FEATURE:
The Rumours Are True
IN THIS PHOTO: Fleetwood Mac (L-R: Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks/FRONT: John McVie)
Why An Overdue Fleetwood Mac Documentary Can Cement and Also Reframe Their Legacy
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MAYBE people…
have this idea of Fleetwood Mac being a band who were warring a lot. Their 1977 album, Rumours, seems to be marred by in-fighting, break-ups and excess. Even though the album is arguably their greatest work, there were tensions within the band. In relatively recent years, Fleetwood Mac have stopped touring. They will not record another album together it seems. Christine McVie died in 2022. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were not on speaking terms for the longest time. I think a lot of people only know the Rumours period of Fleetwood Mac’s career. They do not go further back. Also, today, that album is so dominant in terms of the conversation around them. Though the music is incredible, I guess we also look inside the recording and how tense it would have been. It does somewhat misshape or define a legacy of the band that is not the whole picture. Coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of Rumours next year, there is a documentary coming. One that has been in the works for a while. Rolling Stone provided more details:
“Nearly two years after being announced, Frank Marshall’s Fleetwood Mac documentary has an official title and release date. Fleetwood Mac: The Chain arrives on Jan. 29, 2027, via Apple TV.
The film is the first fully-authorized documentary by the band, and the release is timed to the 50th anniversary of Rumours, which hit shelves on Feb. 4, 1977. Fittingly, it’s named after “The Chain,” a.k.a. the only song in the Fleetwood Mac discography that credits each member: Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and the late Christine McVie, who died in 2022.
Fleetwood Mac: The Chain traces the band’s history, from when Buckingham and Nicks joined the band on New Year’s Eve in December 1974 to the present. It boasts previously unseen footage and new interviews with the core members, digging deep into their catalog, their immediate rise to superstardom and rock & roll excess, and their highly publicized relationships and ultimate love for each other.
“I am fascinated by how this incredible story of enormous musical achievement came about,” Marshall said in 2024. “Fleetwood Mac somehow managed to merge their often chaotic and almost operatic personal lives into their own tale in real time, which then became legend. This will be a film about the music and the people who created it.”
Marshall has five Oscar nominations to his name, and is a recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. His recent music documentaries include 2020’s The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, 2024’s The Beach Boys, the upcoming Pete Townshend: Behind Blue Eyes, and more. The Chain is produced by the Kennedy/Marshall Company with White Horse Pictures’ Nigel Sinclair, Nicholas Ferrall, Jeanne Elfant Festa, and Kennedy/Marshall’s Aly Parker.
The documentary’s title and official release date arrives a year after Buckingham and Nicks reissued their 1973 debut Buckingham Nicks, which had been out of print for decades. It was then revealed that the two are back on speaking terms, after Buckingham was fired from the band in 2018 (in 2024, Nicks told Rolling Stone the two had briefly interacted at McVie’s memorial a year prior). Buckingham has been quietly teasing big plans for next year, which might be the documentary in itself, or some form of a reunion.
“Stevie and I are talking all the time now,” Buckingham said last August. “Next year should be a pretty interesting year, because I think quite a few things will reveal themselves”.
I am not sure whether Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks will reunite and record together or Fleetwood Mac. I do feel it is unlikely the band will record again, having lost Christine McVie. I think they closed the lid on tour. Buckingham was fired from the band, but would he be welcomed back into the fold given the recent reconnection with Nicks? I do feel like a one-off concert to mark fifty years of Rumours would be a way of marking that occasion without having to commit to a new phase and lease. There are always rumours Fleetwood Mac will headline Glastonbury, but I think that hope has been dashed enough that it will not come to life.
Whilst Fleetwood Mac: The Chain is not going to shy away from the personal turmoil and fraught moments within the band, we will get this wider picture. So many younger listeners are connecting with the band. They may pick up Rumours or another album and not really know too much about it. Documentaries, if balanced and handled right, are a great way of knowing an artist and their career. In a transparent way. Too many documentaries gloss over things, or they can be a little too self-serving. What we will see if Fleetwood Mac’s legacy be cemented. In terms of their genius. They also loved one another. There were fallouts and bad times, yet there was this connection – this chain – that bound them together. So many define them with uglier days and this sense there was division. That only is true of a small portion of their career. In terms of the future, who knows what can happen. I do feel it is a long shot that the surviving members will play together and record. Though it is going to be fascinating to what form the documentary takes. Whether there are new interviews with Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. I do feel like it will help bring their music to new fans. Whilst acknowledging Rumours and that 1977 landmark period, also shining a light on earlier albums that gets overlooked perhaps. Also, seeing the different sides and dynamics to this decades-enduring band. Fleetwood Mac are also one of these bands that you feel should be brought to the big screen, though you wonder if they will ever approve a biopic. In any case, this 2027 documentary is going to go a long way to highlighting their incredible legacy and brilliance. The ups and downs. The fact that the documentary focuses on the music and the people who made it. Getting that direct and first-hand account and insight. Even if there are flickers of reconciliation but ultimately we may have seen the last of Fleetwood Mac as a recording and touring act, their influence and success cannot be denied. That is a chain that…
CAN never be broken.