Christine McVie – The Past Dispatch

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Say You Will

August 18, 2025August 14, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

As late-career comebacks go, this one’s respectable without ever being revelatory, and lord knows it isn’t succinct, running a minute longer than ‘Tusk’ when half of that would have sufficed.

After reuniting in ’97 and touring until their Hall of Fame induction in ’98, it was inevitable the most beloved version of Fleetwood Mac would make new music. With both Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in the mix for the first time since ‘Tango in the Night’ it also isn’t surprising this behemoth obliterates the stale duds that preceded it.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Mase’s ‘Double Up’

August 13, 2025August 3, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

I almost skipped this entry in my fathoms-deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography on the grounds that it’s utterly trivial and draws unnecessary attention to a certain S. Combs, about whom the less said the better.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Time’

July 4, 2025May 22, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

The kindest thing that can be said about this, an album about which kind things have rarely been uttered, is that it isn’t entirely rubbish. Because I’m a masochist, I’m on my fourth listen of Time as I write — and at least the first three tunes have sunk in enough that I now can hum along to a discernible hook.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ’25 Years – The Chain’

June 30, 2025May 6, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

Once upon a time, when this first-ever fully retrospective Fleetwood Mac box set was new and flooding stores ahead of Christmas ’92, I owned a CD copy that was eventually ripped and purged along with thousands of others during my years-long reinvestment in vinyl.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Brent Bourgeois’ solo debut

July 3, 2025April 28, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

Until I embarked on my shamefully still-unfinished deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography, I was completely unaware of this album’s existence or her involvement therein.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Behind the Mask’

July 3, 2025April 1, 2025 by Bonnie Waters

This flimsy batch, 15 studio sets on, surely rests outside anyone’s list of the best Fleetwood Mac albums. It’s inarguably unmemorable, albeit less forgettable than what came next from this perpetually morphing and disintegrating group.

But having finally given Behind the Mask more than scant attention for the first time since it was new 35 years ago — when it epitomized all that was numbingly dull about rock at the dawn of the ‘90s, shortly before Nirvana-et-al. upended everything — I’m here to report that it doesn’t entirely suck. Depending on your need for seemingly fresh Mac nostalgia, you might actually like it.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: ‘Rock, Rhythm & Blues’

July 3, 2025October 28, 2024 by Bonnie Waters

This is a fun if inconsequential ‘89 salute to early rock ‘n’ roll staples that has gone overlooked for so long, no one’s even bothered to rip a quality copy of the thing onto YouTube.

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Greatest Hits’

June 30, 2025June 27, 2024 by Bonnie Waters

Newbies, start here.
Yes, of course: Every quality collection ought to include Rumours. Bet yours already does. True devotees also would/should want pressings of the self-titled ‘75 LP, probably Tusk, either of the ‘80s titles or both, plus at least a representative platter for both the Bob Welch era (I vote Bare Trees) and the foundational Peter Green years (Then Play On is tops, although there’s a Greatest Hits for that phase as well, from ‘71).

Christine McVie Deep Dive: Christopher Cross’ ‘Back of My Mind’

July 3, 2025June 26, 2024 by Bonnie Waters

From this 21st century vantage point it seems pretty obvious that Christopher Cross was never going to match the improbable success of his start.

Never mind additional hype heaped on him by Grammy voters, who in February ‘81 made him the first (and, until Billie Eilish in 2020, only) recording artist in history with a clean sweep of the top categories, taking home trophies for album, record and song of the year as well as best new artist. (No need to re-litigate past injustices over who or what he beat, like the Pretenders for that last crown or Pink Floyd’s The Wall for the LP prize. It’s well-known the Grammys were myopic and rock-averse back then.)

Christine McVie Deep Dive: The Alternate ‘Tango in the Night’

July 3, 2025June 16, 2024 by Bonnie Waters

This is far from the final installment in my deep dive into Christine McVie’s discography; there are 15 more posts to write after this one. But it is the last (thus far) of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘alternate’ albums comprising demos and different takes of material both beloved and overlooked.