Fleetwood Mac and English Rose revolve around Green's economical lead lines and Spencer's Elmore James-style slide work. 

 Fleetwood Mac and English Rose revolve around Green's economical lead lines and Spencer's Elmore James-style slide work. 

 Not surprisingly for an outfit as schizophrenic as Fleetwood Mac, none of its collections adequately captures the band. The Pious Bird is an excellent overview of the group's early Peter Green period. 

 Then Play On is Fleetwood Mac's transition from blues purists to a band that blends elements of psychedelia and British folk rock into a blues-based stew. 

 After Then Play On, Green split for a religious cult and a brief solo career. With Kirwan and Spencer in control, Kiln House is a low-key charmer, radically different from what folks expected from the blues-based Mac. 

 Flashes of Fleetwood Mac's latter-day pop can be found throughout the band's next set of transitional albums. 

 Flashes of Fleetwood Mac's latter-day pop can be found throughout the band's next set of transitional albums. 

 Flashes of Fleetwood Mac's latter-day pop can be found throughout the band's next set of transitional albums. 

 Flashes of Fleetwood Mac's latter-day pop can be found throughout the band's next set of transitional albums. 

 Flashes of Fleetwood Mac's latter-day pop can be found throughout the band's next set of transitional albums. 

 Fleetwood Mac and English Rose revolve around Green's economical lead lines and Spencer's Elmore James-style slide work. 

 Rumours is even better. Using the same formula that propelled Fleetwood Mac, the band upped the quality of the songs. Not only did the album go to Number One, it stayed there for 31 weeks. 

 After striking such a perfect balance between self-expression and commercial appeal, Fleetwood Mac succumbed to studio artiness. The double-disc Tusk reveals Buckingham's secret fixation: to become Brian Wilson with a touch of Brian Eno. 

 On Mirage, Fleetwood Mac returns to simple pleasures, but the band seems to have lost its spirit.  

 Reconvening five years later on Tango in the Night, the group carries on as if it were still 1982–or 1977. The hits "Big Love" and (especially) Christine McVie's "Little Lies" surge with all the relaxed soft-rock grace of yore. 

 Greatest Hits is a fizzy delight–and a good place for the uninitiated to start.  

 Buckingham's L.A. cowboy replacements (Rick Vito and Billy Burnette) add little to the washed-out Behind the Mask.  

 25 Years: The Chain is frustrating; if ever there was a band for which a chronological overview is appropriate, it's Fleetwood Mac, whose evolution from blues to pop came slowly but dramatically. 

 When Nicks left shortly after that album's release, Fleetwood Mac entered yet another phase, though short-lived. 

 Fleetwood Mac's Seventies-era lineup reunited for The Dance, but it seemed more of a business decision than an aesthetic one. In an "MTV Unplugged"-style setting, the band unavoidably devotes most of the album to repeats of its peak-era hits. 

 McVie retired from Fleetwood Mac in 1998, and her pop smarts were missing on Say You Will, the first Fleetwood Mac album with both Buckingham and Nicks in 16 years. 75 minutes of new music was probably about an hour more than fans needed.