All three albums included Top 40 singles, but Stevie Nicks’ releases remained the most popular, especially 1983’s Stand Back. During this time, Buckingham and Nicks released additional solo records, as did McVie. Even the songs about love gone wrong, such as Buckingham’s Book of Love and Nicks’ That’s Alright, come across as wistful rather than bitter.Īfter a brief tour that included a headlining appearance at the US Festival, the band members went their separate ways, leaving the group in limbo for several years. With lyrics portraying a relationship in flux, the instrumental sparkle simply provides an inviting counterpoint.
Mirage is immaculately crafted but doesn’t lack for feeling, as exemplified by Hold Me, a song she co-wrote that was the album’s biggest hit. The latter comment seems like an overstatement on McVie’s part. “ Mirage was an attempt to get back into the flow that Rumours had,” said Christine McVie. A conscious effort to craft a more accessible record, Mirage smoothed down the rough edges musically and lyrically. That style carried over to his contributions to Fleetwood Mac’s next album, Mirage. Related: “Mick Fleetwood: Passionate Underachiever” Despite featuring the Top 10 hit Trouble, neither was Buckingham’s solo debut, Law and Order, the making of which Fleetwood helped inspire.Īfter the drummer told him that the band wouldn’t be repeating the experimental approach of Tusk, Buckingham realized that “If I wanna continue to take risks try to define myself as an artist in the long term, I’m gonna have to start making solo albums.” Though Law and Order included some offbeat pieces like Johnny Stew, the album as a whole displayed a strong pop sensibility with a 1950s feel, an aspect emphasized by Buckingham’s cover of the 1959 hit It Was I. Mick Fleetwood released his solo album The Visitor around the same time as Bella Donna, but it wasn’t as commercially successful. Though the two biggest singles featured other artists – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around and Don Henley on Leather and Lace – the album firmly established Nicks as an artist in her own right. Recognizing both the need for time away from the strained relationships within the band and that she had more songs than a group project could accommodate, the singer decided to make a solo album, one she knew from the outset would be called Bella Donna.īella Donna sold over a million copies after just three months in stores, and four songs reached the US Top 40. Nicks had been writing songs during the tour for Tusk. In keeping with their version of normal, the public expression of this schism took musical form with three of the five members releasing solo albums in 1981. Nevertheless, the band supported the release with a lengthy tour – documented on their 1980 live album – which set the stage for the fractious decade ahead. Unfortunately, for all the retroactive regard it’s earned and sales that many artists would have found enviable, Tusk was viewed as a disappointment at the time. The 1979 double-album Tusk took ten months to record, in no small part because Buckingham pushed the rest of the group to avoid replicating the sound of its predecessor. Four Top 10 singles and millions upon millions of copies sold worldwide gave the record a life of its own and drove the band back into the studio to record a follow-up. That’s just not normal.” The album’s overwhelming success, however, warped the calculations of what constituted normal. Lindsey Buckingham encapsulated this sentiment in a 1987 interview, “To break up with someone and then see them for the next 12 years. Recorded as four of the five band members were ending relationships with each other – and one of those four became romantically involved with the fifth – Rumours remains the group’s most successful release as well as one of the most popular albums of all time.īy any sensible measure, the circumstances around the making of Rumours should have promptly fractured the Buckingham/Fleetwood/McVie/McVie/Nicks line-up. The same is true of Fleetwood Mac and their 1977 blockbuster Rumours. Exile On Main St., Who’s Next and Purple Rain aren’t just collections of memorable songs but also embodiments of what the musicians who made them capable of. Most artists with careers measured in decades have that one album, one that casts an unavoidable shadow over everything that comes after.
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