Fleetwood Mac (Deluxe Edition)

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Genre: Popular Music
Media Format: Compact Disk
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Release Date: 23-MAR-2004

With the "classic" Fleetwood Mac and departed guitarists Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer a fading memory, namesakes and rhythm section Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass), along with second generation survivor Christine McVie (vocals, keyboards), let go of their British blues heritage and linked with a failed Californian pop-rock duo, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. That move, born of desperation, yields this 1975 classic: unveiling a taut, well-oiled pop rock band boasting three distinctive singers and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks, and Christine McVie; Buckingham's extraordinary arrangements and versatile acoustic and electric guitars; and the undeniable horsepower of the founding fathers' rock-solid rhythm work. Buckingham's rave-ups, Nicks's sultry rock ballads, and Christine McVie's soulful, sunny pop form the template for Rumours, which would follow two years later. --Sam Sutherland

Given their monumental legacy, it's hard to imagine that the so-called "classic edition" of Fleetwood Mac essentially came together casually over chips and margaritas at an L.A. eatery; the then-obscure duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (whose own mid-'70s debut album had initially gone almost straight to the cut-out bins) became the crucial axis of the legendary band without so much as a formal audition. As the eponymous title suggests, the 1975 Mac realignment seems like a fresh start, though tracks like Christine McVie's smooth-jazz inflected "Warm Ways" hearken back to the Bob Welch/Bare Trees/Heroes Are Hard to Find era. But it's Buckingham's compelling, updated take on '60s California folk-pop, informed by the mystique of Nicks's proto-New Age song-sorceress presumptions, that breathed new life into the veteran, chameleonic band on now-familiar songs like "Monday Morning" and "Rhiannon." His chemistry with McVie is no less powerful, yielding such Mac staples as their collaboration "World Turning" and suffusing her "Over My Head" with nervous, insistent guitar rhythms. This deluxe, remastered edition features the significantly different single mixes of "Say You Love Me," "Rhiannon," "Over My Head," and "Blue Letter" (the latter previously unissued), as well as the moody, also unreleased studio workout "Jam #2." Parke Puterbaugh's newly penned liner notes offer concise, thoughtful insights into the genesis of one of rock's greatest, if most unlikely, rebirths. --Jerry McCulley