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Buckingham Nicks
The debut — and it would be fairly safe to assume at this point, only — album from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks would be deserving of a place in history if only because it was Mick Fleetwood’s chance discovery of it in an LA studio that led him to invite the pair to join Fleetwood Mac, thus ensuring the band’s status as cocaine-guzzling, partner-swapping soft rock behemoths for the rest of the decade. However, purely on its own terms, Buckingham Nicks is a fine record. Much of what the couple brought to 1975’s Fleetwood Mac and Rumours in 1977 is present and remarkably fully formed, and the genesis of multiple future classics can be found in these songs. Ornately plucked instrumental “Stephanie” is only a bitter lyric away from being “Never Going Back Again,” while “Crystal” is essentially a more rootsy, Stones-hewn version of “The Chain.” If Fleetwood hadn’t come knocking, Buckingham Nicks might have scaled similar heights on their own.