Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Greatest Songs

Fleetwood Mac have been rock’s greatest soap opera for five decades — from their Sixties origins in the English blues-rock scene to their Seventies reinvention as California rock superstars through their smooth Eighties hits and right up to today. Through it all, there’s been brutal romantic blowups and historic levels of drug use. “Parties going on all over the house,” John McVie told IndieLand in 1977, recalling the making of their classic Rumours LP. “Amazing. Terrifying. Huge amounts of illicit materials, yards and yards of this wretched stuff. Days and nights would just go on and on.”

But the soul of the Mac’s magic has always been their songs. They began as a vehicle for the blues visions of tragic genius Peter Green, continued through fascinating, often overlooked, transitional records during the early Seventies with Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch, and hit an astonishing peak when songbird Christine McVie, mad drummer Mick Fleetwood and ultra-reliable bassman John McVie hooked up with the Southern California songwriting team of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Our list of the band’s 50 greatest songs pulls from all these eras. What brings it all together is an almost mystical chemistry, wrought from grueling personal drama and heartbreak that they somehow found a way to turn into some of the most beloved rock & roll of all time.