Fleetwood Mac aren’t all about Rumours, and Tusk wasn’t the crazed disaster of lore. Ed Whatley kicks over some statues.

My copy of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was bought from the Music & Video Exchange in London's fashionable Notting Hill Gate. On the sticker was the price, and some wag's inscription – "Better than Pet Sounds". Pet Sounds is of course critical shorthand for "best of top 5 shoo-in", and Brian Wilson's name spoken only in hushed, awed tones.

In the years since, more and more people have come to agree. And the mega-multi-maxi-selling slice of pure 70s soft gold has gone from critically discarded guilty pleasure back to the top of any music fan’s iCanon, sometimes accompanied by its predecessor, the eponymous first outing for the Rumours line-up.

But let's go a little further. Fleetwood Mac were the greatest band of the American 70s. That they managed this while selling over 40 million albums is proof that sometimes the man in the street gets it spectacularly right. The reason they were the greatest is Lindsey Buckingham. And while his silverspring genius was all over Fleetwood Mac and Rumours, it's the records that bookended those two that seal the deal. Tusk - a four million seller you always saw in charity shops throughout the 90s, and Buckingham Nicks - Lindsey and Stevie's little known pre-Mac flop.

Tusk is a ridiculous record. It's three entirely different albums made to hang out with each other like a brat, a teen and tween at a family gathering. Who, it turns out, get along like a house on fire. Christine McVie plays her haunted blues ballads, dressed up in the slickest LA finery, straight and grave. Stevie Nicks' confidence and ability peak on reverb and white magic masterpieces like Sara and Beautiful Child.

Then there's Lindsey - the brat, ADDing all over the place on 40 cups of squash (all right, it wasn't squash). Some of his songs sound like a rat in a box, screeching and hitting the sides. The tightest, best musicians in LA making up what they thought punk sounded like without ever having heard it. His gift for the mellifluous doesn't get a look-in. This is the sound of someone flicking the Vs at a decade of he and his contemporaries flattening everything into a haze of FM bliss, but unable to stop it sounding just as glorious.

Six years previously, at the other end of the landslide of success, you have Buckingham Nicks. Free of the celeb rhythm section, this is the purest shot of Lindsey you can get. It is diaphanous finger-picked blissed-out magic from start to finish. If you're a guitarist, you'd better be up to scratch if you name a song Django and you don't want to end up shooting rats in a train yard. For some unimaginable reason, it's been out of print for years. But do yourself a solid and download it.

You might want to make a case for someone else being the greatest of the era. Neil Young, Dylan, Steely Dan, Wonder. I'm sticking with Lindsey and Stevie.