How Gen Z made Fleetwood Mac the hottest band in America

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Advertisement
Gen Z has discovered what generations before them recognized — the raw melodrama and polished pop of Fleetwood Mac. And they can't get enough.
Get The Gavel
A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'I just know that 'Silver Springs' is an actual spell that Stevie cast on Lindsey so he would never truly be over her,' one woman posted on Instagram. Numerous women are making videos of themselves showing Nicks's performance to their boyfriends or husbands and schooling them on the song's history.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Fleetwood Mac in 1998, recently called that song 'The performance that
.'
Capitalizing on their newfound audience, Buckingham, 75, and Nicks, 77 — who met in high school — recently announced that on Sept. 19, Buckingham Nicks, their pre-Fleetwood Mac duo, will reissue a remastered version of their eponymous 1973 album, which has long been out of print and isn't available on music streaming platforms.
Advertisement
On social media they teased fans into a frenzy with a line from their song '
'Buckingham Nicks' flopped when it was released, although it did catch Fleetwood's ear, which changed music history. But it's now one of the year's most anticipated releases.
Rolling Stone once called Fleetwood Mac 'the lovingest, fightingest, druggingest band of the '70s.' They were also one of the best when Buckingham and Nicks joined the British band in 1974. The couple's unraveling relationship and creatively fruitful aftermath made the band pop music's most enduring soap opera. As Buckingham and Nicks were breaking up, so were the McVies, and then Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood — all while recording the monumental 'Rumours.'
Released in 1977, that album is a diary of anger, fragile hope, and the irreparably frayed bonds of love flung open to the world. Unlike today's artists who create vexing guessing games around which romantic partner is being referenced, with Nicks and Buckingham there was nothing to decipher. Pretty much every song they wrote was a message to the other.
('Silver Springs' was cut from that album, surfacing only as a B-side to Buckingham's biting hit, '
Like the band itself for decades, Buckingham and Nicks broke up, but never fully broke apart. And the authenticity of their tribulations keeps finding new, eager audiences.
Advertisement
It's a necessary contrast on social media, where so much is manufactured and manipulated. The unchecked infiltration of artificial intelligence — 'Is it real or AI?' — has only made the search for genuine human connection even more elusive. Enter a viral flood of Fleetwood Mac clips with two legendary musicians letting their emotions spill out.
That realness is missing from so much music these days, in which gaudy spectacle is more important than artistry. There are exceptions, of course, but those artists struggle to be heard in a fractured industry. In the 1970s, you couldn't turn on pop radio without hearing Fleetwood Mac, and it was the same on MTV in the 1980s. Now it's the province of social media to spread the gospel of pop greats.
For those who watched the foibles of the Mac in real time — I was 15 when 'Rumours' was released — there's a kind of vindication here. As much as social media likes to mock 'the olds,' it's our music that keeps captivating younger generations.
Like the best musicians, Fleetwood Mac didn't make music for their time. They made timeless songs that will always find broken and bitter hearts.
Fleetwood Mac effectively
Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at