Buckingham Nicks by Buckingham Nicks

Released on 05/09/1973 by Rhino
Main artists: Buckingham Nicks Stevie Nicks Lindsey Buckingham
Genre: Pop
Distinctions: Qobuz Album of the Week

Available in

24-Bit/192 kHz Stereo

Unlimited Streaming

Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps

Start my trial period and start listening to this album

Enjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription

Digital Download

Purchase and download this album in a wide variety of formats depending on your needs.

For years since its 1973 release, Buckingham Nicks has been an odd curio. While the album sold poorly upon release and was quickly deleted from Polydor's catalog, it nonetheless captured a young Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks honing their chemistry. That very chemistry would, of course, directly lead to the work they would later do in Fleetwood Mac, making Buckingham Nicks a longstanding vinyl collectible since the mid-'70s. Now that it's being properly and officially reissued, it's much easier to assess the album solely on its musical merits. While it may not approach "lost classic" status, it nonetheless still stands as a remarkable, formative work and a blueprint for the sound that would soon make Fleetwood Mac one of the most successful bands of the decade.

Notably, Buckingham Nicks was produced by Keith Olsen, who not only saw something in these two singer/songwriters, but whose sonic vision also helped shape the record in a way that would ripple forward into Fleetwood Mac's breakthrough. Olsen brought an engineer's precision and a pop producer's ear, giving the record a glossy finish while still preserving its intimacy. His use of overdubs allowed Buckingham to layer multiple guitar parts without sacrificing transparency. At the same time, he framed Nicks' voice in a way that highlighted its unique character: smoky and imperfect, yet still charismatic. This combination of texture and clarity would become a defining feature of Fleetwood Mac's mid-1970s sound, particularly on their self-titled 1975 album, which Olsen himself engineered.

The connections between those two albums are clear in the songs. "Crying in the Night" opens with guitar figures and vocal arrangements that anticipate the sparkling production of Fleetwood Mac tracks like "Monday Morning," while "Don't Let Me Down Again" pushes Buckingham's rhythmic inventiveness to the front. The most revealing moment is "Crystal." Written by Nicks and sung here by Buckingham, it's a study in atmosphere, with an airy soundstage, delicate musical textures, and a yearning melody. When Fleetwood Mac re-recorded the song in 1975, with Nicks singing lead under Olsen's guidance in the studio, it became a definitive statement of her role in the band. The continuity between the two versions demonstrates how Olsen not only preserved the duo's chemistry but actively shaped it into the signature Fleetwood Mac blend.

The closing track, "Frozen Love," appropriately enough, is the literal bridge between this album and Fleetwood Mac; it was the song Olsen played for Mick Fleetwood to show off his studio setup. Fleetwood was struck not only by Buckingham's guitar but also by the production itself. That moment directly led to Buckingham and Nicks being invited to join Fleetwood Mac (after Buckingham insisted that the duo were a matched pair) and Olsen to produce the band's next album, making this once-collectible album less of a "forgotten relic" than the spark that ignited one of rock's most dramatic success stories. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Buckingham Nicks

You are currently listening to samples.

Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.

From £10.83/month

Crying in the Night