Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
Fleetwood Mac’s landmark album ‘Rumours’ gets re-released next week, and we thought we’d look back at the album to figure out just why it’s so revered throughout the musical community, to the point that it even got its own episode of Glee dedicated to it.
Many albums have a difficult start in life, but Rumours might just be one of the most tumultuous productions ever to pull through the difficulty and pull out the other side. The production of the album was so filled with problems during production it’s a miracle that it even got made, let alone became the unifying factor that would keep the band together for years to come.
Fleetwood Mac was a band built on relationships, with not one, but two couples in the five person group. 1977 though saw both partnerships break down though, with bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine McVie filing for divorce and vocalist Stevie Nicks leaving guitarist Lindsay Buckingham for the arms of drummer Mick Fleetwood.
The sessions were filled with spite and malice, with the band hardly talking to each other between takes of songs that unsubtly had each of the band members washing their dirty laundry right in front of those that had caused the grievances. With the band also falling ill of the vices of success, it lead to many a wasted session and drew divisions between the members.
Despite these cracks so big they can still be seen from space, Rumours is without question not only the best album that Fleetwood Mac would ever make, but one of the best albums of both the decade and, to many, the century.
The band’s ability to cycle their vocalists not only makes Rumours a wonderful varied album on the ear, but also lets each band member to exercise their demons publically, one after the other.
To this day, Rumours is a time defying record, one filled with personal grief, spite and celebration all wrapped up in a instrument package so incredibly inviting that it makes many of the songs anthemic. From the tortured Go Your Own Way, heart-breaking Dreams to The Chain containing one of the famous guitar riffs in music history, Rumours is filled with some of the most iconic moments out of a decade’s worth of music.
It’s an album that contains nearly all of the best Fleetwood Mac songs, classics that are engrained onto the public subconscious in ways that you might not even know. Only Landslide isn’t present out of the truly great songs by the band, with Rumours providing the best education possible as to why the world suddenly fell in love with the group.
The album has been easily the most successful record that Fleetwood Mac ever released, with the album currently the sixth highest album of all time in America and having sold over 40 million copies worldwide by 2009. Needless to say, it’s the album that took Fleetwood Mac from a just an American sensation to a worldwide phenomenon, but has remained a gauntlet the band hasn’t been able to better in the 35 years that have passed since its release.
For those of you out there that are yet to experience the brilliance of Rumours, just do yourself a massive favour, set aside 40 minutes and listen to Rumours from start to finish. Still as engaging, emotional and foot-tapping as it was when it first launched all those years ago, it’s a truly magnificent record that’s more than worthy of your attention.
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is released once again this Monday.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith
Tagged in Fleetwood Mac