(Artist Report)

Written by:  Jake Beach  

In the story of rock music, few bands have lived as many lives—or burned through as much myth—as Fleetwood Mac. They began in 1967 as a gritty London blues outfit and, through reinvention and sheer accident, became one of the biggest pop groups on earth. Along the way, they not only sold more than 100 million records, but they also embodied both the dream and dysfunction of life in a rock band.1

The numbers alone are staggering: Rumours (1977), their career-defining masterpiece, spent 31 weeks at No. 1 in the U.S., won the Grammy for Album of the Year, and has gone platinum 21 times over in America alone.2 In 2020, more than four decades later, the record was suddenly back in the Top 10 after a viral TikTok clip sent “Dreams” soaring up the charts again.3 That unlikely afterlife speaks to something enduring about Fleetwood Mac—the way their songs, layered in pain and beauty, never lose their grip on new generations

Fleetwood Mac’s story begins not in California but in London’s smoky blues clubs. Guitarist Peter Green, a onetime disciple of Eric Clapton in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, wanted to front a band anchored by drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. The name—Fleetwood Mac—was a tribute to the rhythm section he trusted most.4

This first incarnation of the group played with a hypnotic, melancholic edge. Their 1969 instrumental “Albatross” floated to the top of the U.K. charts, the band’s only British No. 1 single.5 Yet Green’s struggles with mental health pulled him away from the band just as they were breaking through. He departed in 1970, beginning a lifelong battle that shadowed the group’s early legend.6

Christine McVie, a keyboardist and songwriter with a knack for melody, officially joined the band in 1970, nudging it toward softer rock textures. By the early ’70s, with guitarist Bob Welch in the lineup, they relocated to the U.S. and released transitional albums like Future Games (1971) and Bare Trees (1972), which leaned more heavily on songcraft than blues purism.7

Then came 1975, and the band’s biggest reinvention. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, a California couple struggling after their own folk-rock project fizzled, were drafted in. Their first album with the group, Fleetwood Mac, reached No. 1 in the U.S. and introduced classics like “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” and “Landslide.”7 The blues band from London had become a pop juggernaut.

By 1977, the new Fleetwood Mac was at once unstoppable and coming apart at the seams. Buckingham and Nicks split. Christine and John McVie divorced. Mick Fleetwood’s marriage crumbled. The band was living in a haze of cocaine, bitterness, and heartbreak.

Somehow, they funneled all of it into Rumours. The album is a diary of collapse set to soaring melodies: Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way,” Nicks’s “Dreams,” Christine McVie’s “Don’t Stop.” Released in February 1977, it became a cultural phenomenon, spending 31 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, achieving four Top 10 singles, and ultimately selling more than 40 million copies worldwide.28 It was the sound of five people breaking up in real time, and the whole world listened.

What do you do after Rumours? In 1979, Buckingham pushed the band to take a left turn with Tusk, a sprawling double album that incorporated punk, new wave, and even the USC marching band, recorded live at Dodger Stadium for the title track.9 It didn’t match Rumours’ commercial heights but cemented the group’s reputation as risk-takers.

The ’80s brought smoother surfaces. Mirage (1982) returned them to FM radio, while Tango in the Night (1987) delivered slick pop gems like “Little Lies” and “Everywhere.” Behind the scenes, tensions mounted again, and Buckingham exited the band shortly after.7

In 1997, the “classic five” lineup reunited for MTV’s The Dance, an album and tour that proved Fleetwood Mac’s mystique was stronger than ever. The live album shot to No. 1, their first chart-topper in 15 years.10 Christine McVie retired a year later, but the band carried on, regrouping with her in 2014 for the On With the Show tour.11

Yet stability was never their way. In 2018, Buckingham was ousted after disagreements over scheduling, and the band carried on with Neil Finn (Crowded House) and Mike Campbell (Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers) filling in.12

Then came the unlikeliest of comebacks: a TikTok video of Nathan Apodaca skateboarding with a bottle of cranberry juice, lip-syncing to “Dreams.” The clip went viral in 2020, and suddenly Fleetwood Mac was back in the Billboard Top 10, as if no time had passed. Mick Fleetwood gamely recreated the video, cementing the band’s place in meme history.3

Two years later, tragedy struck. Christine McVie died in November 2022 after a short illness. Stevie Nicks soon said bluntly that Fleetwood Mac was over: “Without Christine, it just couldn’t work.”1314

Fleetwood Mac’s tale is one of reinvention, survival, and the strange alchemy of clashing personalities. Their music endures not because it hides the fractures, but because it reveals them. “The Chain,” the only song credited to all five members of the Rumours lineup, may be the most fitting symbol: a track pieced together from fragments, stitched into something indestructible.

For a band that never stopped breaking apart, Fleetwood Mac left behind a body of work that still holds together—mystical, bruised, and utterly alive.

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