Every Fleetwood Mac Album, Ranked

In 1967, three members of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers recorded four songs in a session at Decca Studios in London. One instrumental track was named “Fleetwood Mac” after two of the musicians, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, and it ended up sticking as the name of the band they’d form with singer/guitarist Peter Green.

Over the next few decades, Fleetwood and McVie would remain the only constant members of Fleetwood Mac as the band cycled through many, many lineup changes. After Green’s 1970 departure, other singer/guitarists including Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch kept Fleetwood Mac going, with McVie’s wife Christine McVie joining as a pianist and eventually becoming one of the band’s most prolific singer/songwriters.

A young American couple, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, completing the band’s unlikely transformation from a British blues outfit to a chart-topping soft rock sensation. The iconic quintet that recorded the 1977 blockbuster Rumours remained intact for over a decade, but eventually there was more drama, including Buckingham’s contentious removal from the band in 2018. Christine McVie died in November 2022, and her bandmates have indicated that Fleetwood Mac won’t continue without her, ending an unpredictable and often thrilling 55-year journey.

A deluxe edition of one of Fleetwood Mac’s best-selling albums, 1987’s Tango in the Night, was released on December 6th. Where does it rank among the band’s 17 other studio albums?

18. Mr. Wonderful (1968)

Fleetwood Mac’s years of up-and-down fortunes began in 1968, when the band released a successful self-titled debut and, a few months later, a sophomore slump with poor reviews and a lower chart peak. Mr. Wonderful was tracked live in the studio with a larger ensemble that included a horn section and a pianist, Christine Perfect, who’d marry bassist John McVie later that year. Green and Jeremy Spencer were always better guitarists than they were songwriters, so Mr. Wonderful’s dutifully derivative blues songs like “Rollin’ Man” only really come alive when one of them takes a solo.

17. Time (1995)

The Rumours lineup reunited on two high profile occasions in the 1990s: first, for President Bill Clinton’s inauguration, and then for the tour that resulted in the massive 1997 live album The Dance. In between, Fleetwood Mac released an album without Buckingham or Nicks that missed the Billboard 200 entirely, and the band was reduced to touring as REO Speedwagon’s opening act. The ad hoc lineup on Time included a peer of early Fleetwood Mac, Traffic guitarist Dave Mason, and the offspring of another ’60s peer, Bonnie Bramlett’s daughter Bekka Bramlett. There are a few decent songs on Time, but there’s also a 7-minute Mick Fleetwood spoken word piece, “These Strange Times,” that closes the album on an indulgent note. “Even the legendary Christine McVie’s contributions lack the fire of her best work. A disappointing effort,” concluded Billboard’s review of Time.

16. Fleetwood Mac in Chicago (1969)

Like the other British blues bands of the ’60s, Fleetwood Mac’s early lineup idolized American bluesmen, and jumped at the chance to record with them. In January 1969, the band traveled to Ter-Mar Studios, home of the legendary blues label Chess Records, and held an all-day jam session with musicians like Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon, and Honeyboy Edwards. There are some great performances, like a smoking rendition of Elmore James’s “I’m Worried” with Jeremy Spencer on vocals, but the very long collection feels less like an album than a barely edited jam session, a souvenir for a young band that got to hang with their heroes.  

15. Kiln House (1970)

Green began acting erratically after taking large doses of LSD, and left the band in 1970, two years after Syd Barrett was ousted from Pink Floyd under similar circumstances. Fleetwood Mac’s first album without its original frontman is a muddled mix of different aesthetics, and didn’t offer a strong indication that the band had much of a future. Danny Kirwan’s songs “Jewel Eyed Judy” and “Station Man” foreshadow the pop/rock direction that Fleetwood Mac would eventually take, while Spencer’s songs stick to the band’s blues roots.

14. Behind the Mask (1990)

It’s a testament to Lindsey Buckingham’s unique talent that on both occasions that he exited Fleetwood Mac, the band needed two singer/guitarists to replace him: Billy Burnette and Rick Vito in 1987, and Mike Campbell and Neil Finn in 2018. The band’s only album with Burnette and Vito, Behind the Mask, is bland and overproduced, occasionally saved by the Nicks songs “Love is Dangerous” and “Affairs of the Heart.” Burnette and Vito also manage a pretty good collaboration on the twangy “When the Sun Goes Down,” although it only vaguely sounds like Fleetwood Mac in any meaningful sense.

13. Penguin (1973)

Dave Walker is a fascinating minor figure in British rock history that crossed paths with a number of significant acts. One of his early bands, the Redcaps, opened for the Beatles on four occasions. Walker also sang lead on two Fleetwood Mac tracks, fronted Black Sabbath for one 1978 television performance, and later joined a reunion lineup of Humble Pie. It’s easy to hear why Walker was asked to leave Fleetwood Mac based on his two R&B-leaning contributions to Penguin, as his original composition “The Derelict” and a cover of Junior Walker’s “(I’m a) Road Runner” stick out like a sore thumb among Welch’s songs. A drawing of a penguin in a top hat became an enduring Fleetwood Mac logo, but Penguin is the least-performed studio album in the band’s concert history.

12. Heroes Are Hard to Find (1974)

A thought experiment: If Fleetwood Mac’s 1974 lineup had stayed together, could the band still have eventually become a household name? Welch and Christine McVie were writing increasingly accessible songs, and Heroes Are Hind to Find was the band’s highest-charting album in America up to that point, reaching No. 34 on the Billboard 200. Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers plays some nice pedal steel on “Come a Little Bit Closer,” and “Bad Loser” and the title track are among McVie’s most underrated songs. This lineup probably never would’ve played stadiums, but it’s not hard to imagine that they could’ve become a chart fixture in the late ’70s anyway.

11. Say You Will (2003)

Fleetwood Mac toured many times over the last 25 years, but they only got out one studio album in that time, which will likely remain their last with the band finally officially inactive. Say You Will is a couple minutes longer than Tusk, and even features similar levels of bugged-out Buckingham studio experimentation on “Red Rover” and “Come.” It would feel like a more-complete send off for the band if it featured songs by Christine McVie, who was on a long 15-year break from playing in Fleetwood Mac at the time, but it’s otherwise a fine finale. “There’s a warm, familiar feeling to Fleetwood Mac’s latest that is as comforting as an old, tattered blanket. When singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham asks, ‘What’s the World Coming To’ on the wistful opener, it’s the perfect sonic tonic for these troubled times,” praised Entertainment Weekly’s review of Say You Will.

10. Mystery To Me (1973)

Mystery To Me is unique among Fleetwood Mac’s early albums for its experimental ear candy, from the heavy phasing effects on Welch’s vocal on “Somebody” to the early use of a drum machine layered over live drums on “Forever.” The FM radio staple “Hypnotized” may be Welch’s finest Fleetwood Mac song. Guitarist Bob Weston was kicked out of the band after Mystery To Me for having an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife, the first of many messy romantic entanglements between members of Fleetwood Mac that would come to define the band’s public identity. 

9. Then Play On (1969)

In the ’60s, British bands would often release their most chart-friendly songs as standalone singles between albums, so the best Fleetwood Mac songs of the period, “Oh Well” and “The Green Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown),” don’t appear on Then Play On. At its best, though, Then Play On is an exploratory and experimental take on blues-based rock in the vein of Jimi Hendrix’s masterpiece from a year earlier, Electric Ladyland. Fleetwood Mac’s last album of original material under Green’s leadership shows the early lineup’s creative potential that went sadly unrealized after he left the band.  

8. Mirage (1982)

By Tusk, Fleetwood Mac had started to sound like the work of three solo artists heading in different directions. After Buckingham and Nicks both released proper solo debuts in 1981, however, the band reconvened and regained some of its collaborative chemistry and emphasis on vocal harmonies on Mirage. Buckingham’s guitar and arrangements are crucial to his bandmates’ songs, particularly Nicks’s “Gypsy” and Christine McVie’s “Only Over You.” “The dramatic interplay of Fleetwood Mac’s three songwriters is far more interesting than any individual effort. None of them may be capable of running solo, but it’s fascinating to follow the baton as it passes from Buckingham’s anger over his lover’s leaving to McVie’s apprehension that her lover might leave to Nicks’s ambivalent space cadet shrug,” Ken Emerson wrote in the Boston Phoenix review of Mirage.

7. Future Games (1971)

Fleetwood Mac became transatlantic in 1971; Welch was the first American musician to join the band, and Future Games was its first album that charted higher in the U.S. than in the U.K., a trend that would continue for most of its career. Ironically, Spencer left the band after Kiln House to move to America and join a religious cult, the Children of God. After years of sometimes uncredited contributions, Christine McVie finally became an official member of Fleetwood Mac on Future Games, and “Morning Rain” is an inspired fusion of her melodic sensibility and Danny Kirwan’s guitar heroics.

6. Tango in the Night (1987)

With Mick Fleetwood and John McVie as the only permanent members of Fleetwood Mac, the band’s rhythm section wields an uncommon amount of power in the band. Perhaps that’s why Tango in the Night is the rare late ’80s blockbuster with a real human touch in its arrangements, at a time when other classic rock drummers and bassists were being sidelined in the studio by drum machines and synthesizers. Mick Fleetwood’s tasteful and creative drum fills on songs like “Little Lies” and “Welcome To The Room…Sara” actually stand out more by virtue of the slick, MTV-ready production.

5. Bare Trees (1972)

Bare Trees is the best-selling pre-1975 Fleetwood Mac album, eventually certified platinum in 1988. It’s their most AOR album before they found a more adult contemporary groove, with Kirwan again adding feisty guitar leads even to Christine McVie songs like “Homeward Bound.” “Spare Me a Little of Your Love” and Kirwan’s instrumental “Sunny Side of Heaven” both remained in the band’s live shows for most of the ’70s. Welch re-recorded “Sentimental Lady” as a solo artist in 1977, backed by several members of Fleetwood Mac, and it became the only Top Ten single of his career. “Their new identity is ominously mellow, but at least this time it’s recognizable, and they’ve upped the speed a little,” Robert Christgau wrote in the Village Voice review of Bare Trees.

4. Fleetwood Mac (1968)

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers was the central force of London’s ’60s blues scene, launching the careers of Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones. In 1967, Mayall gave some free studio time to three Bluesbreakers, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie. One of the tracks recorded that day, a cover of Chester Burnett’s “No Place to Go,” wound up on the debut album by the band that would be dubbed Fleetwood Mac. As with their other ’60s albums, Fleetwood Mac is missing some of the band’s key songs from the period, including their only U.K. No. 1 single, “Albatross,” and “Black Magic Woman,” later covered famously by Santana. The band’s self-titled debut, however, is a strong display of the original lineup’s chemistry and musicianship, and Green’s quickly growing songwriting prowess on “Looking for Somebody” and “The World Keep on Turning.”

3. Fleetwood Mac (1975)

It was the most fateful merger in rock history. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had released an unsuccessful debut album as a duo, Buckingham Nicks, in 1973. Fleetwood Mac, once again without a guitarist after Welch’s exit, were recording at Sound City in Los Angeles when they heard a Buckingham Nicks track recorded at the same studio, and asked Buckingham to join the band. He agreed under the condition that Nicks join as well, and the first Fleetwood Mac single featuring Nicks on lead vocals, the cinematic and intriguing “Rhiannon,” helped the band’s 11th album climb to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, over a year after the album’s release. In a nod to the band’s roots, Buckingham and Christine McVie wrote “World Turning,” adapted from “The World Keeps on Turning” from Fleetwood Mac’s other self-titled album released seven years earlier.

2. Tusk (1979)

Tusk is reputedly the first album that cost over a million dollars to record, making it an instantly infamous symbol of ’70s rock star largesse. Instead of an overproduced album full of slick Top 40 fodder, however, Tusk is a quirky and sometimes almost lo-fi album, inspired more by bands like Talking Heads and Gang of Four than an ambition to make Rumours 2. Buckingham’s home studio demo of “What Makes You Think You’re the One,” with a percussion track he banged out on a Kleenex box, became the basis of the album version, with Mick Fleetwood adding real drums. Buckingham liked the vocal reverb in his bathroom at home, and had a replica of his bathroom built in the L.A. studio Village Recorder to achieve the same effect for “Not That Funny,” which features unnervingly trebly guitars that were recorded at slower tempos and then played back faster. Tusk is indulgent and imperfect, but it’s far too creative, subtle, and intimate to be dismissed as mere arena rock excess. “In its fits and starts and restless changes of pace, Tusk inevitably recalls the Beatles’ ‘White Album’ (1968), the quirky rock jigsaw puzzle that showed the Fab Four at their artiest and most indecisive,” Stephen Holden wrote in the Rolling Stone review.

1. Rumours (1977)

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