Mirage by Fleetwood Mac

Mirage, Fleetwood Mac's thirteenth studio album, came out on Warner Bros. in 1982 with Lindsey Buckingham producing, and after the wild, sprawling experiments of Tusk it sounds like a deliberate exhale. Mick Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, Buckingham and Stevie Nicks went back to smooth, shimmering soft rock: glossy harmonies, clean guitar, choruses that glide rather than lurch.

The singles poured out. "Hold Me" was the big American hit, "Gypsy" reached number 12 in the States, and "Love in Store", "Oh Diane" and "Can't Go Back" kept the record busy on both sides of the Atlantic; "Wish You Were Here" even got a Jamaica-only release and went to the top there. It's the sound of a band with nothing left to prove, polishing its own reflection, and "Gypsy" is the track the countdowns keep coming back to.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.