C'est McVie

A very welcome voice is poised to return to music. Christine McVie, who sat out Fleetwood Mac's last studio effort, Say You Will, releases her new solo disc, In the Meantime, next month, and I heard its first single, "Friend," on 'XPN Monday. Like much of McVie's work, it's a pleasant, sturdy little tune; if history is any guide, repeated listens will foster the realization that she continues to be capable of writing songs with irresistible hooks and of singing them in a lovely, perfectly inflected, and singular voice.

McVie for years served as Mac's unsung heroine. While Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks garnered all the attention, McVie was quietly writing and singing some of the band best songs. Lacking Buckingham's self-indulgent flash and Nicks's goofy aura of the occult, she simply kept her head down and did her job. In a sense she was Larry to Buckingham and Nicks's Moe and Curly. I mean that as a compliment -- honestly. And though Lindsey and Stevie famously used the band as a cathartic outlet to soothe the pain of their mercurial relationship, Christine managed to divorce bassist John McVie then continue to work alongside him in an arrangement seemingly built on mutual respect and professionalism.

Nobody pays much attention to her, but McVie gave Fleetwood Mac a necessary softening. Maybe I'm just a sucker for sweet pop tunes, but without her presence, it would have been easy to envision Mac drifting into a wearying and pointless stasis of never-ending punches traded by her two more famous bandmates.