Search - Fleetwood Mac :: Fleetwood Mac (Deluxe Edition)

The Classic 1975 Mac Album Finally Gets Remastered!

highway_star | Hallandale, Florida United States | 04/02/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Released in 1975, Fleetwood Mac's self titled album was a complete change for the british blues rock group. With the addition of singer/songwriters Lindsey Buckingham and his girlfriend Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac had their most successful album in years. No longer a blues rock group, they were now pop rock and the album "Fleetwood Mac" spawned three major hits in "Rhiannon", "Over My Haed" and "Say You Love Me". The album as a whole featured some excellent well written songs such as "Monday Morning", "Landslide", "Blue Letter", "World Turning" and the above mentioned hits. Also, included on this newly remastered cd are five bonus tracks "Jam #2" (a five and a half minute instrumental which features Christine McVie's keyboards and Lindsey Buckingham's guitars), "Say You Love Me" (Single Version) (This version is harder rocking than it's album version), "Rhiannon" (Single Version), "Over My Head" (Single Version), and "Blue Letter" (Single Version). The sound quality is excellent due to remastering and far surpasses the older version. If you enjoy listening to seventy's rock then you'll love this cd."

Even greater than Rumours

Odysseus | Virginia, USA | 01/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It might help to emphasize the greatness of this record by noting that I'm the last person on the world who should love it; my genres are classical, jazz, and to the extent that I enjoy pop/rock, my tastes go in the opposite direction from the folk-influenced pop that Fleetwood Mac did well. If you buy a Fleetwood Mac album on Amazon (as I've discovered), the buying recommendations that start coming to you include James Taylor, the Eagles, Carly Simon, etc. Completely not my thing.



But hoo boy, is this a great record. It deserves to be considered one of the all-time rock/pop classics, and in my opinion is greater than its heralded follow-up, Rumours.



I base that on a view that the songs on this record are 1) just as catchy and infectious, but also 2) possessed of much greater emotional depth.



Consider first Stevie Nicks's timeless "Landslide," a poetic, haunting, acoustic jewel. I don't know why this song doesn't routinely come up atop those "all time 100 greatest songs" lists, but it really deserves to. It's hard to imagine a song that more beautifully captures the emotions it sings about: big life changes, relationship dissolution, feeling uncertain and scared, and trying to find the courage to move forward.



Immediately before "Landslide" on the record is another classic, Christine McVie's "Say You Love Me." It's basically a toe-tapping number good for singing along, but there's a subtext of poignancy to it that I've never been able to put my finger on. The lyrics don't really try to be profound. But there's something about the way McVie, Buckingham and Nicks sing the choruses together, especially in combination with the roving bass, and especially in the fadeout. When they get to the end and are repeating, "Fallin', fallin', fallin'" in three-part harmony, it just feels perfection.



And the album has other smash hits also: "Rhiannon" and "Over My Head" among them. "Over My Head" is prettier and more gentle in the album version than on the single version. "Rhiannon" isn't one of my favorite songs (I never really liked the whole Stevie Nicks persona where she seems to be narcissistically starring in her own fantasy novel) but it's an undeniably strong single.



So there you have four timeless hit songs that are at least as strong as the four best songs on Rumours. (Does anything on Rumours pack the emotional punch of "Landslide?"). But it's not just the headline numbers on this record but the supporting tunes that are fantastic.



"Blue Letter" is a wonderful song, could easily have been a hit of its own (it sounds as though it influenced the composition of "Say You Love Me," even on down to the affecting fadeout.) "Monday Morning," an energetic up-tempo number by Lindsey Buckingham, gets the album off to a terrific start. "Crystal" is really a beautiful, emotional, poetic piece, composed by Stevie Nicks, sung mostly by Buckingham. It's good for a lump in the throat; Nicks had a great gift for conveying powerful emotions in simple, understated composition.



The six-song sequence that runs: Blue Letter, Rhiannon, Over My Head, Crystal, Say You Love Me, and Landslide is about as strong a six-song run that any band has ever recorded (and the two that precede that run aren't bad either.)



In sum, Fleetwood Mac is at their hit-making best on this record, but there is a poetry and emotional power to this music that you don't hear on their later recordings. It paved the way for the phenomenal chart success of Rumours, but is in my opinion the greater of the two albums."

Buckingham-Nicks Join The Band

Thomas Magnum | NJ, USA | 05/14/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When Fleetwood Mac was formed in the late 60's, they were a hardcore blues band. After Peter Green left and with the additions of Christine McVie & Bob Welch, they shifted away from blues music towards a more pop sound. In 1975, Bob Welch left the group and Mick Fleetwood enlisted an unknown duo of Lindsey Buckingham & Stevie Nicks in the band. The result is of course music history. This is the first effort by the new lineup and it is an excellent collection of songs. Lindsey Buckingham has one of the best ears in music and his hands are all over the album. From the album's opener "Monday Morning" and his own "Blue Letter" and the slow burning "World Turning" to Christine McVie's "Say You Love Me" and "Sugar Daddy", his presence is felt. "Crystal" is great song taken from the Buckingham-Nicks album and shows how well the band's voices meld together. Stevie Nicks carved out her witch persona with the ethereal and moody "Rhiannon". She also contributes one of most hauntingly beautiful songs ever recorded, "Landslide". Through constant touring and radio airplay, the album slowly climbed the charts and in its 53rd week on the charts, it finally reached number one. This album set the stage for one of the biggest albums in history, Rumours. While not as popular as that album, this album is it's equal in quality and sound. The extra tracks on this release do not really bring much to the table as they are just the edits of the singles from the album."