805 - Coming Your Way



We had another day of nice sunshine, much colder though, and again I was short on time for photography.

Of the few images that I made, nothing really impresses me much, but this one is maybe the best. This is a road that I drove often in the past, and on sunny afternoons, the pattern of light and shadow never fails to impress me. It’s even more pronounced in winter.

As for the Song of the Day, well, you certainly have been stumbling over the 10,000 hours rule lately and probably have seen the video of Malcolm Gladwell’s speech at the AIGA Business and Design Conference 2008 (if not, believe me, there are much worse ways to spend 39 minutes of your life), and you may remember that he argues with the career of Fleetwood Mac, and that it took them 16 albums of experimentation to finally reach fame.

That’s right, it makes a fine point, but he still has it all wrong. “Then Play On”, still with Peter Green, is the best Fleetwood Mac album ever, and the Song of the Day is “Coming Your Way” from that very album. Hear it on YouTube.


There are 3 comments

Thomas   (2008-12-27)

I actually HAVE been stumbling across the 10k hours rule lately. And I find a lot of it quite convincing. Care to elaborate a bit on why you think "he got it all wrong"? In the meantime, I'll watch the video...

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Andreas   (2008-12-27)

Only my taste. Gladwell argues that the career of Fleetwood Mac culminated in "Rumours", and that's something you can't really say. FM were really two completely different bands that had nothing in common but a bassist, a drummer and a name, the former group being a fantastic blues rock band, driven by the genius of Peter Green, the latter a mainstream pop band completely dominated by Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham. There is no continuity, nothing at all, although Gladwell presents it that way.

And if there is any high-point in that shattered career, then it's "Then Play On", certainly not "Rumours". Hmpfh!

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Juha Haataja   (2008-12-28)

Oh, Fleetwood Mac! I once revealed my little knowledge of music when someone was praising Fleetwood Mac, and I went to say (I had bought "Rumours" recently) "Aren't they just a pop band, nothing special". And there was an inconvenient silence at that point.

Actually, I just checked that I don't have any Fleetwood Mac on the iMac at this point - I must have ripped Rumours at some point but deleted it later. I guess I should do a check on the first version of the band.

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