Last week, the music world was rocked when Stevie Nicks posted to Instagram: “And if you go forward…” and Lindsay Buckingham followed up on his own page, “I’ll meet you there.” Sharing dual handwritten messages on social media is an appropriately 2020s-era rekindling for what’s been dubbed “the world’s greatest situationship.” On Wednesday, the purpose of this lyrical teasing became clear: the pair are promoting the reissue of Buckingham Nicks, the 1973 album that got the duo invited into Fleetwood Mac.
Debuting September 19, the reissue includes a limited release vinyl as well as the first-ever digital version of the album. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the audio “has been sourced from original analog master tapes for its vinyl return… along with hi-res digital files for its CD and digital release.” The vinyl will be available exclusively at Rhino.com and internationally at select Warner Music Group stores, with only “5,000 individually numbered copies sold, along with a special version, limited to 2,000 copies, including two replica seven-inch singles of the original mixes of ‘Crying In The Night’ and ‘Stephanie’ on one, and ‘Don’t Let Me Down Again’ and ‘Races Are Run’ on the other.” The Nicks-penned opening track ‘Crying In The Night’ is available digitally today.
Buckingham Nicks was not a commercial success, but it’s a crucial part of the pair’s lore. They first met as high schoolers and began playing music together in the late ’60s with Buckingham’s early band Fritz. They became romantically involved after the group disbanded and moved together to Los Angeles, where they recorded their only album as a duo. Though poor sales saw them dropped from their label, it earned the attention of Mick Fleetwood—and the rest is history. Fleetwood Mac became almost as known for its complicated romantic entanglements as its legendary music; over the years interpersonal strife has seen the band break up and reunite over the decades, with members leaving or getting fired. Buckingham was ousted in 2018, allegedly because Nicks had a problem with his attitude. (Nicks denied Buckingham’s claims she had him fired.) But the musical magic between them just keeps reigniting time and again. Rolling Stone notes that they discussed possibly revisiting Buckingham Nicks with a tour way back in 2012—it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we could see these two exes on stage together again, despite all the time and drama.
“[We] knew what we had as a duo, two songwriters that sang really well together. And it was a very natural thing, from the beginning,” Nicks says in the liner notes of the re-released album (via Rolling Stone). Buckingham agrees: “It stands up in a way you hope it would, by these two kids who were pretty young to be doing that work.”
