Whatever spell Stevie Nicks cast on Lindsay Buckingham during that fateful 1997 performance of “Silver Springs,” it doesn’t seem to be wearing off any time soon. Nearly three decades later, and her magic is still holding fast. The former couple—whose tumultuous relationship transformed Fleetwood Mac into a rock band as infamous for its romantic dramas as its genre-defining music—are up to something again: a reissue of their first and only album as a duo, Buckingham Nicks.
The 1973 album was a commercial disappointment upon release, but has enjoyed a cult legacy ever since, in part thanks to its elusiveness: Buckingham Nicks never received a remaster or reissue after its debut, and thus became largely unavailable for decades. On September 19, that will finally change.
This news comes after Nicks and Buckingham first teased the project on July 17, when they posted corresponding lyrics on their respective social media pages. “And if you go forward...” Nicks posted, with Buckingham finishing, “I’ll meet you there.”
Fans immediately recognized the words as lyrics from “Frozen Love,” a track off Buckingham Nicks, which the couple released together a year before joining Fleetwood Mac. The song is central to the band’s origin story, having inadvertently earned both Buckingham and Nicks the jobs that would make them famous. In 1974, co-founder Mick Fleetwood was touring Sound City Studios in Los Angeles one day when the house engineer, Keith Olsen, played him “Frozen Love.” Fleetwood was so impressed that he soon asked Buckingham to join his group as a guitarist. Buckingham agreed, but only if Nicks got to come with him, too.
Buckingham and Nicks went on to mold Fleetwood Mac into a hit engine, with many of their most beloved and famous songs chronicling the romance between them (as well as amongst the group’s other members, including Fleetwood himself, John McVie, and Christine McVie. Daisy Jones and the Six only scratched the surface when it comes to the tangle of affairs that fueled this band.) “Go Your Own Way,” “Silver Springs,” and “Dreams” are all (reportedly, anyway) songs Nicks and Buckingham wrote about each other, but Buckingham Nicks itself never received its due until now.
After half a century, the album will finally get its moment in the spotlight. On July 21, Los Angeles residents spotted a billboard over Sunset Boulevard featuring the iconic Buckingham Nicks cover—in which both Nicks and Buckingham are topless—alongside the date “Sept. 19.” Then, on July 23, Rhino (as part of Warner Music) confirmed that Buckingham Nicks will receive a CD and digital debut, as well as two limited vinyl editions. The tracks are as follows:
Side One
- “Crying In The Night”
- “Stephanie”
- “Without A Leg To Stand On”
- “Crystal”
- “Long Distance Winner”
Side Two
- “Don’t Let Me Down Again”
- “Django”
- “Races Are Run”
- “Lola (My Love)”
- “Frozen Love”
Although there is no new material featured on the reissue, the Buckingham Nicks news will inevitably raise some eyebrows. Last fans knew, its namesakes were not on amazing terms. After the death of Christy McVie in 2022, Nicks told Rolling Stone in 2024 that she was “done with Fleetwood Mac for good,” and that the last time she’d spoken with Buckingham was at Christy’s celebration of life. “The only time I’ve spoken to Lindsey was there, for about three minutes,” she told the outlet. “I dealt with Lindsey for as long as I could. You could not say that I did not give him more than 300 million chances.”
She later added, “I wish him the best. I hope he lives a long life and continues to go into a studio and work with other people.”
But the former lovers have never, by their own admission, been great at going their own ways. After first meeting in high school, Buckingham and Nicks have reunited again and again in service of the extraordinary music they make together. Nicks herself put their reasoning best in a 2023 interview with Vulture: When asked why she’d compared watching Prime Video’s Daisy Jones and the Six adaptation to “a ghost watching my own story,” Nicks said, “It was the kind of snappy sarcasm between [main characters] Daisy and Billy, who in my mind was like me and Lindsey. It was the back-and-forth between the two of them. It was so good...When two people capture the essence of something that reminds you of your life, it’s not like you go, They look just like us or They dress just like us. It’s something else. It’s a certain feeling that they got when they would look at each other after being in an argument and then they’d start to sing. It would blow your mind. I would be watching and be like, Well, there you go. That’s exactly why we did it. That’s exactly why Fleetwood Mac stayed together for 50 years. It was all for the music. It was all just to keep the music going.”
Suffice to say, Buckingham will indeed never get away from the sound of the woman that loved him—and September 19 can’t come soon enough.
