Switched on Pop - Fleetwood Mac's Missing Link Album Returns After 50 Years

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

Fleetwood Mac has had a phenomenal resurgence in recent years, from TikTok viral fame to Broadway plays and streaming TV series inspired by the band. Their growing fandom among a new generation has created demand for the long out-of-print album Buckingham Nicks, the 1973 album by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded before they joined Fleetwood Mac. The vinyl record is a collector's item, as this pre-band album helped secure the duo their spot in Fleetwood Mac. Now after four decades, on September 19th, the album is being reissued by Rhino Records. A few months back we looked at the legacy of Fleetwood Mac and spoke with Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham about their reinterpretation of the beloved Buckingham Nicks. Given the timing, we want to share that episode with you now to help you get ready for the re-release of this adored album. I hope you enjoy it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Discoveringla today and let you involver for susentia. Flewad Mac has had a phenomenal resurgence in recent years from TikTok viral fame to Broadway plays and streaming TV series inspired by the band.

Their growing fandom among a new generation has created a demand for the long out-of-print album Buckingham. Knicks, the 1973 album by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix recorded before they joined Fleetwood Mac. The final record is a collector's item, and now finally after four decades, on September 19th, the album is being reissued by Rino Records. A few months back, we look at the legacy of Fleetwood Mac and spoke with Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham about their reinterpretation of the beloved Buckingham

Nick's album. Given the timing, I want to share this episode with you again to help you get ready for the re-release of this adored recording. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Switched-on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. May, would you say that we're living in a sort of Fleetwood Mac Renaissance? The Macassants? Absolutely. What do you think makes them so appealing to folks? Okay, if I had to break it down, Fleetwood Mac have incredible songwriting, immaculate production, stunning vocal harmonies, and So much drama. These are definitely all true.

I feel like there are a lot of bands born out of the 1960s that have a lot of these qualities, and yet very few get to have songs return to the Hot 100 because of their ongoing multi-generational appeal. I mean, Fleetwood Mac came out of the late 60s. They were a British blues group founded by Mick Fleetwood on drums, John McPhee on bass, Peter Green on guitar, eventually Christine Nick Vee joins on keys. In addition to a number of rotating cast of characters later, the band evolves into a pop rock sensation in the 70s when they add the Californian duo Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix,

and the band takes off on their self-titled so-called white album from 1975. Well, I'm changing because I've built my life. and then tops themselves with their 1977 album rumors. It's been five years since the band has toured. It's been more than 20 years since they've released a new album. Tragically, they've lost bandmates, including Christine McVee, who died in 2022, creating a major riff for the band, a loss for fans, really marking the end of Fleetwood Max active years.

And nonetheless, I feel like this band and their music is at a new peak. I feel like they have reached a legendary. nostalgia phase. Yeah, if you had told me that in the 2020s, the hot new band on the scene would be Fleetwood Mac, I would have been like, what are you smoking? But 2020, we had that viral TikTok. I want to say the guy's name was like the dog, the doggy face or something. Is that right?

420 Dogface 208. 420 Dogface 208. This dude just chilling with his handlebar mustache and his skateboard, drinking a mountain do, listening to Fleetwood Mac and getting like bigillions of views. An ocean spray cranberry juice, to be clear. Okay, okay, I stand corrected, okay. He got a free car and eventually built a house

out of the donations that he received for this video. Unreal. Because he helped bring Fleetwood Mac's only number one single Dreams back onto the Billboard charts. And since then, we've had Amazon Prime's video series Daisy Jones in the 6th from 2023 that follows a fictional 1970s rock band that is basically Fleetwood Mac. Thinly veiled.

Then you have the multi-tony award-winning play Stereophonic that is also loosely based off of the making of Fleetwood Mac's iconic 1977 album rumors, but I don't know how they're getting away with this thing because it's basically just Fleetwood Mac. The Macassants continues. There's a great book called Dreams, The Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac. by Mark Blake that was released this October. And there is a new album, just a few weeks old, by Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham

that unearths the long-forgotten recording Buckingham Nix that's a precursor to Fleetwood Mac. We're going to hear from them in the second half. But to understand the appeal of Fleetwood Mac, I feel like we need to listen to their music and arguably two of their most important songs. To get us there, let's go back to the late 1960s. We're in the San Francisco Bay Area

where you and I started our show. Well, not the 1960s. We started in the 2010s, but we're back in the 1960s. Stay with me. You're wearing a flowy scarf, okay? The pot smoke is wafting over H. Street. Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix, they're nearby in the South Bay.

They meet in high school. They form a musical partnership and join a band called The Fritz. A romantic relationship ensues. They move to L.A. to make it on their own without the band. And they release an album called Buckingham, Knicks in 1973.

It's a commercial failure, but one day, Mick Fleetwood, the drummer of Fleetwood Mac, also half named after him, walks into Sound City, a storied L.A. studio, and Lindsay Buckingham is there. He plays some of his tunes for Mick Fleetwood, and Mick Fleetwood is in need of a great guitarist for the band, so invites Buckingham into the band, who also brings along Stevie Nix, his partner. And it's not long before this mixed nationality, mixed gender ban starts to fall apart in the making of their album rumors. John McVee and Christine McVee's marriage starts to fall apart. McFleetwood's got his own marital issues.

And Buckingham and Nick's relationship is absolutely deteriorating. And they write a twin set of breakup songs that really go on to define this couple and the whole band for decades to come. this breakup births the immortal pop songs Go Your Own Way written by Buckingham and Dreams written by Nix that serve as contrasting musical accounts of their breakup. Nix says that they're effectively the same song written by two different people about the same relationship. Let's begin with Go Your Own Way.

I've heard this song so many times. I don't think I've ever thought about the genesis of it. Yeah. and the sort of extracurricular meaning of it, much less considered it the other side of a coin with dream. So I'm excited to hear these ubiquitous songs in a new light. Yeah, I'd always just heard this as like an uptempo, guitar-driven rocker, you know, raw, emotive vocal, some kind of go your own way,

break up, whatever. But there's so much more going on here. And where it all begins for me is the real. of the song. You see, Lindsay Buckingham had been listening to the Rolling Stones Street Fighting Man and was inspired by its beat. I wouldn't have made the connection, but now I hear that both of these songs get a lot of energy from this rhythmic dissonance between the guitar and the drums, mainly, I think. Yeah. Where the guitar is doing sort of this conventional strumming pattern.

But then the drums are like kind of emphasizing these weird offbeats that don't quite line up. And you're like, wait, where is the meter of this thing? Yeah, it's all about trying to confuse you don't know where the downbeat of this song is. And that's exactly what Lindsay Buckingham does

and go your own way. Okay, Nate. Yes. Where's the one? Well, it's not where Mick Fleetwood is putting that snare hit every measure. I know that for sure. Yes. That would be too simple.

No. I think it's right before that snare hit. It's like one snare hit. One, snare hit. You can go one snare you can go. You're like, is that, is that right? I think it's up for debate. You have three instruments here, each doing their own thing.

You have an acoustic guitar strumming, an electric guitar chugging. along and this snare and tombs on the drums, everybody is hitting different parts of the beat, quite syncopated, nobody's gelled together. I think this mirrors all of the tension in the band of everybody doing their own thing. And we really don't know where that sense of home downbeat is until we get to the chorus and everybody starts playing along. So the band only finds unity when they're telling each other to break apart. Kind of, yeah. Isn't that dark? And I should note, you know, in the rhythm section, supposedly the way that they made the song was that they tried to record it live together.

Lindsay Buckingham even played an electric guitar with his guitar amp in the other room so that he could mic it in isolation, but he could play along with the whole group. And basically, it didn't work. But when they were tracking, Stevie Nix was playing tambour. And in the final thing, there is no tambourine with Stevie Nix because this song is a send-off to her, I think. I'm not sure. Whoa. So there was a Stevie Nix tambourine part that got left on the cutting room floor. That's what I'm telling you. And instead of actually tracking this thing live, this song came together as a set of overdubs. Every single track is recorded separately. So the band only works when each of their members is performing in isolation. That's a pretty clear metaphor for the state of affairs here.

But it's also interesting because I feel like one of the hallmarks of this group and one of the reasons they've stood the test of time is the sort of factory sealed production where every musical element is so crystalline and perfect and it still sounds so tight and fresh, you know, half a century later in a way that fractiousness was also part of the secret of their. success in creating this pristine sound. Yeah, it took four months and three different recording studios to make this track. And you could say that, oh, it all is a metaphor for the band's internal turmoil. Or you might say, you know, Lindsay Buckingham is a real perfectionist in his production and made an absolute smash by working it out piece by piece and getting it just right. Nonetheless, the fissures in the music are present. most potently, I think, in the lyrics.

Yeah. It's not just the lead, go your own way. It's from the very beginning. Kind of accusational here. Yeah. Loving is not the right thing to do. It's like, I could give you my love, but you won't take it from me. Yeah.

This is very much a, it's not me, it's you. It's a little toxic. And Buckingham really pissed off Knicks when he put in this line in the second verse. Tell me why. Tell me why everything turned around, packing up, shacking up's all you want to do. So essentially saying like you're not committed, you're always leaving and sleeping with someone else? Yeah, exactly. That's nasty.

It's really nasty. Nix would say that when he was saying this on stage live, because the crazy thing about the band is that it keeps on going for days. It's so bananas. You should just like seething at him whenever he would sing this line. I might be the only person in the world to hear this, but I just need to put it. out in case there's someone else out there with this same experience. I always thought they were singing, you can call it thunder along the way instead of another lonely day. You can call it thunder. And it was only until very recently that I learned. It was something else. Just need to know if anyone

else had that same experience. Please write me. Well, I wonder if Stevie Nix maybe had that experience, because thunder is an important metaphor in her response song dreams i think there is no better way to respond to anger over a song that so maligns you than to write your own response song man if go your own way was all about like rhythmic complexity and sort of caustic anger this song is all about simplicity and like the search for peace. It's so placid and almost ethereal. The lyrics are all about being washed clean, you know,

like finding some kind of redemption. A little nasty as well. We'll get to that, I think. But then the last thing I just have to say is the chord progression of this song is incredible. It's just these two chords oscillating back and forth for the entirety of this track. Is there a bridge?

Is there like any harmonic, departure in this song, Charles? Nope, the song just oscillates back and forth. F to G. Doesn't stop. Four minutes. Wild.

It never resolves home to see. The home key. I mean, there are definitely precedence for this. Oh, yeah. I think, uh, light my fire by the doors. You know that it would be

untrue. You know that I John Coltrane's my favorite things does the same thing. But this feels a little different here. This is like really creating this sort of trance-like vibe, I would say. And then you could almost miss the intensity of the lyrics for how soothing the music is, I think. It's really fitting song, I think, for Stevie Nix. She says that she wrote this in 10 minutes. She was in a studio and needed a place to.

to sit and write and got access to Sly Stone's special room that had shag carpeting all over the place, a vaulted bed with a velvet rope roping off the bed, and a Fender Rhodes piano. And, you know, she was sort of known as not being, you know, virtuosic on any instrument, but she was a very active songwriter. And I kind of get, like, if you're not a great piano, so you might sit down, just go like, there's a chord F. There's another chord G. I've got my vibe.

And then it just poured out, you know, this raw emotional track. And when she brought it to the band, the reaction wasn't universally positive. Christine said that she thought it was boring. By the way, critics also agreed when they finally hear the song. Rolling Stone said that Dreams is a nice but fairly lightweight tune. And her nasal singing is the only. only weak vocal on the record. Cream said that they could

lyrically go without the meteorology lecture in the chorus. That's cold. That's savage. This song is all about that vocal, though. Yeah. In fact, when they tracked the song, Nicks first recorded a guide vocal.

This is a very common thing you do. Just sort of like a scratch vocal so that then all the other players can play along and then you'll maybe redo your main vocal and do harmonies and so on. But the scratch vocal had all of that just deep emotion that they kept the scratch vocal as the final thing. So it's intentional. And I think all of those little moments of rasp and imperfections are what make it so potent.

I mean, is there a better opening lyric than this? Like, right away, shots fired. Yeah. If you hear this as a twin song to go your own way, which claimed that, you know, I could give you my love, but you won't take it. Now, she's saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're the one who's, like, asking for freedom. And by the way, when they were an early relationship in L.A. And they were totally broke trying to make ends meet.

She was the one waiting table so that he could sit at home all day, working out his guitar parts. Typical. Yeah, right? So shots fired from the very beginning. And I think you picked up something in the chorus as well that is not as maybe placid as the song sounds. So first of all, we have finally your thunder that you misheard in the other song. Thank you. Ah, there it is. I've never completely understood the inaccurate metaphor of thunder only happens when it's raining because, of course, there can be thunder and lightning without rain. Wow, you sound like cream magazine. I don't know. I think mixed metaphors or inaccurate metaphors

are totally fine. I feel like it's open to interpretation of like eruptions of desire and love only happen when there's lots of emotion pouring out is kind of how I hear it. That checks out. But then she's like, players only love you when you're playing.

Like you're only going to get with other players because you're a player, or you're only loved when you're playing on stage as a musician. Maybe. Interesting interpretation. And then when you're off stage, you're kind of a jerk.

And then this is where I feel like the strongest connection between the two songs exist is the lyric. Say women, they will come and they will go. She's saying this to Lindsay Buckingham, who has previously accused Stevie Nix and his song of... Packing up and shacking up. You just want to sleep around. And finally, when the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know. And it's kind of like, after this big emotional storm, you'll finally realize, like, you made a mistake. This sounds pretty resentful to me at this point.

I feel like this song has more emotional depth than go your own way, because the second verse completely alters our experience of this seeming resentment. It's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams and have you any dreams you'd like to sell. It's kind of saying, like, once the rain washes you clean, I hope you realize, like, I'm still dreaming about you. The song is called dreams. But the title is buried in the second verse. Like, this could have been called, Thunder only happens when it's raining.

The rain washes you clean. Or even what you lost. But she tells us that it's actually about a dream. She hopes that both these lovers are having. That, like, there's still a chance. Damn, Charles. Have you shared this theory with a 420 Doggy Face, 88? I've not.

Stevie Nix has not been answering my phone calls recently. I think that remains to be seen then. You pointed out at the top of the episode, but one of the things that makes them so enduring is that Fleetwood Mac has these skills of songwriting and production that I think still sound very contemporary. In a lot of ways, dreams to me is one of the earlier contemporary pop songs. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that it is just a loop.

It is these two chords. F to G, back and forth, never resolving. This is a very common way of writing today. Getting in a room with a computer, setting up a little loop, two or four chords, and writing as many melodies against that as you can until you get a whole song. We call that process toplining, right?

And that's kind of what's happening in Dreams. In fact, Dreams is a loop. They literally looped Mick Fleetwood's drum part to make it more hypnotic. It's a tape loop, an actual tape loop. going around and around. Yeah. And they build each section so that it feels completely independent,

even though the harmony is so simple underneath. Like, you start in the intro and verse, drums, bass, guitar, flying all around, roads, piano. You move into the pre-cores. We add harmonies. The keyboard starts climbing up to a higher octave, arpeggiated guitars, and vibes. that is a contemporary pop production to me. That's a connection to our modern musical landscape that I wouldn't have made, Charles, but one that I could do is the fact that something we talk about a lot in this podcast

is how much pop artists today mind their personal lives for their musical material. Yeah. And I feel like now listening to this track, I'm like, did Fleetwood back? kind of start that. I did want to sort of dig through the history on this topic because obviously people have always used their personal lives as source material for music. Like literally 11th century tubadors used to write about courtly romances

and the scandals that were happening at court. Lord Byron in the 19th century, the poet famously wrote about his scandalous love affairs. Edith Piaf had famous relationships that ended up in her songs. Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Yoko Oh, no. Marvin Gay had an album about divorce. But the thing about Fleetwood Mac is that they take it to another level, right? This is not one relationship. This is so many relationships. Buckingham Nix, Mick Fleetwood getting divorced, John and Christine McVee, McVee, McFleetwood having a relationship with

Stevie Nix and like 17 other people. They're all getting together, all breaking up, and they're all writing songs and performing about those songs and making it their identity in a way that contemporary artists do too. Like Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears laying their relationship out in music. There's Beyonce and Jay-Z hashing out their marital issues in their music. You better call Becky with the good hair. I just do over. What if you over my shit? Olivia Rodriguez and Sabrina Carpenter detailing their inner lives with celebrity. celebrity boyfriends for fans to pick apart and try to find all the clues to see what's really going on in their personal lives.

And you're probably with that blonde girl who always made me out. Maybe you didn't mean it. Maybe Blown was the only rhyme. So Fleetwood Mac, not the inventors of this approach of personal songwriting, but maybe they perfected a certain aspect of it. They perfected it. They took it to a whole new level. And if you really want to understand where it all began,

you have to go back to that long, out-of-print, early recording by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix before they joined Fleetwood Mac. Their album Buckingham Nix released in 1973 failed to chart in its time, but it has huge cult status amongst fans that can still find old vinyl imprints of it. You can not find. find that recording on streaming services. You can't even find it on CD. What? I know. That is until just a few weeks ago, the musicians Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham collaborated on a new project called Cunningham Bird, like Buckingham Nix. It is a track-by-track interpretation of the Buckingham Nix

album, and it features exceptional arrangements and harmonies. provides a whole fresh perspective on Buckingham and Nick's early musical partnership and their creative dynamic before the Fleetwood Mac days. After the break, you're going to hear from Andrew Byrd and Madison Cunningham about that storied lost album. Convierte your passion in a business with Shopify and batter records of ventas with the form of pago with a better conversion of the world. You've heard

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Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Before joining Fleetwood Mac, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix were young lover and musical partners struggling to make ends meet in Los Angeles while recording their debut album, Buckingham Knicks. It's long been unavailable. That is until 2024, when Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham revived this cult classic and an interpretation of songs that they're calling Cunningham Bird. Madison Cunningham is a Grammy award-winning musician known for her sophisticated guitar finger-picking and her intricate and lyrical compositions.

And Cunningham sings alongside her longtime friend and collaborator, Andrew Bird, a virtuosic multi-instrumentalist, known for his creative violin playing, whistling, and plaintive voice. I think their update to this long, stashed away recording has a lot to tell us about the influence of Fleetwood Mac and the complex creative partnership in the Buckingham Knicks saga. I'm Madison Cunningham. I'm Andrew Bird. and we are in my backyard in Los Angeles. And we just released an album called Cunningham. Bird. You have recorded this album together,

an adaptation of Buckingham Knicks. That album is sort of this like lost album that presages Fleetwood Mac. Could you share a little bit about the story of what that record is? Yeah. It's that record you find in a garage sale or like a used record store

and everyone knows the cover of them topless on the cover and looking impossibly beautiful and airbrushed and all. And it was a very ambitious record that the two of them made when they were together, Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nix. It's got a lot of songs. It kind of hinted what's to come with Fleetwood Mac,

but not many people know the music. There's not a single measure on this album that's not trying to impress you with some interesting studio move or something, you know, with lots and lots of drum fills and drum pushes and syncopations. And you can take the bones of all these songs and like strip them back.

And as we say, pull up the shadow carpeting and kind of see what kind of space there is and find the room in the song is there. songs are there. It was just the way the production was in 73 was a little, you know, heavy-handed, perhaps. I identify with it in a sense of like they're young. I remember when I was making albums in my 20s, I tried to throw every interesting thing I could into every square inch of the album. I relate to that too in a lot of ways. I feel like I've just recently kind of grown out of the like, oh, I don't want to play every chord and I want music to kind of feel easy.

Madison, is there a song in this record for you, which really captures that youthful quality? Yeah, the first song that really grabbed my attention was Long Distance Winter. And I actually felt like that was the song that sounded immediately a little bit, most like something that you and I would have maybe written, just in terms of those first three chords of that song. I mean, we were honestly trying to figure out how playful to be while we were making it. like how far could we take this? Could we refurbish this melody and put it here? And, you know, like it was like finally like got to a place where we've, where we were like found the marriage

between the complexity that we enjoy and the simplicity that is so important to like exposing the heart. One of those songs that really stood out to me is having that sort of youthful ambition throwing everything you've got at it is their song. without a leg to stand on. The chorus is just so syncopated and challenging to sing, and yet you sort of found this new way into it. How did you go about wanting to adapt these songs,

both honoring the nostalgia that people have for Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham and Nicks, and yet also make it fresh? I had studied the album more than Madison before we went into the studio, and that leg to stand on has those pushes I'm talking about. And you know that I can't let go, boom. That kind of stuff. And I couldn't let go with that for a while. I just didn't want to let go of that push because it just felt it was physically in my bones already.

Madison would just kind of just kind of kept not doing that push until I finally. Remember one time we were doing it, I just did it to spite you, just kind of... That's the one time we fought in the studio, is he spied me with a push. Yeah, it was rough. It was rough. But then, yeah, that was the first one that came together. We were like, oh, this is something else entirely. And that song in particular felt like maybe we unlocked the sort of sweet tooth pop song that was in there.

I think what the pushes did was it kept feeling like, like it would just be these like weird sort of like, sort of like breaks in the flow. And I think what we ended up finding was this constant movement in that song. And I really love when songs do that when they still like ebb and flow dynamically, but they never stop rolling. And you feel like you're you're on some sort of like a track or a ride or something. And that song, it feels like every time I hear, I imagine like riding in the back of a carriage of horses, like through the prairie, just continuing to move.

Looking around but you won't see me. Just a picture of what I used to be. There ain't nothing to say. Working on any material that is Fleetwood Mac related is necessarily in relationship to their complex relationships. Buckingham and Nicks were young teenage lovers. They make this album together, famous breakups, love affairs, all of this is a big part of the band.

How did approaching this material, affect your own collaboration and your own artistic partnership. How do you go about approaching these songs about teenage lovers at a different point in history between two very different people where you're often flipping genders

on these records? Yeah, and you've said it well that a different point in history is a key line because it's like they were coming out of the 60s where, you know, guys referred to their girlfriends as their old ladies and, you know, it's like there was like a,

And then the 70s, the guitar god, machismo, and gypsy woman, gypsy lady. I was like, that stuff doesn't really speak to us now, you know. And so we thought about just flipping everything gender-wise. But that didn't really stand up. We had to take it one tune at a time. But definitely Lola, my love, was one that made sense. flip because neither of us could could quite stomach singing that as is yeah Lola my love is kind of horny 70 guys blues rock absolutely and we were we you know we did things mostly in order and as

we got towards the end of the album both those tunes I think frozen love are like pretty weird it almost broke me yeah both those both those songs we were just Thank God they're at the end. We kept putting them off because we didn't know how to handle them. Then again, both of them turned out like we're really happy with them. No love you know how to treat your man. There's some of my favorite songs on the record actually, which I think there's something to be said about that.

There's the most trepidation and the most work that it took to get them to a place that felt relevant and I think it paid off in some way. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm actually curious, Andrew, how you ended up emotionally relating to the songs. I know for myself, I just, there was a lot of like personal things I was going through that kind of started to reflect what some of the lyrics were saying. And previously before that, I hadn't really been attached to the lyrics at all. And kind of in the middle of recording, I was like finding myself really, really,

resonating and becoming very attached to these songs. And just us singing them too. Like that one song, don't let me down again. I love singing that one because it's just like you get to just put all of your anger into a lyric like that. Baby, baby, don't treat me this way. I'm going to make it again someday. You were definitely going through something.

I was more just worried, worried about getting sued. You were going through something too I guess so I mean I was just trying to like just trying to relax into it and I was the whole time I was like wondering why are we doing this? What?

And it's so tricky because we couldn't rewrite any lyrics so our moves were pretty few and they were really important as to what they were going to be Yeah This is obviously not a Fleetwood Mac approved project

It doesn't need to be No You can get mechanical licenses To record covers of any album I believe So was there concern of like there's a few changes of pronouns by changing lyrics, it's like its own thing

and that Fleetwood Mac would like not be happy with this project? We just didn't quite know why it was out of print. Yeah, it made it suspicious as to why you couldn't, like a major record that could get a lot of attention

at least not at the moment but in retrospect why you can't hear it, you can't stream it. What do you learn in the process? us. Absolutely nothing. I mean, I learned that there's some very vague legal language that may be a little nervous, that's all. But it's all good. It's all good. So far, so far so good. I mean, you are allowed to cover whatever you want without getting the approval. I just heard anecdotally that getting the blessing of Stevie or Lindsay has not always gone so well in the past for some

people. That's all. Yes, it's a group of covers, but this is an interpretation on this record. You have completely made it in your own image. And one of the things that really stands out is that your sound palette as musicians almost leans in the exact opposite direction as Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham Knicks that the guitar sound, for example. Lindsay Buckingham's guitars are often triple-tracked, super bright, taking over the entire mix. And Madison, your guitar is deep and low and plucky and a little bit more removed.

There's some really lovely violin parts that I think bring this record to life, for example, on crying in the night, which is a sort of blamy song as originally recorded. I think you really sort of change the feeling of it and make it feel more like a lament. you know it kind of saying oh there's this girl she's going to loop you in but you know she's going to go and chase some other guys and she's going to break your heart and I think I think you lean into the broken heart more especially with this feeling of crying in the night

your violin sores these high notes that really sort of text paint the lyric okay that's good to hear that's sick it went in this sort of what we call posh we're calling the posh direction with the kind of I was worried that it had strayed from what the song really was, which is a song warning this guy about the town flusy. Like what?

I feel like that warning, like I would imagine like has to come from like a softer place, you know, then like, don't you fuck it. I mean, I don't know. It's probably more effective if it comes from a posh place. Right. This is one of the ways that I feel like the record has changed a lot. I actually have the pleasure of having experienced Buckingham Nix first through the two of you. I saw you perform the album live and full at Newport Folk this year.

It was a total delight. I had never heard the songs. And then I eventually went and found a YouTube stream and I listened to the original and I have gone back and listened to theirs and yours back and forth and back and forth. I prefer the updated version. But part of the reason why is I think that we get so much more relationship, I think, think in the framing of Buckingham Nix, it really does lead with Buckingham in so many ways. I think on

a lot of the records, Nix does feel a little bit like a, and Nix. Yeah. And here, this, not only have you switched it, because it seems like your names were just destined to create this record, kind of, but it flips the gender dynamic in the title, and you really

split duties throughout the entire thing. This feels like a really natural collaboration. And so I want to go back to a question that we probably unintentionally evaded, which is how has it altered, you know, this, this album about relationships, of this very famous relationship, how has it changed your creative collaboration? Working on this record reminded me so much of like, oh, what I do love so much about music, though, is simplicity. Like, and really getting over all of my, like, you know, crushes of

like, oh, my God, like, what about, we play five chords here, you know, it's like, I'm really getting to a place where I just don't, I listen to music so differently and what I want from is so different than what it was even like two years ago. But I also learned, in making this record, I heard things come out in Madison's voice that I hadn't heard before, like on Crystal. Like a really deep, deep sadness. Special knowledge holds true.

Like a different tone in your voice. It was really emotional, especially I think Crystal is the one that kind of embodies it. Like, I haven't heard that yet on your albums yet. And it was really like, whoa, that's something else. No one's going to be comparing you to Johnny Mitchell anymore, hopefully. I hope not. Final question for you all. What is the enduring appeal of Fleetwood Mac?

I mean, with most stuff, I'm in great melodic songwriters. writing. But, you know, this album also is very interesting because it's all there. The whole dynamic between Stevie and Lindsay became very clear as we're working on it. Yeah. And Lindsay's like, I'm going to go conquer the world and you can come along if you like, but you're going to have to like really step it up, okay? And her songs are like, and you love only the tallest trees. It's like a conversation. It's an argument between two lovers. It's like you, you just appreciate like big phallic things.

And so she's like trying to cut them down to a human size. But then she's talking about a lot of water and crystals. And together they make up like the full range of how you can live in this world. As well said. Asin, how about for you? What is the enduring appeal of Fleetwood Mac? Why are they having such a renaissance and just keep on igniting new generations? It seems like they are, like you said, like they're a counterweight to each other.

And I think that is always a powerful force. It's like two things that, and obviously in Fleetwood Mac was many things. But I think obviously Stevie and Lindsay kind of being like at the forefront. I think Stevie is also just like an unforgettable voice. Like nobody sounds like her. And nobody can really, and some of their songs, like, I just heard dreams the other night. And I jokingly said, oh, not dreams again. But as the song played, I talk about a two-cord song that isn't boring and, like, still has arc and dynamic.

And I think they really found something that is, is like, they found what it means to be classic. And not everybody does that. I think that's why they've, they're still just like in our, in our pop culture and in our, like, you know, in our relevance. My headline is that they, they figured out what it actually means to remain timeless, yeah. Will we get a bonus edition with dreams and go your own way? No, I don't think you'll ever be, no. But if it's a Christmas version, yes. Like, with slave belts or something.

Sure. It's a really cool collaboration. don't think I know another album where I prefer the interpretation, but this is something really special. Congratulations on it. It's really delightful. Thank you. Thanks for saying that.

Switched on Pop is produced by Rianna Cruz, engineered by Brandon McFarlane, edited by Art Chung, illustrations by Arras Gott. We remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com slash pod. Find us on social media at Switched on Pop. We only got to talk really in depth about two Fleetwood Mac songs today. So we want to hear about what are the other important songs in their catalog

that help us understand the iconic sound of this band. So you know what to do. Sound off in the comments. We're going to be back next week with a special limited series called Listening to Madonna. So excited. It's brought to us by a great producer, Rianna Cruz. It's going to run Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. MWF, baby.

It's the week of Thanksgiving, listening to Madonna. It's going to be such a blast. We'll see you there. And until them, thanks for listening.