
Fleetwood Mac, clockwise from top left: Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie.
Here is an excerpt from an article written by Jon Pareles for The New York Times. To read the complete article, check out others, sign up for email alerts, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Illustration Credit: Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
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The album that turned the band into superstars is getting an anniversary rerelease that shows why it still gleams.
With its 10th album, Fleetwood Mac was making yet another new start in a meandering career. But its 1975 LP, “Fleetwood Mac,” would catapult the band from midlevel FM airplay and modest sales to hit singles, platinum certifications and decades of arena tours. The album gets the 50th-anniversary treatment on Friday, rereleased on deluxe vinyl and with spatial audio Atmos and surround sound remixes on Blu-ray. After half a century, the music still gleams.
“Fleetwood Mac” was made by a British band — Mick Fleetwood on drums, John McVie on bass and his then-wife, Christine McVie, on keyboards, vocals and songwriting — that had relocated to Los Angeles. When its guitarist and frontman left, Fleetwood happened to hear the duo of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. It was serendipitous; it was transformative.
“The way our band works when we write is that we try to stumble towards each other, then work it all out,” Fleetwood wrote in his autobiography, “Play On: Now, Then and Fleetwood Mac.” The newly reconfigured band, with its members still getting to know one another, did more than stumble; it found synergy.
“Fleetwood Mac” is one analog-era album that still sounds current, mainly thanks to the sheer perfectionism that the band and its co-producer, Keith Olsen, brought to every layer of instruments and vocals, long before quantization, digital editing or Auto-Tune. The tempos may fluctuate a little, and the vocals are (rightly) human and not superhuman. But all the tracks still feel flawless.
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Jon Pareles is the chief pop music critic at The New York Times.