Go Your Own Way

"Cool", or whatever new-fangled word is replacing it these days, is over-rated.

The pursuit of "cool" is what forces the Jeremy Clarksons of this world into wearing tight jeans well into their dotage. It's why you hide your record collection from your friends. It's what stops you spelling Rap with a Capital "C".

However, there comes a point where your street-credibility has fallen away to such an extent that you reach an Event Horizon and you realise that you will never be taken seriously by anyone half your age ever again.

And that's when you relax and buy trousers with elasticated waists and sensible slip-on shoes in whatever darned colour pleases you.

It's also when you don't mind admitting you spent the morning listening to Fleetwood Mac.

Hard to describe Fleetwood Mac. They've were formed the year after I was born, have survived a succession of line-ups of extremely variable quality and have produced some rather excellent music. If you've watched TV at any point you will have heard their music although these days it tends to be in the background or in the adverts.

The incarnation I prefer is the line-up they had for the "Rumours" album - their tricky thirteenth album. For a group that are pigeon-holed as being purveyors of shallow elevator-music, they were having a hard time of it :-

• Mick Fleetwood (Drums) - divorcing
• LIndsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks - relationship disintegrating
• John & Christine McVie - marriage imploding

I think that tension definitely raised the temperature of the music on that album. I do recommend dusting it off and having another listen.

Especially "Dreams" which is Stevie Nicks at her soulful conflicted best. If you want to know how great a singer she was, compare with The Corrs' painfully twee version of the same song. Yeek!

But just for the record, thunder doesn't only happen when it's raining.