Anti-Climacus

YOU MAKE LOVING FUN: It came up on the ipod a few days ago, and Rumors has been on my turntable since then, so here it is. For those unfamiliar with the story behind Rumors, you can find it (and a good discussion of the album's musical merits) in this old Stylus article. Rumors, so the joke in Wayne's World went, was practically issued to you if you lived in the suburbs during the 70s. And no surprise: as of Stylus' article (two years ago), it'd sold over 19 million copies, enough to make it one of the top-five selling albums of all time.

It used to be the case that if one followed indie music culture, one believed that the quality of a particular group or musician was inversely proportional to their popularity. I went many years, even at their 90s peak, without running into another person who listened to R.E.M. (by which I mean, knew something other than what was on the radio, though not many people knew what was on the radio, either). What was true for R.E.M. was true in spades for Patti Smith, Television, Wire, Sleater-Kinney: the uncomprehending stares I would get when I mentioned these bands were a sign that they were mine, in the way certain books were mine because I was the only one I'd met who had read them (The Brothers Karamazov) or chose to like them (The Great Gatsby, almost universally disliked by my American Literature class). The music that was popular in the late 90s--Britney, 'Nsync, Limp Bizkit--was either bad, or required a different definition of 'good' (so "I Want It That Way" is a great song--but not in the way "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" is a great song, and I am snob enough to say that the latter is better). So score one for the thesis that quality and popularity are mutually incompatible. The Fleetwood Mac of the mid-to-late 70s are the refutation of that thesis: a group that became popular precisely because they were good. The only comparable I can think of is "Hey Ya!"

"You Make Loving Fun" is a great song for some tricky technical reasons--the song's tone is established by the opening minor chord and blues rhythm, and Christine McVie coming in on an odd note (it's either the minor third or the flatted fifth; I'm too lazy to figure out which); adds one chord in the chorus and shifts the beat; and then drops the minor chord entirely for the outtro. Combine it with the lyrics, and you can almost see the singer working her way out of an emotional funk: not quite convinced of it at the beginning, speaking the words before they're fully believed, and then emerging in the end to some happiness and joy.