![\"Lindsey](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Lindsey-Buckingham-Musician-Fleetwood-Mac-2022-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
(Credits: Far Out \/ Raph Pour-Hashemi)<\/p>\n
Sat 20 December 2025 18:25, UK <\/p>\n
There\u2019s something about making music for money that feels innately yucky. Art should arrive from the heavens and land in the soul, converting that into cash might be a necessity, but it doesn\u2019t make the inner muso feel any better. But, for some, especially those in Fleetwood Mac<\/a>, it was a difficult thing to overcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n Making money has never felt aligned with rock music\u2019s key ethos, but it somehow became a part of the drive for a whole run of bands. In the 1970s and \u201880s, how many records you sold was vitally important, well, for the most part. It turns out, though, that Lindsey Buckingham didn\u2019t want Fleetwood Mac to follow the cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fleetwood Mac were never a band known for being on the fringes of the rock world. They had their times when they were slightly more obscure in their early days as a blues rock outfit, but they were far from the kind of group that would get the same kind of credibility that the punks had when they started becoming superstars in the 1970s. <\/p>\n Lindsey Buckingham still took his craft very seriously<\/a>, though, and he thought the Eagles were turning into self-parody by the time they hit the big time.<\/p>\n If you look at both bands\u2019 trajectories, there\u2019s actually a lot more overlap than you would think. Both groups had found pop success as rock outfits, but there was always a subtle hint of Americana throughout their music. Don Henley was proud to wear his country influences on his sleeve, and while Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were the only Americans in the group, the guitarist\u2019s fingerpicking was much closer to bluegrass than rock and roll.<\/p>\n Still, Buckingham wasn\u2019t looking to become the next answer to Glen Campbell on the charts or anything. He wanted to be a rockstar like the ones he idolised, and when he put his fingerpicking style through a Gibson Les Paul, the sound was deafening, giving simple pop songs like \u2018Go Your Own Way\u2019 much more bite when they came screaming out of the speakers.<\/p>\n The Eagles certainly could keep up with that, too, once Joe Walsh was brought into the mix. Their first albums might have had some country leanings, but bringing in the same guy responsible for \u2018Funk 49\u2019 was going to endear them to the stadium rock crowd, who just wanted to hear some rock and roll.<\/p>\n