The Fleetwood Mac album Stevie Nicks called a “beautiful blur”
The creation of a Fleetwood Mac album didn’t tend to be a straightforward experience. However, one LP by the band bucked the trend for Stevie Nicks, and she enjoyed every second of the recording process that she called a “beautiful blur”.
In 1981, Fleetwood Mac reconvened to start work on Mirage after veering off in different directions for solo projects. For their previous album, Tusk, the group approached their art by working as a collective unit. As bandleader, Mick Fleetwood decided they should revert to their formula of each member bringing in their songs for the band to tackle, upsetting Lindsey Buckingham in the process.
They decamped to Château d’Hérouville outside of Paris to make the bulk of the album, and compared to making their previous two records, the spirit within Fleetwood Mac was high. The band had largely moved on from prior relationship conflicts, and the French location allowed them to escape their haunted past in Los Angeles.
For Nicks, the beautiful French surroundings worked a treat, and she enjoyed every second of the experience, even though she can’t remember spending any time in the studio. “When I think of Mirage now I think of living in a castle and visiting Paris,” Nicks said during an interview with Rolling Stone in 2016.
“I think of white fishnet stockings, red high heels, and going to get my hair done and having five different hair dressers working on me,” she added. “It’s like, who does that? Well, the French do thankfully. I also remember living in the Chateau, which was romantic, though I remember for some reason there was no ice. And they thought it might be haunted because there were strange sounds in there”.
Nicks added: “So to me, the Mirage sessions were beautiful and insane. The place felt like the setting for an old-movie murder mystery and I do seem to remember there was one day when Jimmy Iovine — who I had been dating and came to visit me — did want to kill Lindsey, but somehow we all survived and the music lives on very nicely.”
The previously aforementioned lack of ice was Nicks’ main overarching memory from their spell in Paris, with the singer reaffirming her point by stating, “It was hot and I needed ice”. However, she positively concluded, “Other than that, it’s all a bit of a blur — a big beautiful blur”.
While the French getaway was a dream for Nicks, apart from the ice predicament, Buckingham had a very different experience while making Rumours. Artistically, he believed the album was crafted in a “forced way” and admitted it “felt difficult”. Unlike Nicks, who was on cloud nine for the entire recording process, Buckingham, who had recently gone solo, struggled to return to work as part of a democracy.
Although he found the recording of Mirage difficult, Buckingham doesn’t question the final result of their French escapade, telling Uproxx “there’s so many nice things on there” while stating he was “a little bit disconnected” at the time of making the album.
Listen to Mirage below.
