Thursday Throwback: “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac
Unless you’ve been under a rock (or haven’t had chance to browse the internet) you might of possibly heard of the GIANT Rock Band (permanent?) sale on all pre-RB3 DLC. Well, like many Rock Band fans out there, I’ve finally gotten around to download some tracks that I had been putting off getting, and this week’s pick is one of those songs… although not for the reason you might think.
Fleetwood Mac are an extremely popular and successful British/American band who formed in 1967 and has been with us ever since. The band has a unique slow rock / blues feel to their songs, which is mainly due to Stevie Nick’s vocals, and the extensive use of harmonies. The band has released over 17 studio albums, netting them over 100 million records worldwide, which puts their popularity on par with artists like Metallica and Prince.
My featured song, Don’t Stop, was featured on the 1977 album Rumors, which is the 8th highest selling album of all time. The album features other Fleetwood Mac classics, such as Dreams, Go Your Own Way, The Chain and Gold Dust Woman. If your interested in purchasing music by them, then I would highly recommend the 25 Years of Fleetwood Mac boxset, recently re-released.
Fleetwood Mac has had seven songs released on the platform. Go Your Own Way was included on the Rock Band 2 disc, Don’t Stop and World Turning were released as singles in 2009 (which now have reduced pricing) and then a six-pack of Fleetwood Mac/ Stevie Nicks songs was released in 2011 including: Dreams, Gold Dust Woman, Landslide, Rhiannon, Edge of Seventeen and Stand Back.
And now onto the song itself. Don’t Stop is one of my all time favorite songs, and I was thrilled when I found out it had already been released. The 1-tier guitar isn’t as heavy in notes as some other Fleetwood Mac songs, but it’s still a varied but fun song to play, and you are treated to a solo around a third of the way through the song, just to make things better. 3-tier bass is a great chart, and makes use of notes grouped in two, to go along with the drum beat, but with some fast changes thrown in their, as well. 3-tier drums is the weakest chart, with the whole song made up of red and yellow pads, grouped in two again, throughout the majority of the song. 4-tier vocals are certainly my favorite part of the song, with some excellent lyrics and easy(ish) pitch to match.
The song doesn’t have any keys charted, which is a real shame, as since they didn’t chart keys to guitar at all in the song, it wouldn’t of been much trouble. But, now it’s half price, I went out and bought it anyway!
Got any ideas for any artists we haven’t featured yet? Or different songs by artists we have featured? Any ideas would be great!
After getting your daily RockBandAide fix, head on over to my fansite, The Tribute Pages which features loads of tributes of video games, TV shows and movies!
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I hate to be that guy but you said, “might of” instead of, “might have”. Otherwise, great article!
crashb648 Reply:
September 21st, 2012 at 3:06 pm
Curse my grammer imperfections!
As much as I like this song, this song is a boring as hell Rock Band song. Nothing set it apart, and it was incredibly slow to play. Im so happy Harmonix chose Go your Own way for the RB2 disk. Its still one of my favorite songs to play. Worlds Turning which was released the same week by the way is one of the best songs on both Guitar and Drums. Totally shouldnt be missed
Bront Reply:
September 20th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
World Turning also has a fairly unique Bass chart.
crashb648 Reply:
September 21st, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Yes, it may not be the best song in the world to play on rock band, but becasue I’m a huge fan of the song, I got more out of it, which is the same of any Fleetwood Mac songs out there.
But you are right, World Turning is a great song to play too!
Review ideas: lacuna coil? Huey Lewis? Stevie ray Vaughn?
I’m actually very surprised Lacuna Coil does not have larger presence in Rock Band. Considering their popularity and solid tracks, only having one song on disc and two RBN offerings is pretty low. I’m not just a flag waving fan trying to get their band some love here. My family and I play together and we were first introduced to Lacuna Coil through Rock Band and were taken by surprise by their sound. We have been fans since. So yeah, it would be great to play more of their tracks and have a blast, but it would be nice to see more out there for people to explore and discover great bands like them.
As for Huey, well, lots of those tracks offered I find fun to play and I think folks might skip over his stuff out of hand.
Lastly I’ll say that there are a ton of players out there that download and play tracks just to interact with their favorite music regardless of how hard or how ‘exciting’ it may be as a chart. After all, I believe it’s the love of the music that keeps this game popular and in business, so keep up the good work and keep the pressure on to obtain those licenses and keep the tracks coming in all genres! There are SO many that are under represented like Blues for example.
Thanks and happy playing!
crashb648 Reply:
September 21st, 2012 at 3:09 pm
You my friend… are speaking sense. There’s a few songs I play that may not be as fun to play as other songs, but because I like the song more, I enjoy it more, its weird.
And I shall take those recommendations under consideration – thanks!