McVie’s expert deployment of electric piano, organ, and clavinet still sounds futuristic, while also nailing the classy yet groovy spirits of the ’70s. She also wrote “You Make Loving Fun,” a song whose backstory is endlessly mythologized. This includes the 1987 hit “Everywhere,” a luscious ball of harmonies that always seems to pop out of nowhere and that is currently soundtracking a commercial for Chevrolet’s electric vehicles. In addition to “Don’t Stop,” McVie wrote, well, half of the songs on Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits, and had more singles credited solely to her than any other member of the band. But that sheer ubiquity wouldn’t have happened without McVie. But she was the center that held together a band that was ever imploding in one way or another.įrom the day one fans, to the people for whom the mega-selling Rumours soundtracked their Rick Moody–esque key parties, to the children conceived at said key parties, to the contrarians who insist (possibly correctly) that Tusk is the real masterpiece, to the punks and hipsters that eventually admitted to themselves that Fleetwood Mac is as great as their parents said, to the casual music fans whose record collection can be counted on one hand, Fleetwood Mac’s reach was as wide as that of any artist you could possibly name. Maybe she wrote your favorite Fleetwood Mac song, and maybe she didn’t. Everyone loved Fleetwood Mac, one of the most enduring rock bands to ever exist, and everyone loved Fleetwood Mac in large part because of Christine McVie. The outpouring of grief has been tremendous. It’s also very arguable that “Don’t Stop” isn’t even her greatest song, but that’s McVie for you.Ĭhristine McVie passed away Wednesday, of an undisclosed illness. (It didn’t work out so well in the end, but this coronation wasn’t widely seen as ominous then.)īut more than anything, Clinton’s choice served as a sign of the sheer cultural dominance of Fleetwood Mac, and the genius of Christine McVie, who wrote “Don’t Stop,” a song that would change the career trajectory of her band, the ’70s as a whole, and the face of American political campaigns. But the choice of “Don’t Stop” served as a sign of a changing of the guard, a signal of Clinton’s relative cool factor, and marked the ascendancy of the boomer generation. ![]() Presidential candidates were and are usually situated on a sliding scale of squareness. Thirty years and countless arguments about baby boomers, neoliberalism, triangulation, ’90s nostalgia, and abuses of power aside, it’s still a jarring, singular moment in American history.
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