History Music / FleetwoodMac

** ''Mirage'' shows Christine, Lindsey and Stevie.

It wouldn't last - Kirwan left the band in 1972 due to alcohol dependence and strained relationships with Welch and the [=McVies=]. For two and a half years afterwards, the band entered some of it's toughest times, suffering from constantly shifting lineups, reflected in the poorly-received, tepid ''Mystery To Me'' (which still managed to get some airplay with the single "Hypnotized"), internal tension (John and Christine's stressful marriage, John's alcohol abuse, Weston's affair with Fleetwood's wife) and found itself on the receiving end of probably the weirdest event in rock history (and that's saying ''a lot'').\\

* GreatestHitsAlbum: The band released two of them, both confusingly titled "Greatest Hits." The first one was released in 1971 and covered the Peter Green era, while the second was released in 1988 and covered the more popular pop-rock era. The latter was also the only place to find the full-length version of "Sara" on CD, as the CD version of ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' used the edited single version. The band also released the double-CD ''The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac'' in 2002.

Drained by the production of ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', the band's follow-up was the weirder double album ''Music/{{Tusk}}''. Once again produced by the band with Dashut and Caillat, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' split its time between mellow Christine and Nicks songs and weird, paranoid Buckingham experiments with [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and PunkRock (he notoriously recorded several songs in his own bathroom), all wrapped in a complex yet messy production. Greeted with general confusion that not even an 18-month tour and the singles "Tusk" (a weird, tribal song featuring the USC Trojan Marching Band), "Think About Me" and "Sara" could redress, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' has since been VindicatedByHistory as a coked-out insane yet compelling and catchy pop album. Founder Peter Green also showed up in the studio to play guitar on "Brown Eyes", but wasn't credited at the time. ''Music/{{Tusk}}'''s initial sales may also have been hurt by a legendary goof Creator/WarnerBrosRecords committed when they [[WhatAnIdiot released the album to be played in its entirety by radio stations the day before release, providing a golden opportunity for home tapers]].\\

After some time off to recover and for Nicks and Buckingham to release solo albums (Nicks would eventually release four solo LP's and Buckingham two over the course of the decade, with Fleetwood also releasing two and Christine [=McVie=] putting out one), Fleetwood Mac returned with ''Mirage'', their first album of TheEighties. Replacing the whacked-out-on-coke-insane-paranoia with accessible pop melodies and replacing the simple, muscular sound Dashut and Caillat gave to previous efforts with a shiny production, ''Mirage'' sold better than ''Music/{{Tusk}}'', propelled by a few successful singles - Christine's "Hold Me", "Love In Store", Nicks' poppier offering "Gypsy" and Buckingham's "Oh Diane". The band celebrated this by partying hard, shovelling more cocaine up their noses and continuing their excessive lifestyle, which came back to bite them in the arse - Nicks had to go into rehab to get rid of her addictions (and had to go into rehab ''again'' in the early 1990's to get rid of an addiction to the medication she had been prescribed to help overcome her cocaine addiction), John suffered a seizure due to his alcohol abuse but got better and Fleetwood declared bankruptcy.\\

* ImportantHaircut: For ''Music/{{Tusk}}'', Lindsey Buckingham shed his afro for a shorter hairstyle, which coincided with the stronger PunkRock and NewWaveMusic influence over his songs.

* WordSaladLyrics: Nicks and Green could do this occasionally. Tried making sense of "Oh Well"? "Rhiannon"? The whacked-out half of ''Music/{{Tusk}}''?

* NeoclassicalPunkZydecoRockabilly: Even in their mainstream 1975-1987 period, they managed to throw blues, folk and country influences into their mellow pop-rock.

* AbsenteeActor: Despite being a member of the band at the time, Jeremy Spencer appears on only half of a song ("Oh Well pt 2") on ''Then Play On''. This was due to him being busy recording a companion EP of his own recordings, which went unreleased until appearing on a compilation album 30 years later.

* ADayInTheLimelight: Although he got a co-writing credit on some of the earlier, more jam-based material, "These Strange Times" from ''Time'' is the band's only song to have lyrics (co-)written and sung (well, more narrated) by Mick Fleetwood.

* SelfTitledAlbum: Twice. To differentiate it from the 1975 version (which is probably better known worldwide) the 1968 one is referred to as ''Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac'' or occasionally ''[[FanNickname Dog and Dustbin]]''.

* CoolOldGuy[=/=]CoolOldLady: The members have definitely ascended to this status.

* DeadArtistsAreBetter: Bob Welch got some overdue appreciation for his Fleetwood Mac work after his suicide in 2012.

* GenderBlenderName: Stevie Nicks (female) and Lindsey Buckingham (male.) Though Nicks' birth certificate has the less confusing "Stephanie."

* HistoryRepeats: In 1987, Lindsey Buckingham left the band after disagreements over an upcoming tour and was replaced with two new members. In 2018, Lindsey Buckingham left the band after disagreements over an upcoming tour and was replaced with two new members.

* LoveDodecahedron: Arguably the most famous example in rock history.

* MultinationalTeam: Since the American Bob Welch joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970 the band has had a mix of American and British members. As of 2018 there is also a New Zealander (Neil Finn) in the band.

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: As Christine says in a 2015 Rolling Stone article on Stevie:
-->I’m a tomboy. I love men. I love hanging around with men. And Stevie is kind of a girly girl.

Fleetwood Mac recorded a new album for around a year in five separate studios with {{Record Producer}}s and engineers Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat,[[note]]Yes, ''that'' [[Music/ColbieCaillat Caillat]]. Please, he's only marginally responsible for what his daughter became.[[/note]] a process marked by personal tensions, long working hours and cocaine abuse - Caillat admitted that he found cocaine littered across the mixing board or thrown under it on at least one occasion. The resulting album, the emotionally stark ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', became their biggest success both critically and commercially, staying at #1 for 31 weeks in a row and spawned bigger hits with "Go Your Own Way", the optimistic "Don't Stop", and "You Make Loving Fun," as well as the band's only US number one hit, "Dreams." Another song, "The Chain", credited to all five band members, won fame in another context as the theme song for the BBC's UsefulNotes/FormulaOne TV program ''Grand Prix''.\\

With the new line-up in place, the band made another NewSoundAlbum, ''Fleetwood Mac''. The new album showcased the band re-imagined as a Californian pop-rock band filled with catchy hooks and lush vocal harmonies, slightly mellow overall but kept away from outright soft-rock by Buckingham's restlessness (which saw the band sneaking blues, folk and country influences into their sound) and a straightforward production, sounding closer to a relaxed [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] circa ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' than the smooth, lifeless sound that made the term "soft-rock" so hated by many. Buckingham by now had completely seized creative control of the band and became one of the three main songwriters besides Nicks and Christine, leading to a very clear group dynamic: Buckingham being the driven, sort-of experimental weirdo, Christine providing the catchy pop songs/ballads and Nicks being the mystical, slightly {{Cloudcuckoolander}} but charming folkie (proto-Music/KateBush?).\\

The old line-up with Buckingham and Nicks reunited to play "Don't Stop" at the inauguration of UsefulNotes/BillClinton in 1993, who had made it his campaign song and personally requested the band's one-off performance. After this, they went back to business and brought in new members: legendary Music/{{Traffic}} and Music/DerekAndTheDominos guitarist Dave Mason and vocalist Bekka Bramlett (Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett's daughter). The resulting album, ''Time'' sank without a trace - it didn't even make the Billboard charts, a telling sign of its abysmal quality given that Fleetwood Mac had been mainstays on the charts the past two decades. Fleetwood Mac would subsequently break-up for the next two years.

* 1987 - ''Tango In The Night''

* 1982 - ''Music/Mirage''

* 1982 - ''Mirage''

* 1999 - ''Shrine '69''

->'''Murray:''' I've told you, when you're in a band, you don't get with your bandmate's girlfriend - past or present... You get a love triangle, you know? Fleetwood Mac situation. Well, there- there was four of them, [[LoveDodecahedron so more of a love square]] -- but you know; no one gets on... Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then.\\

->'''Murray:''' I've told you, when you're in a band, you don't get with your bandmate's girlfriend - past or present... You get a love triangle, you know? Fleetwood Mac situation. Well, there- there was four of them, so more of a love square -- but you know; no one gets on... Mind you, they did make some of their best music back then.\\

* GenderBlenderName: Stevie Nicks (female) and Lindsey Buckingham (male.) Though Nick's birth certificate has the less confusing "Stephanie."

** On ''The Dance'', John McVie sings backing vocals on "Say You Love Me", noted by both Christine and Mick as his first time on vocals.

Fleetwood Mac was formed by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers in 1967, alongside his Bluesbreakers band-mate Fleetwood. Bob Brunning was their initial bassist, as John [=McVie=] initially refused. Once [=McVie=] changed his mind, Brunning stepped down. Green named the band after them, which proved kind of prescient in a way since they turned out to be the band's only constant members. Green completed the line-up by recruiting talented slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer.\\

The old line-up with Buckingham and Nicks reunited to play "Don't Stop" at the inauguration of UsefulNotes/BillClinton in 1993, who had made it his campaign song and personally requested the band's one-off performance. After this, they went back to business and brought in new members: legendary Traffic and Music/DerekAndTheDominos guitarist Dave Mason and vocalist Bekka Bramlett (Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett's daughter). The resulting album, ''Time'' sank without a trace - it didn't even make the Billboard charts, a telling sign of its abysmal quality given that Fleetwood Mac had been mainstays on the charts the past two decades. Fleetwood Mac would subsequently break-up for the next two years.

Fleetwood Mac was formed by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers in 1967, alongside his Bluesbreakers band-mate Fleetwood. Bob Brunning was their initial bassist, as John [=McVie=] initially refused. Once [=McVie=] changed his mind, Brunning stepped down. Green named the band after them, which proved kind of prescient in a way since they turned out to be the band's only constant members. Green completed the line-up by recruiting talented slide guitarist Jeremy Spencer.

The band's style so far was straightforward, no-frills blues-rock largely similar to what Green had been doing with John Mayall. This proved to be okay with the British public, which sent its debut album ''Fleetwood Mac'' up to #4 on the charts in early 1968 and provided them with a hit single in "Black Magic Woman" (later covered by Music/{{Santana}}). Their second album, ''Mr. Wonderful'', followed on the heels of the self-titled debut (literally: it came out in summer 1968), boasting a more vintage production and the first appearance of Christine Perfect, future member of the band and John's wife, as a session keyboardist.

Frustrated by Spencer's creative apathy, Green added 18-year old guitarist Danny Kirwan to the line-up after ''Mr. Wonderful'', whose signature vibrato complemented the band's blues-rocking very well and helped them gain their first #1 single in Europe, the mellow instrumental "Albatross". Around this time, the band suffered some predictable discography-hacking through the release of the compilation ''English Rose'' in the USA (half of ''Mr. Wonderful'' + new songs with Kirwan), and then they put out another compilation, this time of singles and B-sides in Europe named ''Pious Bird Of Good Omen''.

After a quick holiday in the USA where they recorded many blues songs at Chess Studios with some legendary UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} bluesmen (Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, Otis Spann), Fleetwood Mac [[ChannelHop moved]] from the small blues-only label Blue Horizon to Creator/RepriseRecords, where they've remained since[[note]]with a few releases on Reprise's parent label, Creator/WarnerBrosRecords[[/note]], and began diversifying away from pure blues-rock. Once again with Christine around as a session musician, the band recorded ''Then Play On'', a critically-acclaimed album that gave them their early SignatureSong: "Oh Well", a heavy riff-driven blues-rocker that transitioned into a Music/EnnioMorricone-styled sparse instrumental for a grand total of [[EpicRocking 9 minutes runtime]].[[note]]8 minutes, but the way it was edited together from the single repeats a minute.[[/note]] All the songs on ''Then Play On'' were recorded solely by Kirwan and Green, with Spencer barely present since he was working on a solo album of [[TheFifties fifties-style retro-rock 'n roll songs]]. They also scored another non-album hit a year later with "The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown), later covered by Music/JudasPriest.

Green's departure proved to be the first sign of the later line-up chaos that Fleetwood Mac would become infamous for. The band seemed to cope well enough with his departure at first, releasing ''Kiln House'' in 1970. ''Kiln'' showed a big divide between the two now-band leaders, with Kirwan pushing the band towards folky, mellow blues-rock while Spencer devoted his songs to {{Homage}}s and [[SatireParodyPastiche parodies]] of fifties rock 'n roll.

In the meantime, John [=McVie=] had married Christine, who was officially brought on board as a member shortly after ''Kiln'''s release. However, while on tour in February 1971, Jeremy Spencer said he was going out to "get a magazine", but never returned. After several days of frantic searching, the band discovered that Spencer had joined a religious group, the Children Of God. The band-members convinced Green to come on board temporarily to finish the tour, and a new guitarist was recruited, an American named Bob Welch.

''Future Games'' proved to be a NewSoundAlbum - sans Spencer, Fleetwood Mac drifted further and further away from their blues roots and into a mellow, folky pop-rock sound that they would in time transition to and fully embrace. Christine began establishing herself as a songwriter here, writing her first trademark pleasant ballads and catchy pop songs, while Welch and Kirwan did their folk-rock thing. Their followup, ''Bare Trees'', continued the formula but with better reception and a hit single, Welch's ballad "Sentimental Lady".

It wouldn't last - Kirwan left the band in 1972 due to alcohol dependence and strained relationships with Welch and the [=McVies=]. For two and a half years afterwards, the band entered some of it's toughest times, suffering from constantly shifting lineups, reflected in the poorly-received, tepid ''Mystery To Me'' (which still managed to get some airplay with the single "Hypnotized"), internal tension (John and Christine's stressful marriage, John's alcohol abuse, Weston's affair with Fleetwood's wife) and found itself on the receiving end of probably the weirdest event in rock history (and that's saying ''a lot'').

The band's manager claimed that he owned the name Fleetwood Mac and put out a "fake Mac". Nobody in the "fake Mac" was ever officially in the real band, although some of them later acted as Danny Kirwan's studio band. Fans were told that Welch and John had quit the group and that Fleetwood and Christine would be joining the band at a later date, after getting some rest. Fleetwood Mac's road manager, John Courage, worked one show before he realised that the line being used was a lie. Courage ended up hiding the real Fleetwood Mac's equipment, which helped shorten the tour by the fake band. A lawsuit soon followed over who owned the name "Fleetwood Mac" that dragged out for almost a year but eventually was solved in the band's favour. Interestingly, the fake band renamed themselves Stretch, and had [[OneHitWonder one hit]] in 1975 with "Why Did You Do It?", the lyrics of which accused Mick Fleetwood of being involved with putting the fake band together, but had failed to join them on tour.

While searching for somebody to replace Welch, Fleetwood heard a song by the American duo Buckingham Nicks courtesy of a studio engineer in Van Nuys. Impressed, Fleetwood met guitarist [[GenderBlenderName Lindsey Buckingham]] and asked him to join. Buckingham said he would if his girlfriend [[TomboyishName Stevie Nicks]] could also join, something which Fleetwood quickly agreed to.

With the new line-up in place, the band made another NewSoundAlbum, ''Fleetwood Mac''. The new album showcased the band re-imagined as a Californian pop-rock band filled with catchy hooks and lush vocal harmonies, slightly mellow overall but kept away from outright soft-rock by Buckingham's restlessness (which saw the band sneaking blues, folk and country influences into their sound) and a straightforward production, sounding closer to a relaxed [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] circa ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' than the smooth, lifeless sound that made the term "soft-rock" so hated by many. Buckingham by now had completely seized creative control of the band and became one of the three main songwriters besides Nicks and Christine, leading to a very clear group dynamic: Buckingham being the driven, sort-of experimental weirdo, Christine providing the catchy pop songs/ballads and Nicks being the mystical, slightly {{Cloudcuckoolander}} but charming folkie (proto-Music/KateBush?).

The band was rewarded for the change with a blockbuster album that went up to #1 in the USA and a few big hits like Christine's "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me" and Nicks' "Rhiannon" and "Landslide". They never got around to celebrating it due to messy personal troubles - John and Christine ended their marriage in 1976, Buckingham and Nicks split up and Fleetwood divorced from his wife. All this combined with pressure to produce a successful follow-up and huge consumption of drugs and alcohol.

Fleetwood Mac recorded a new album for around a year in five separate studios with {{Record Producer}}s and engineers Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat,[[note]]Yes, ''that'' [[Music/ColbieCaillat Caillat]]. Please, he's only marginally responsible for what his daughter became.[[/note]] a process marked by personal tensions, long working hours and cocaine abuse - Caillat admitted that he found cocaine littered across the mixing board or thrown under it on at least one occasion. The resulting album, the emotionally stark ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', became their biggest success both critically and commercially, staying at #1 for 31 weeks in a row and spawned bigger hits with "Go Your Own Way", the optimistic "Don't Stop", and "You Make Loving Fun," as well as the band's only US number one hit, "Dreams." Another song, "The Chain", credited to all five band members, won fame in another context as the theme song for the BBC's UsefulNotes/FormulaOne TV program ''Grand Prix''.

Drained by the production of ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', the band's follow-up was the weirder double album ''Music/{{Tusk}}''. Once again produced by the band with Dashut and Caillat, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' split its time between mellow Christine and Nicks songs and weird, paranoid Buckingham experiments with [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and PunkRock (he notoriously recorded several songs in his own bathroom), all wrapped in a complex yet messy production. Greeted with general confusion that not even an 18-month tour and the singles "Tusk" (a weird, tribal song featuring the USC Trojan Marching Band), "Think About Me" and "Sara" could redress, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' has since been VindicatedByHistory as a coked-out insane yet compelling and catchy pop album. Founder Peter Green also showed up in the studio to play guitar on "Brown Eyes", but wasn't credited at the time. ''Music/{{Tusk}}'''s initial sales may also have been hurt by a legendary goof Creator/WarnerBrosRecords committed when they [[WhatAnIdiot released the album to be played in its entirety by radio stations the day before release, providing a golden opportunity for home tapers]].

After some time off to recover and for Nicks and Buckingham to release solo albums (Nicks would eventually release four solo LP's and Buckingham two over the course of the decade, with Fleetwood also releasing two and Christine [=McVie=] putting out one), Fleetwood Mac returned with ''Mirage'', their first album of TheEighties. Replacing the whacked-out-on-coke-insane-paranoia with accessible pop melodies and replacing the simple, muscular sound Dashut and Caillat gave to previous efforts with a shiny production, ''Mirage'' sold better than ''Music/{{Tusk}}'', propelled by a few successful singles - Christine's "Hold Me", "Love In Store", Nicks' poppier offering "Gypsy" and Buckingham's "Oh Diane". The band celebrated this by partying hard, shovelling more cocaine up their noses and continuing their excessive lifestyle, which came back to bite them in the arse - Nicks had to go into rehab to get rid of her addictions (and had to go into rehab ''again'' in the early 1990's to get rid of an addiction to the medication she had been prescribed to help overcome her cocaine addiction), John suffered a seizure due to his alcohol abuse but got better and Fleetwood declared bankruptcy.

Fleetwood Mac brought in two guitarists to replace Buckingham: Billy Burnette, who was chosen for his vocal skills, and Rick Vito, who was chosen for his lead guitar skills. Unfortunately, these didn't show much on the new line-up's first album, ''Behind The Mask''. Another NewSoundAlbum, ''Behind The Mask'' saw the band move away from the mellow-yet-catchy pop-rock sound that they had been steered towards by Buckingham, instead achieving a bland adult-contemporary sound that did them no favours and earned them a big trashing from critics, who still see it as probably the band's lowest point. This may be somewhat unfair to Burnette and Vito, who, while not at Buckingham's level, were charming, accomplished live performers and developed a following among the band's more dedicated fans. The band received a further blow when Nicks and Vito left in 1992.

The 1974–87 line-up reunited in 1997 and released the live album/film ''The Dance'' to much fanfare, with lead single "Silver Springs" finally getting its time to shine. Following this, they started a successful tour and managed to see themselves get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before Christine retired from the band in 1998. Her retirement was notably free of the bad blood that marked earlier line-up changes, and she's retained good relations with the band since (we're just as shocked as you are). They've recorded a new album, ''Say You Will'', and have been chugging along pretty well ever since, free of all the insanity they were known for in the past and going on sold-out tours once every few years. Nicks and Buckingham have kept their solo careers active on the sidelines as well, and have even become good friends again (yes, we're just as stunned as you are about that too).

They're currently working on a new album and as of 2014, Christine has come out of retirement to rejoin the band. Remains to be seen whether they've mellowed out Creator/JamesCameron-style with old age or are just waiting for someone to press the right BerserkButton.

In 2017, Buckingham and Christine [=McVie=] released an collaborative album together titled ''Lindsey Buckingham Christine [=McVie=]'' [[note]](yes, no slash or word separation or anything)[[/note]]. The album features Fleetwood and John [=McVie=] on several tracks, which has led to some speculation that it was intended to be a new Fleetwood Mac album, but Stevie Nicks declined to participate.

''Future Games'' proved to be a NewSoundAlbum - sans Spencer, Fleetwood Mac drifted further and further away from their blues roots and into a mellow, folky pop-rock sound that they would fully embrace and do better later. Christine began establishing herself as a songwriter here, writing her first trademark pleasant ballads and catchy pop songs, while Welch and Kirwan did their folk-rock thing. Their followup, ''Bare Trees'', continued the formula but with better reception and a hit single, Welch's sappy ballad "Sentimental Lady".

While searching for somebody to replace Welch, Fleetwood heard a song by the American duo Buckingham Nicks courtesy of a studio engineer in Van Nuys. Impressed, Fleetwood met guitarist [[GenderBlenderName Lindsey Buckingham]] and asked him to join. Buckingham said he would if his girlfriend [[TomboyishName Stevie Nicks]] could also join, something which Fleetwood quickly agreed to.\\
\\
With its best-known line-up now in place, the band made another NewSoundAlbum, ''Fleetwood Mac''. The new album showcased the band re-imagined as a Californian pop-rock band filled with catchy hooks and lush vocal harmonies, slightly mellow overall but kept away from outright soft-rock by Buckingham's restlessness (which saw the band sneaking blues, folk and country influences into their sound) and a straightforward production, sounding closer to a relaxed [[Music/TheBeatles Beatles]] circa ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' than the smooth, lifeless sound that made the term "soft-rock" so hated by many. Buckingham by now had completely seized creative control of the band and became one of the three main songwriters besides Nicks and Christine, leading to a very clear group dynamic: Buckingham being the driven, sort-of experimental weirdo, Christine providing the catchy pop songs/ballads and Nicks being the mystical, slightly {{Cloudcuckoolander}} but charming folkie (proto-Music/KateBush?).\\
\\
The band was rewarded for the change with a blockbuster album that went up to #1 in the USA and a few big hits like Christine's "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me" and Nicks' "Rhiannon" and "Landslide". They never got around to celebrating it due to messy personal troubles - John and Christine ended their marriage in 1976, Buckingham and Nicks split up and Fleetwood divorced from his wife. All this combined with pressure to produce a successful follow-up and huge consumption of drugs and alcohol.\\
\\
Fleetwood Mac recorded a new album for around a year in five separate studios with {{Record Producer}}s and engineers Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat,[[note]]Yes, ''that'' [[Music/ColbieCaillat Caillat]]. Please, he's only marginally responsible for what his daughter became.[[/note]] a process marked by personal tensions, long working hours and cocaine abuse - Caillat admitted that he found cocaine littered across the mixing board or thrown under it on at least one occasion. The resulting album, the emotionally stark ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', became their biggest success both critically and commercially, staying at #1 for 31 weeks in a row and spawned bigger hits with "Go Your Own Way", the optimistic "Don't Stop", and "You Make Loving Fun," as well as the band's only US number one hit, "Dreams." Another song, "The Chain", credited to all five band members, won fame in another context as the theme song for the BBC's UsefulNotes/FormulaOne TV program ''Grand Prix''.\\
\\
Drained by the production of ''Music/{{Rumours}}'', the band's follow-up was the weirder double album ''Music/{{Tusk}}''. Once again produced by the band with Dashut and Caillat, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' split its time between mellow Christine and Nicks songs and weird, paranoid Buckingham experiments with [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and PunkRock (he notoriously recorded several songs in his own bathroom), all wrapped in a complex yet messy production. Greeted with general confusion that not even an 18-month tour and the singles "Tusk" (a weird, tribal song featuring the USC Trojan Marching Band), "Think About Me" and "Sara" could redress, ''Music/{{Tusk}}'' has since been VindicatedByHistory as a coked-out insane yet compelling and catchy pop album. Their old mate Peter Green also showed up in the studio to play guitar on "Brown Eyes", but wasn't credited for some reason. ''Music/{{Tusk}}'''s initial sales may also have been hurt by a legendary goof Creator/WarnerBrosRecords committed when they [[WhatAnIdiot released the album to be played in its entirety by radio stations the day before release, providing a golden opportunity for home tapers]].\\
\\
After some time off to recover and for Nicks and Buckingham to release solo albums (Nicks would eventually release four solo LP's and Buckingham two over the course of the decade, with Fleetwood also releasing two and Christine [=McVie=] putting out one), Fleetwood Mac returned with ''Mirage'', their first album of TheEighties. Replacing the whacked-out-on-coke-insane-paranoia with accessible pop melodies and replacing the simple, muscular sound Dashut and Caillat gave to previous efforts with a shiny production, ''Mirage'' sold better than ''Music/{{Tusk}}'', propelled by a few successful singles - Christine's "Hold Me", "Love In Store", Nicks' poppier offering "Gypsy" and Buckingham's "Oh Diane". The band celebrated this by partying hard, shovelling more cocaine up their noses and continuing their excessive lifestyle, which came back to bite them in the arse - Nicks had to go into rehab to get rid of her addictions (and had to go into rehab ''again'' in the early 1990's to get rid of an addiction to the medication she had been prescribed to help overcome her cocaine addiction), John suffered a seizure due to his alcohol abuse but got better and Fleetwood declared bankruptcy.\\
\\
Dissatisfied with ''Mirage'' and wanting to close on a high note, Buckingham initially began working on some solo material before bringing it to the band and making it a group effort after all. Adding synthesizers to the mix but managing to avoid bland SynthPop hell or soft-rock anaemia, ''Tango In The Night'' turned out to be another massive success which spun off hit singles like Christine's "Little Lies" and "Everywhere", Nicks' "Seven Wonders" and Buckingham's "Big Love"; It ultimately became their second biggest-selling album after ''Music/{{Rumours}}''. With the band in very good standing, Buckingham then left the band after an acrimonious confrontation over his reneging on a commitment to tour, which led to a fight with Nicks (Fleetwood claimed in his 1990 autobiography that Buckingham and Nicks physically assaulted each other).

[[folder:The Decline Era (1987–1995)]]

The old Buckingham-[=McVie=]s-Nicks-Fleetwood line-up reunited to play "Don't Stop" at the inauguration of UsefulNotes/BillClinton in 1993, who had made it his campaign song and personally requested the band's one-off performance. After this, they went back to business and brought in new members: legendary Traffic and Music/DerekAndTheDominos guitarist Dave Mason and vocalist Bekka Bramlett (Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett's daughter). The resulting album, ''Time'' sank without a trace - it didn't even make the Billboard charts, a telling sign of its abysmal quality given that Fleetwood Mac had been mainstays on the charts the past two decades. Fleetwood Mac would subsequently break-up for the next two years.

* ''[[Music/TomPetty Mike Campbell]]'' - lead guitar (2018-present)
* ''[[Music/CrowdedHouse Neil]] [[Music/SplitEnz Finn]]'' - vocals, rhythm guitar (2018-present)

* MultinationalTeam: Since 1974 the band has had a mix of American and British members. As of 2018 there is also a New Zealander (Neil Finn) in the band.

%% Case in point: much of her 1983 solo album ''The Wild Heart'', particularly the title track and the single "Nightbird", make more sense if you know that the album is in significant part of the process of Nicks working through her grief over the death from leukemia of her closest friend in late 1982 (which led to a very weird incident in which Nicks, out of a misplaced sense of duty to her friend's newborn son, married her friend's widower. The marriage, as might be expected, only lasted a few months.)