fleetwood. It also bothered me that a drummer in a band should be so prominent -- I know that violated my sense of Pop Culture Propriety. Drummers just shouldn't lead bands (even if creepily, from the behind the scenes). Especially diabolical ones like Mick Fleetwood. Now that he's an old man, some of that sinister Rasputin/Fagin kind of vibe he carried with him has dissipated, but in his heyday, he was one creepy-looking chap.
