5. Fleetwood MacRumours
It’s the bass and drums. First of all I’ve got to say that I’ve got a big thing about bass and drums on Motown and I think nothing can ever touch it. I come from Detroit, so I’m a little bit prejudiced. But in Fleetwood Mac, beside the songwriting talent, which is obvious, and the blend of harmonies, which is just great, the bass and drum unit is one of the tightest in the entire industry. That’s actually what cooks the songs. You can be as pretty as you like over that, but they’re driving. You’ve got that typical Fleetwood Mac ‘dum, dum-dum’ and they’re right up in front of the stacks those two, they’re perfect. It is Fleetwood and Mac. It’s the perfect example, for me anyway. I’m a bass player, but I’m also a piano player, and to me, music is all about the bass and the drums. Everything else is the colour you paint over it. It doesn’t matter what you paint, it’s your painting, but you’ve got to start with the canvas, and you put your basics down, and your basics are your bass and drums. I’ve said it for years. Without that you don’t have anything. The rest is colours. But that album, again, there’s not a bad track on it. And it was born out of all the drama and divorces, and so you’re getting a real emotional bit of music, and a bit of history, and it’s irresistible.
