Then Play On

Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Album: Then Play On
Release Year: 1969
Genres: blues rock, roots rock

1) Coming Your Way; 2) Closing My Eyes; 3) Showbiz Blues; 4) My Dream; 5) Underway; 6) Oh Well; 7) Although the Sun Is Shining; 8) Rattlesnake Shake; 9) Searching for Madge; 10) Fighting for Madge; 11) When You Say; 12) Like Crying Like Dying; 13) Before the Beginning.


Not many people know that Fleetwood Mac's career began in the late Sixties, when they played blues clubs and the like, barely managing to pay the bills. Yeah, the band went through quite a few incarnations, and Then Play On is a snapshot of the first- long before Christy McVie or Lindsey Buckingham came aboard. We're still in the band's blues period here, although in a few songs you can hear the artsy pop element within, struggling to emerge. That ounce of pop tendency, added to nine parts aggressive blues guitar, moaning vocals, and handclaps, makes for a nicely strange listen (even though some of it bores me to death).

I like to pick out the overarching mood of every album, and this one is rather dark. Not doom and gloom per se, but "dusky," as George Starostin puts it. Though the lyrics might sometimes contradict it, there is a general pessimistic feel to the whole thing, as if each song is only a futile afterthought. It's an interesting mood, and I like it. Unfortunately, this is also the era of folksy hippie crap (not that all hippie music was crap), and we get a healthy dose of it on tracks 7 and 11. Seriously, that pseudo-spiritual "la, la, la, laaa lala la" on "When You Say" makes me wanna puke- good thing it's short.

But! On track six we get the real treat, and the centerpiece of the album: the fan favorite "Oh Well." What begins as a bitter, rip-roarin' heavy blues chant suddenly morphs into a mystical, medieval-sounding acoustic piece. The second portion may not go anywhere musically over its six and a half minutes, but I'll be damned if it's not worth every second anyway. Love it! Then you have your straightahead blues numbers, and they're solid, with "Rattlesnake Shake" being my favorite of these. Some people hate the "Madge" jams, but they're downright ferocious, and I like them. I only wish they'd cut out that guy calling "Yaaadz? Yaaaadz?" (no, not "Madge") in the middle. Otherwise, I don't usually mind a band padding an album with stuff like this.

So all in all, a good effort from the early Mac, even though it wouldn't have killed them to break a little more from contemporary conventions. But then again, these guys eventually became a platinum album-writing band, so I guess we can't ask too much. Not two thumbs up, but certainly one.