Fleetwood Mac's mid-'70s success so dwarfed its prior work that most people have been unaware that the band underwent several lineup changes and released 10 albums prior to the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The group's subsequent music and lifestyle epitomized the era, from rampant drug use and adultery to ambling soft-rock balladry. Though Christine McVie scored her own hits ("Don't Stop," "Over My Head"), they paled in comparison to Nicks' ("Gypsy," "Landslide," "Rhiannon") and her larger-than-life, rhinestone-clad, witchy-woman presence. Ironically, it was the romantic difficulties between the combo's couples that fueled Mac's finest album, Rumours. Plying a blues-based backbone and swathing it in ringing guitars, shimmering keyboards and soaring, multitracked backing vocals, that album melded pretty melodies and rich production to a muscular-enough chassis to carry the weight. Nothing in the group's catalog comes close to the Rumours lineup's first three records — afterward, Mac generally succumbed to its worst (overproduced, undercooked) impulses.
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