Fleetwood Mac turned heartbreak into some of the most enduring music ever recorded. The band formed in London in 1967 as a blues group built around drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, whose surnames gave it its name. After years of lineup changes it became something else entirely in the mid-1970s, an Anglo-American pop-rock machine whose 1977 album Rumours stands among the best-selling records of all time.
From blues to California pop
The early Fleetwood Mac, led by guitarist Peter Green, was a respected British blues band. Christine McVie joined on keyboards and vocals in 1970. The turning point came in 1974, when Mick Fleetwood recruited the American duo Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Their arrival pushed the band toward pop, and the 1975 album Fleetwood Mac topped the US chart, with “Rhiannon” and “Landslide”.
Rumours
Rumours, released in 1977, was made while the band was falling apart. The McVies were divorcing, Buckingham and Nicks had split, and Fleetwood was going through his own breakup. They poured all of it into the songs. “Go Your Own Way”, “Dreams”, “Don’t Stop” and “The Chain” turned private wreckage into shared anthems, and the album won the Grammy for Album of the Year and has sold around 40 million copies worldwide.
The years after
The band kept going through more albums and more upheaval, including the experimental Tusk and a string of reunions and splits. A 1997 live reunion, The Dance, returned them to the top of the chart. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998. Stevie Nicks was later inducted a second time as a solo artist in 2019, with Harry Styles giving the speech.
A lasting pull
Decades on, the songs keep finding new listeners. “Dreams” returned to the charts in 2020 after going viral online, introducing the band to a generation that had not been born when it was recorded. Stevie Nicks has also worked with younger artists, including a duet with Lana Del Rey. Christine McVie, the voice behind many of the band’s warmest songs, died in 2022.
Most loved songs
A spread across the catalogue. Each title opens through the in-site player.
- Classic lineupMick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks
- Formed1967, London
- GenresRock, pop rock, blues rock
- Signature albumRumours (1977)
- GrammyAlbum of the Year for Rumours
- Also known forTurning personal breakups into hit songs
From a breakup anthem to a soft-rock staple you have heard your whole life, the odds are good a Fleetwood Mac song lives somewhere in your memory. Type the line you remember into the search box above and you may find it leads back to them.