Doing a 180: Every Eagles Album from the ‘70s + Four from Fleetwood Mac

This week, we’ve got a plethora of albums getting the 180-gram vinyl treatment…probably. Once you get into double digits, you’re safe in calling it a plethora, right? Because we’re talking about 10 albums here, and that certainly seems like it should be plethora-worthy, even if there are only two artists represented within those 10 albums.

Eagles, Eagles / Desperado / On the Border / One of These Nights / Hotel California / The Long Run – Nope, we weren’t kidding with the title of this piece: we really have reissued every single one of the six studio albums released by the Eagles during the course of the ‘70s. That said, do you really need to read any more about them at this point? They’ve been spun so many times by now that you probably know ‘em all whether you want to admit it or not, and if you still love ‘em, then you’re gonna want to pick them up, because you also know they’re going to sound absolutely fantastic.

Fleetwood Mac, Then Play On / Kiln House / Future Games / Bare Trees : These albums, on the other hand, warrant a little bit of discussion, because they’re from the pre-Buckingham/Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac, which means that there’s a decent chance that you may never have heard them.

The first of the bunch, Then Play On, is the last of the band’s albums to feature founding member Peter Green in the lineup, and while they’d already had three top-five hits in the UK by this point, their American profile was decidedly lower, and this didn’t particularly do anything to help it. That said, it’s a solid representation of what Fleetwood Mac’s sound was like during the Green era of the band, whereas the follow-up, Kiln House, serves to shine the spotlight on the musical uncertainty that set in after Green’s departure. (It’s not bad, but listening to it now, you’d never have guessed either what the band used to sound like or what their sound would evolve into.)

Future Games, however, is a step forward, with Bob Welch joining the lineup and Christine McVie, who’d chimed in on backing vocals on the previous album, becoming an official member of the band. The next album, Bare Trees, is even better, and although it earns that status through the inclusion of the original version of Welch’s “Sentimental Lady” alone, there are a number of other great songs to be found on the album as well, including McVie’s “Spare Me a Little of Your Love” and Danny Kirwan’s title track. No, it’s not Rumours, but it’s a classic Fleetwood Mac album all the same.