Fleetwood Mac’s illustrious career has pivoted delicately around the members’ turbulent personal relationships, played out publicly like a real-life soap opera. Despite falling in and out of love with each other, the band remained devoted to their collective artistry, producing a timeless catalogue of albums steeped in emotional complexity, tension and wisdom.
They may be a veritable supergroup famous for dysfunction, but the music tells a different story. The unique spirit and talent of each member is equally articulated and balanced, revealing a compassion, admiration and mutual respect that clearly extends well beyond the drug-fuelled romantic turmoil seen from the outside.
The I Like: Fleetwood Mac playlist is a rollercoaster ride of heartache, forgiveness, philosophy and passion that succeeds in reminding us that today’s adversity could be tomorrow’s good fortune - it’s just a matter of perspective.
Here are some of the highlights you definitely don’t want to miss!
The Chain
Featured track, “The Chain”, was released on best-selling album, Rumours (1977). It tells the story of lovers being simultaneously torn apart and held together by something bigger than either one of them - a shining exemplar of the polarity that made Fleetwood Mac so mesmerising.
The recording of Rumours is certified rock and roll folklore, infamous for cocaine-fuelled paranoia and partner-swapping. It’s an impossible feat of alchemy to turn mayhem into a masterpiece, but (somehow) that’s exactly what they did.
Rhiannon
Inspired by a gothic novel of possession, “Rhiannon” was written by Stevie Nicks and released on the bands 1975 self-titled album.
It was Fleetwood Mac’s tenth studio album, but the first with a new line-up that included Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The pair made quite an entrance as their arrival propelled the group up the charts.
Little Lies
Written by Christine McVie and her (then) husband, Eddy Quintella, “Little Lies” appears on the 1987 album, Tango in The Night, and was a top-ten hit for Fleetwood Mac.
Possibly the key to their success, this mantra surely fuelled the fire of rumours started a decade earlier by, well … Rumours.
Tusk
Describing the recording of “Tusk”, Mick Fleetwood commented,
“I'm playing floor toms, and I overdubbed a lot of American Indian wood tribal drums. It's a whole hodgepodge of Kleenex boxes, drums, weird stuff, slapping of lamb chops and things. I got a big leg of lamb in there somewhere – I'm hitting it with a spatula.”
Somehow, it sounds amazing!?! Testament that, in the hands of a great artist, anything can sound good.
Fleetwood Mac turn heartache into solid gold. Supreme craftsmanship disguises the raw emotion underpinning their body of work, yet there is a lightness and depth of understanding that makes you yearn to be caught up in something half as crazy, mixed up, messy and confused, just to be rewarded with the inane clarity of human nature that can only be earned on an epic journey of love and war.
