Fleetwood Mac

The band began in 1967 around Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood and a British blues setting. The early catalogue included Black Magic Woman, Albatross and Oh Well, before a succession of personnel changes altered the musical direction. John McVie's bass and Fleetwood's drums provided an important continuity, while Christine McVie became an increasingly central writer and singer.

Buckingham and Nicks joined for the self-titled 1975 album, which brought Rhiannon, Landslide and Say You Love Me into the catalogue. The combination was immediately distinctive. The rhythm section could be firm without becoming heavy, harmonies gave the songs a shared identity, and the three principal writers retained enough individuality for an album to change mood when another voice entered.

Rumours arrived in 1977, shaped amid the breakdown of relationships within the band. Dreams, Go Your Own Way, Don't Stop and The Chain transformed those circumstances into concise, carefully arranged songs. Knowing the biography adds another layer, but the records remain compelling without a cast list: the interplay of voices and instruments already communicates friction, release and incompatible desires.

Tusk followed in 1979 as a sprawling double album. Its rougher, stranger passages sit beside songs such as Sara, while the title track brings a marching-band sound into the band's vocabulary. That decision to leave the successful formula unsettled is an essential part of their story. Fleetwood Mac's musical household could produce immaculate pop, then rearrange the furniture before anyone had become too comfortable.