FLEETWOOD MAC – Fleetwood Mac [Japan Forever Young series] (2025), MP3+FLAC

Warner Music Japan famous Western Albums masterpieces series “Forever Young” is back! And on the first batch we have here the just released FLEETWOOD MAC classic album “Fleetwood Mac“, also known as ‘The White Album’.

Fleetwood Mac began in the U.K. in 1967 as a white blues band, and in 1975, with the addition of guitarist / vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and superb female vocalist Stevie Nicks, the band broke through with a new lineup that sold over 40 million copies worldwide.
Buckingham & Nicks brought a lot of talent to the band not only as musicians but as exquisite rock&pop songwriters (Nicks wrote the album’s hit ‘Rhiannon’). Co-produced & engineered by expert Keith Olsen, “Fleetwood Mac” reached No. 1 on the U.S. album charts and sold over 5 million copies in America alone. It marked the beginning of the golden era of Fleetwood Mac.
The sound quality of this remaster is first rate, finally making justice to this classic album.

By 1974, founder Mick Fleetwood was looking for a more radio friendly sound for the band. He heard the album of a Southern California duo called Buckingham / Nicks, and their managers arranged a meeting.
Mick was floored by Buckingham’s work, and soon he and his bandmates John and Christine McVie and were just as blown away by Nicks — and by the magic that resulted when the duo collaborated with them.

The quintet’s first album together — recorded in January and February of 1975 and released that July — is called simply ”Fleetwood Mac”. Self-titled albums are typically debuts (and, in fact, the group’s 1968 first LP also bore that title), but the moniker was appropriate. Fleetwood Mac had been around for the better part of a decade and had issued nine previous albums, but the addition of Buckingham and Nicks had resulted in what was essentially a new band.

And what a band they were. Their “debut” album—the group’s first chart-topper, though it took 15 months to crawl to No. 1—produced three hit singles, Christine McVie’s infectious “Say You Love Me” and sublime “Over My Head”; and Stevie Nicks’s “Rhiannon,” which instantly established her as a world-class vocalist. And every one of the other eight tracks is just about as good.

Buckingham and Nicks contribute mightily, but so do the other three members, who seem to garner fresh inspiration from the new lineup. Christine McVie particularly shines, both as songwriter and vocalist.
Alternating between rhythmic power pop and sweet ballads, the album overflows with rhythm, shimmering harmonies, passion, and energy. The lyrics, virtually all about romantic relationships, are fine too. (Has there ever been a more cogent couplet about the conflicted feelings that a troubled new love affair can generate than Christine McVie’s “You can take me to paradise, and then again you can be cold as ice / I’m over my head, oh, but it sure feels nice”?)

If you don’t have the original record, the decision to get this reissue should be a no-brainer; and even if you have it, you shouldn’t hesitate to upgrade: the remastering is excellent.
HIGHLY Recommended

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01 – Monday Morning
02 – Warm Ways
03 – Blue Letter
04 – Rhiannon
05 – Over My Head
06 – Crystal
07 – Say You Love Me
08 – Landslide
09 – World Turning
10 – Sugar Daddy
11 – I’m So Afraid

Mick Fleetwood – drums, percussion
Lindsey Buckingham – guitars, vocals
Stevie Nicks – vocals
John McVie – bass guitar
Christine McVie – keyboards, synthesizer, vocals
Waddy Wachtel – rhythm guitar (on “Sugar Daddy”)

MP3 FLAC