The stories behind Fleetwood Mac’s best album covers
Most people didn’t need a piece of artwork to get the allure of Fleetwood Mac. Considering the band drama that was going on in between every single album, the least of their problems was worrying about the kind of pretty pictures that were occupying the cover half the time. A picture is worth a thousand words, though, and sometimes the albums do a better job of telling the story than the music.
Throughout every one of their eras, there have always been specific album covers that jump out as something that feels ripped out of another era entirely. Instead of the typical rock and roll band shots, it felt like a piece of fine artwork whenever you picked up their studio albums, with even their greatest hits having the same care of reverent care as one of their foundational albums.
While some shots may seem slightly random, the best albums usually have an intrinsic connection to what music lies within, either through subtext or the warm feeling you get when you see them. In this case, fans listening with their eyes as well as their ears tends to be a good thing.
So when combing through the best albums Fleetwood Mac put to vinyl, look beyond just the picture in front of you. When you take them in conjunction with the lyrics, there’s usually a lot more to unpack.
Fleetwood Mac’s best album covers:
Bare Trees
When looking at the 1970s lineup of Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks, it’s hard to return to the original version of ‘The Mac’. Whether it’s the Peter Green-led version of Bob Welch at the helm, everything pales in comparison to what they would get up to as pop superstars. When looking at the cover of Bare Trees, it’s almost like you’re seeing the band grow up in real-time as you’re listening.
Since the entire album marks a pivot towards gentle rock and roll with Christine McVie and Welch rising to the occasion, the shots of a frozen landscape are exactly the kind of image that you need. Given how crisp the music is inside, the shot may as well be a window view of how this album is meant to be heard. It promises to be a dark winter just outside, but it doesn’t matter if songs like ‘Sentimental Lady’ are there to keep you warm.
Fleetwood Mac
After Bob Welch left the band, changes needed to be made… and fast. No group can survive without someone out front, and grabbing Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as a package deal was one of the best moves they could have possibly made. Since this was a new outfit and a new lineup, it was about time that the group gave us a re-introduction of sorts on their self-titled White Album.
Considering that Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham are the guiding forces behind the album, having John McVie and Mick Fleetwood as the only ones on the cover was a way to remind their fans that things weren’t going to change too much. They still had one of the best rhythm sections in rock and roll, and with two new songwriters coming in behind them, things were about to go stratospheric.
Rumours
Most people don’t need to hear the entire fallout behind where Fleetwood Mac was in the 1970s. Since Nicks and Buckingham were separating around the same time John and Christine McVie got a divorce, the fact that an album exists today in front of us with songs written by everyone is a small miracle on its own. Although Nicks and Fleetwood may have been the only ones on the front cover, their interpretive dance says much more than most people thought.
Since the album ended up being a confessional record about every member of the band, getting two of the people who hadn’t had a relationship yet was a way to break up the drama. After this photo was taken, though, Fleetwood and Nicks would end up having an affair that would last only a few months on the road before calling things off. Rumours may have been meant as an evocative title because of their internal drama, but in one image, the band captured the fallout of their breakdowns and the start of a new romance in one shot.
Tango in the Night
Just because ‘The Mac’ entered a new decade didn’t mean they were going to be any less volatile. For all of the different solo projects everyone was working on, Tango in the Night became one of the drama-fuelled album rollouts at the time, leading to Buckingham leaving the band before they could even tour. ‘The Mac’ has always been defined by their contradictions, and Tango in the Night is the kind of scenic backdrop that’s perfect for the album within.
Meant as a homage to Brett-Livingstone Strong, the tropical landscape is tailor-made for the album, featuring the most laid-back music they would ever create, like ‘Little Lies’ and ‘Big Love’. If anything, this is the inverse of what they were doing years before on Bare Trees. Whereas the warm music perfectly accompanied the cold album cover back in the 1970s, the 1980s was when the band could balance their harsh personal lives with lush surroundings.
