A veteran band with waning prospects, personnel churn, and management issues. A largely unknown duo whose eponymous debut flopped. An impromptu meeting in a supermarket that led to a fact-finding trip to Sound City Studios. The backstory behind Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album is nearly as incredible as the music on the 1975 recording — a blockbuster that altered pop-rock history, and found newcomers Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks permanently changing the profile and popularity of the British ensemble.

Sourced from the original analogue master tapes, pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, and strictly limited to 7,500 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP box set of the nine-times-platinum effort plays with reference-level transparency, dynamics, and detail. Benefitting from stellar groove definition, an ultra-low noise floor, and dead-quiet surfaces, this vinyl edition captures what went down in the California studio with arresting presence, tube-like warmth, and sumptuous tonality.

Honouring the striking elements that make Fleetwood Mac a generations-spanning favourite, the industry-leading presentation of this UD1S version confirms the reissue's definitive standing. Housed in a gorgeous slipcase, it features premium foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics. This keepsake is for listeners who want to immerse themselves in everything involved with the album, including the recognizable cover art positioning Mick Fleetwood and John McVie before a doorway — as well as a crystal ball showing their reflection. The hand-drawn script depicting the band's name is now inextricably associated with the quintet’s “White Album” and identity.

Shepherded by producer Keith Olsen, Fleetwood Mac used its studio time to cultivate and establish intra-band roles. The innate chemistry among the five musicians can be heard here in stunning clarity, the taut albeit flexible rhythms distinguished with palpable grip, the blended vocals and airy harmonies benefitting from seemingly unlimited frequency extension. The thrilling results speak to the band’s bond as well as healthy tension that led to recordings that more than five decades later remain revered for their exceptional realism, openness, textures, imaging, and soundstaging. And that says nothing about the freshness of the songs themselves.

Six of those tunes were written or co-written by Buckingham or Nicks, who lent the band — reeling from the departure of guitarist Bob Welch — a diversity, soulfulness, and breadth it lacked in the past. Then again, the romantically involved partners weren’t exactly burning up the charts on their own. Their Buckingham Nicks LP was largely ignored upon release and found the twosome questioning their futures. But fate has a weird way of operating, and rather than recruiting another six-string blues virtuoso into the mix, Fleetwood Mac called an audible. 

Constituting the old Fleetwood Mac in name only, Fleetwood Mac is the sound and style of an entirely new entity, a rebirth, and a reward for perseverance and a little bit of chance fortune. Above all, however, the album — which peaked at No. 1 on Billboard more than a year after its street date — towers as a testament to then-novel combinations of hook-laden power pop, mystical folk, cool R&B, melodic rock ‘n’ roll and a wondrous balance of perfection and pragmatism, delicate and deliberate, mellow and maverick.