Maps of Music

Fleetwood Mac (1975)

Where the lyrics of Fleetwood Mac take you, and where it was really made.

The 1975 self-titled album was recorded in about ten days at Sound City, a studio where a demo of the duo first caught the drummer's attention.

Key places

Sound City Studios, where the album was recorded (1975)

Recording site Sound City Studios — The band began its official recording sessions for the album at Sound City in January 1975. The sessions ran over the course of ten days. The map point uses the studio's building-level candidate coordinate. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Fleetwood Mac: tenth studio album by the British-American rock band
• Released 11 July 1975 in the United States and 1 August 1975 in the United Kingdom, on Reprise Records
• Second self-titled album; the first was the 1968 debut
• Fans sometimes call it the White Album
• First album with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, after Bob Welch left in late 1974
• Last Reprise release until 1997's The Dance

Background

• In 1974 the band moved from England to California to better manage its affairs
• Welch left to form Paris, ending the ninth lineup in eight years
• Mick Fleetwood heard the Buckingham Nicks album at Sound City Studios, played by producer Keith Olsen
• Christine McVie insisted on meeting Buckingham and Nicks before accepting them
• The informal interview was held at the Mexican restaurant El Carmen
• Fleetwood invited the duo to join; this tenth lineup became the band's most successful

Recording

• Official sessions began at Sound City in January 1975 and ran over ten days
• Buckingham said the members did not know each other well, so tunes were worked out beforehand
• Olsen said most songs were easy to record
• Rhiannon took over a day to achieve the basic track
• Several songs were written before Buckingham and Nicks joined, including Rhiannon and Monday Morning

Cover

• Front cover photographed by Herbert W. Worthington
• Fleetwood and John McVie stand in front of a doorway; McVie kneels and gazes at a crystal ball
• Larry Vigon designed the font for the band name above the doorway
• Back cover shows the band standing in a washroom with sinks

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Formed in London in July 1967 by Peter Green after leaving John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, with Mick Fleetwood on drums.
• The name combines Fleetwood's surname with bassist John McVie, who joined in 1967.
• Early line-up was primarily a British blues band; "Albatross" reached UK No. 1 in 1968.

Members

• Core members over time: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham.
• Buckingham and Nicks joined at the end of 1974 and drove the band's global success.

Career

• Rumours (1977) is one of the best-selling albums of all time and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978.
• The band has sold more than 120 million records worldwide.
• Received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1979 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
• Received the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2018.
• Christine McVie died in 2022; Stevie Nicks later said she saw no reason to continue the band.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Billboard: in its 26 July 1975 review, it found the album showed sophisticated versatility and pointed the band more closely at AM hit material
• Cashbox: believed the album showed an economical approach to music, with everything the band had done having a purpose
• Record World: labelled it one of the band's finest sets to date, mixing a variety of styles that were all really well done

Reappraisal

• Rolling Stone ranked it 183rd on its 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
• Rolling Stone re-ranked it at 182 in a 2012 revised list

Records

• Debuted at number 183 on the US Billboard 200 chart dated 2 August 1975
• Initially peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200 before descending the charts
• Climbed again after Rhiannon was released as a single
• Reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart dated 4 September 1976, 57 weeks after entering
• Over My Head, Rhiannon and Say You Love Me were top-twenty singles in the US; the last two both reached number 11
• UK: debuted at number 49 on the UK Albums Chart dated 6 November 1976 and peaked at number 23 in its second week on the chart
• UK: certified gold by the BPI on 5 July 1978 for sales of over 100,000 copies
• US: certified nine times platinum by the RIAA on 10 July 2025 for sales of over 9 million copies

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Fleetwood noticed the duo through the Buckingham Nicks album, especially the guitar solo on its final song, Frozen Love
• Christine McVie wrote several of her songs, including Over My Head, on a Hohner Pianet in her Malibu apartment
• In August 1975, producer Keith Olsen sued the band over alleged unpaid producer's royalties
• Fleetwood had trouble playing the drum parts to Buckingham's specifications and compromised by playing a derivation of the drum tracks
• Waddy Wachtel played rhythm guitar on Sugar Daddy

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Maps of Ages ↗ (mapsofages.com)

Privacy · Contact