Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' at 35: Still the 'perfect album'
 

By Katie McLaughlin, CNN
updated 9:56 AM EDT, Tue June 26, 2012

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/26/showbi...html?hpt=hp_c2


(CNN) -- After a year of 10-to-14 hour workdays, the use of seven recording studios and just under $1 million in production costs, Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" was released in 1977 -- and it hasn't fallen out of rotation since.

The classic disc was the No. 1 album on the charts for 31 weeks, with Rolling Stone naming "Rumours" the 25th greatest album of all time. It is the 10th best-selling album ever with more than 40 million copies sold to date, and it features four top 10 singles.

It won the 1977 best album Grammy and, 35 years later, remains the band's most successful effort.

Ken Caillat, author of the new book, "Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album," was the iconic album's engineer/co-producer. (He's also the father of Grammy-winning singer Colbie Caillat and produced her No. 1 album, "Breakthrough.")

Ken Caillat today.
"Rumours," Caillat said, is the "perfect album because it had this really great combination of lyrics and ... well-thought-out musical components," he told CNN. "It's the perfect ride for the perfect time."

But Fleetwood Mac's story began in another decade on another continent. And as fate would have it, the only two members who were with the group from the start are its namesakes: Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

Fleetwood Mac was originally a blues-format group formed in England in 1967 by Fleetwood, McVie, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer.

In 1970, Green left the group and McVie's wife, keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie, joined. Spencer left that same year, and the late guitarist Bob Welch joined. The group relocated to California in 1974.

Welch, who took his own life earlier this month, resigned in December 1974 and was replaced by guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks. By the time Buckingham and Nicks joined, Fleetwood Mac had put out 10 albums but had yet to have a big hit in the U.S.

The 'Rumours' album cover.
The 'Rumours' album cover.
The 'Rumours' album cover.
In the book, Caillat described "Rumours," Fleetwood Mac's second album with Nicks and Buckingham, as "a journey that a handful of people ... took during the mid-1970s." It was "made out of flaws in the human spirit, sometimes through agonizing determination, love, lust, and a force of will that made failure unthinkable."

Recording began on "Rumours" on January 28, 1976, at the Record Plant in Sausalito, California. Twelve days earlier, Caillat had never even heard of the band, but that would soon change because 1975's eponymous "Fleetwood Mac" album ("Rhiannon," "Say You Love Me") was beginning to climb the charts.

"What's ironic is that throughout the 'Rumours' journey, Fleetwood Mac went from one end of the fame spectrum to the other," Caillat noted. "That day in Sausalito, when we walked into the studio to start recording, they were an established band, but you could hardly say they were rock stars. Before we even released 'Rumours,' that had changed dramatically."

Although Nicks arguably became the best-known member of Fleetwood Mac, when they first started recording "Rumours," many involved with the project thought she was the band's weakest link, Caillat said.

"She was somewhat of a sweet hippie chick, and she didn't have a lot of technical knowledge about music and instrumentation," he said. "Ultimately, her ethereal songwriting and vocals added a dimension ... that was every bit as essential as any other band member's contributions." (Incidentally, Nicks wrote the band's only No. 1 hit, "Dreams.")

Caillat described Buckingham, who often clashed with band mates, as "extraordinarily talented" as well as "unpredictable," "brilliant but difficult."

However, Caillat said, "with Lindsey's contribution ... everyone in the world who'd ever heard a song on the radio would eventually know who Fleetwood Mac was by the time 'Rumours' had run its course."

In the book, Caillat described the unique way in which Buckingham taught himself guitar.

He uses his fingernails instead of a pick, which is quite common, except instead of plucking strings upward individually, he can play more than one string at a time by stroking down --- and up -- with the backs of his nails, which allows him to play several notes at once. Buckingham honed this skill years before joining Fleetwood Mac when he was bedridden with mononucleosis for six months.

At the time they were recording the album, all five band mates were going through painful breakups: The McVies were divorcing, Buckingham and Nicks' long-term relationship was coming to a bitter end and Fleetwood's wife was about to leave him for his best friend. It's all personal drama that Caillat chronicles in his book.

"In retrospect, it's a miracle that we were able to finish 'Rumours,' " he said. "But later, I came to understand that 'Rumours' probably succeeded because it was brilliant group therapy. ... It's horrible that if it hadn't been for all of the relationship turmoil in the band, you wouldn't know this record any better than some of the previous Fleetwood Mac records."

Sadness was contagious in the studio, which Caillat said was besieged with arguments, drugs and alcohol.

During the summer of '76, the band took a break from recording "Rumours" to go on tour to promote their "Fleetwood Mac" album. It was the first time Buckingham and Nicks had played in front of a very large crowd, and the concert tour propelled the band to superstardom.

Even though "Fleetwood Mac" was released in July of 1975, it finally hit No. 1 in September of 1976. As soon as the album began to lose momentum, the record label wanted the band to have the first single off "Rumours" -- "Go Your Own Way" -- ready to go.

Caillat recalled that it was John McVie who came up with the album's title.

"John told us about a brainstorm he had recently had," he said. "With all the rumors flying around about this album, why don't we call the album 'Rumours'? But let's spell it the English way."

Another major step involved in creating what would become an iconic album was selecting song sequence, which was "crucial because it can make or break the album's success." The idea was to make it compelling and tell a story through music.

"Back then," Caillat said, "running orders were important; and because it was vinyl, you'd put the needle down and listen to side one all the way through to side two, and it was just like going to Six Flags -- you'd get lifted up on a high song and it'd slow down a bit; again, perfect! And I can only take a little bit of credit for that, but I was really proud to be a part of that."

Caillat told CNN that he believes "Rumours" still resonates to this day "because it's great music. It happened to be created out of a lot of pain and suffering and sincerity and it just so happens that every song is great, every lyric is great, and every song has something that seems to appeal to someone -- except me."

That's right -- Caillat can no longer bear to listen to "Rumours."

"I see all the little pieces and I can visualize the arguments and I see the assembly of it all," he said. "I can see behind the curtain, so to speak."

However, part of the reason Caillat knew that the story of "Rumours" needed to be told was because "we experienced something extraordinary, something bigger than all of us."

On the CNN page for this article, the story highlights state this:
When recording began, Fleetwood Mac had yet to have a hit in the U.S.

Huh? Rhiannon, Say You Love Me, Over My head were hits in the US, no?

Yes, and because that first album was doing well was one of the reasons Ken said he was eager to work with them. Of course, it continued to gain steam even while they were working on #2.

Interesting that he says he can no longer bear to listen to Rumours.

Michele

Yes, and because that first album was doing well was one of the reasons Ken said he was eager to work with them. Of course, it continued to gain steam even while they were working on #2. White hadn't peaked yet, when they began production.

Interesting that he says he can no longer bear to listen to Rumours.

Michele

Well, that pretty much makes 2 of us. :lol: Neither can I.

I just checked - these tunes didn't chart until Spring/Summer/Fall '76 - after the recording of Rumours began. So technically that statement is correct.

Oh wow. I checked too and it seems Over My Head peaked on the Hot 100 Billboard Chart/US on January 17, 1976.
Did production start for Rumours in February 1976? So technically if the latter is true, then the article is not exactly true.
Overall, I guess it's not too important and obviously I have issues with CNN. :p

Rookie Mag
http://rookiemag.com/2012/08/tunes-for-travelers/

Rumours
Fleetwood Mac
1977, Warner Bros.

It often begins with a tacit love of Stevie. You need to hear her soft craggy voice, you find yourself listening to “Gold Dust Woman.” You dig the hits, you cringe a little when you hear Lindsey Buckingham sing, “Lay me down in the tall grass / And let me do my stuff,” because you know he is talking about doing “stuff” to/with Stevie, and it’s kind of like watching your parents flirt. You stare at the cover and wonder, Did Mick Fleetwood dress like he was going to a ren fair all the time? Why are there balls hanging from his pants? and find that your pattern for listening to the record has changed. Rather than skipping to just the Stevie songs and then the hits in the order you prefer, you now listen to the whole thing, start to finish. By summer’s end, you have realized that Christine McVie sighing “Oh, Daddy” is the heaviest moment of the record, and that she is the unsung genius of the band in her blousy gownage. You get lost in the pure Los Angeles magic of the album: the nigh time songs are spare and sparkly, the daytime songs are full and bright, bleached in the sun. The California of Rumours is not the California we previously knew of from pop records—it is not beaches, cars, bikini’d girls all a-frolic in the adolescent memories of men. Rumours is dark hippie glamour. It is up in the shade and shadow of the hills; it is the drive from Topanga Canyon to Malibu at night; it is grown up, complex, and bleak. —Jessica

Again .The lazy media skipped doing their research homework.

Yes Indeed Still the 'perfect album' .

I think Rhiannon and SYLM only became hits once they started recording Rumours? I think Ken mentioned it in his book? But they seem to forgot about Over My Head though.

Still in Rotation is a feature that lets talented writers tell Midlife Mixtape readers about an album they discovered years ago that’s still in heavy rotation, and why it has such staying power. Want to play? Email dj@midlifemixtape.com with “Guest Post” in the subject line.

http://midlifemixtape.com/2012/08/st...n-rumours.html

Still in Rotation: Rumours (Fleetwood Mac)

By Nancy Davis Kho · August10th,2012

Today’s guest post is by my friend across the Bay, Tarja a.k.a The Flying Chalupa. Funny as all get out, Tarja also has a distinctive and poetic voice that puts her a cut above most humor writers. I’d resent her for being so much younger than I, but for the fact that she’s still changing diapers and I’ve gone a full decade without touching one. And even if she’s entirely wrinkle-free, she has the good sense to keep Rumours – the second album I ever owned - on heavy rotation over at her place.

Fleetwood Mac was an oasis in the desert for me. And while I grew up in the literal desert of Saudi Arabia, I’m talking about a pop cultural desert, because, well, it was Saudi Arabia. There was no radio and there was certainly no MTV. There was Channel 3, which started at 4:00pm and was interrupted by Prayer Intermission at least twice.

I grew up with whatever music my parents brought back from our vacations to the States, and in 1987, Fleetwood Mac Rumours hit me like a ton of acoustic bricks. Yes, for those who are counting, that would be ten years after the album debuted, truly second hand news, but wondrous to my ten-year-old ears: sexy, romantic, illicit even. These were not sedate people, these were people of action creating music of movement! The songs required singing and dancing! Stevie Nicks was wearing black pointe shoes on the album cover! This was no traditional performance of Coppelia – this was the daring and unpredictable theater of the heart. As a rule-following pink pointe shoe ballet dancer, I was hooked.

The beauty of Fleetwood Mac is that the fun of pop is grounded by a bluesy sensibility, with the voices of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks bringing an emotional depth to Lindsey Buckingham’s eyeliner – I mean, guitar. I adore individual songs from other albums like “Rhiannon” and “Little Lies” and “Landslide,” but it’s the whole composition of the Rumours album that hits all points so well: high and low; light and dark.

The inkling of sex that the album revealed to me in 1987 was, of course, the romantic entanglements of the band. There was Lindsey and Stevie with their on-off affair, Christine and John McVie had divorced, and Mick Fleetwood discovered his wife was having an affair with his best friend. So what I’m saying is…Rumours is defined by love, the lack of it, the joy, the betrayal.

All I knew was that Lindsey wanted someone to lay him down in the tall grass and let him do his stuff (bow-bow-bow-bow-bow-bow-doo-de-doodlee-doo!) and jesus could that man play the guitar. He might have a name that would get him pummeled by a Texas pee-wee football team, but Lindsey Buckingham’s work on “Never Going Back Again” is pure magic.

Rumours took me through the horror of high school based solely on my certainty that Stevie Nicks wrote “Dreams” about how teenage boys were assholes: ”thunder only happens when it’s raining, players only love you when they’re playing.” Speak it, sister. ****ing players. Sob! Let me sell you my dreams of loneliness!

And here’s where the album provided much fodder for my theatrical nature. While a part of me loved – and took seriously – the drama of the songs, another part of me – let’s call her “John Cleese” – enjoyed ridiculing this very drama. Especially on the song “Oh Daddy.” OH DADDY! Is that great or what? It is this very song that epitomizes 1970′s cheeseball. Together now, let us picture the band in their little Sausalito recording studio (right down the street from me!), singing in all earnestness, “I’m so weak and you’re so strong!” With my sister harmonizing dramatically, “DAMMIT SO STRONG!”

So while I carry the beauty of “Songbird” and “Gold Dust Woman” with me, Rumours also provides me with a lot of laughs. Is that strange? I’ve felt so emotionally fulfilled by Fleetwood Mac, a band who’s watched me evolve through two and a half decades, and yet I have no desire to see how they’ve evolved. I don’t want to watch a reunion tour or TV special to remind me that they’re bloated and blasted from partying hard and that I’m bloated and blasted from mothering hard.

No. Stevie Nicks will always be wearing her black pointe shoes. Eyeliner and black vests will always accompany fingers that fly over a Gibson Les Paul guitar. The feathered hair nest still triumphs.

Everything about this made me happy!!

Stuff.Co.NZ
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/...ithout-Rumours

Album I couldn't live without: Rumours,

CHRIS HORMANN, 20/09/2012

The album I couldn't live without has to be one by Fleetwood Mac album.

And while I'm tempted to have Tusk as my essential album - an eclectic mix of pop, rock and primal scream therapy - it is hard to go past Rumours.

Every single track is essential but for different reasons and, for an album I have played hundreds of times, I still find new parts to enjoy.

Some regard this album as easy listening fluff, but it contains an incredibly dark heart which is offset by some of the most gorgeous melodies in popular music.

If I were to pick my top three tracks from the album, I would go with the beautiful simplicity of Never Going Back Again, the plea for unity of The Chain (the harmonies in the chorus kill me every time), while Silver Springs (originally only a B-side but restored to the album in later releases) is the reason I love Stevie Nicks, all stalker menace crossed with plaintive regret.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/...ithout-Rumours

Album I couldn't live without: Rumours


CHRIS HORMANN Last updated 07:31 20/09/2012

The album I couldn't live without has to be one by Fleetwood Mac album.

And while I'm tempted to have Tusk as my essential album - an eclectic mix of pop, rock and primal scream therapy - it is hard to go past Rumours.

Every single track is essential but for different reasons and, for an album I have played hundreds of times, I still find new parts to enjoy.

Some regard this album as easy listening fluff, but it contains an incredibly dark heart which is offset by some of the most gorgeous melodies in popular music.

If I were to pick my top three tracks from the album, I would go with the beautiful simplicity of Never Going Back Again, the plea for unity of The Chain (the harmonies in the chorus kill me every time), while Silver Springs (originally only a B-side but restored to the album in later releases) is the reason I love Stevie Nicks, all stalker menace crossed with plaintive regret.

[Liked this Onion-style rambling]

Death and Taxes, January 4, 2013

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/1929...-says-blogger/

‘Rumors’ era Fleetwood Mac still totally ‘the jam’, says blogger
By Ned Hepburn 2 hours ago

There are reports coming from just outside of Park Slope, Brooklyn, that “Rumors”-era Fleetwood Mac still totally kicks ass. This rediscovery allegedly took place during what some are calling a “slow news day” when there was little else to report on, other than that whole fiscal cliff/ debt limit thing, but to be honest we don’t know a lot about that sort of thing and couldn’t be bothered to read more than a few words before giving up and wondering how we managed to eat an entire sleeve of cookies in one sitting.

“‘Dreams’ is still ****ing great,” said handsome, rich, and modest blogger Ned Hepburn, “I mean, the whole album is really good. Nobody has put out an album like this in forever. This **** has ‘Go Your Own Way’ on it AND ‘The Chain’ on it. Did you know ‘The Chain’ is the only song of theirs credited to all five members?” Hepburn then offered his opinion on Fleetwood Mac vocalist and songwriter Stevie Nicks, saying “And Stevie Nicks used to be pretty banging, too. Her solo career wasn’t exactly terrible but everyone peaked at ‘Rumors’, man.” Immediately after making these statements he microwaved some Bagel Bites™ like an adult because that is what adults eat. He then closed his bedroom door and was not available for further comment.

A Millennial Stands Up For Fleetwood Mac

Nicky Smith, Splice Today, January 4, 2013


Slough off the disdain of Boomers and listen to Rumours.

The greatness of Fleetwood Mac is not in dispute. Listen not to your Baby Boom elders who slogged and maybe suffered through the summers of the late-1970s when Rumours and Tusk owned the radio and filled arenas and stadiums. Their burden is great, having grown up in the late-60s when a chilly November could see the release of The White Album, Beggars Banquet, and Song Cycle all in the same week, and new heroes were on television and subverting a constricting culture based on conformity and shame right before your eyes. Everyone knows popular music since the 60s has existed in the shadow of it: everyone is influenced by the Beatles but no one will ever top them, so they say. I’m a Millennial, and finding our own musical heroes is tough in an era when few truly righteous bands or artists attain mass popularity and are able to headline arenas and make multi-million-dollar albums. That stuff’s reserved for pop lip-synchers, meme-generators, and porn stars these days.

Maybe that’s why the music of Fleetwood Mac is seeing such a strong surge in interest among the Millennials. A friend made a good point: “Don’t Stop” is embedded in the consciousness of 90s kids from the ’92 and ’96 Clinton campaigns, so the sound has been in our heads even if we didn’t know the material well. But stymied by dismissive dads who saw Fleetwood Mac as what the Ramones were fighting against, it’s taken until our early 20s to discover how amazing this band is. Brilliant popsmiths composing ecstatic, emotionally potent music with an extracurricular soap opera going on between members, and constant back and forth dialogues in the ****ing songs. It’s fascinating to watch Stevie seethe when she sings Buckingham’s nasty riposte “Go Your Own Way,” or John McVie’s cringing during “You Make Loving Fun.” Speaking of which, check out this amazing performance of the Christine McVie song from 1977 here:

Everything about this song is glorious and ecstatic: the Gm-F-Eb chord structure and McVie’s rich, husky vocals are the sound of total trust and infatuation. Rumours might be the most optimistic record of all time. The sound is isn’t just reassuring, it’s victorious. It’s the sound of love bursting in every direction and the feeling you get in your gut sometimes thinking about your partner, your family, your friends, a deeply satisfying drip of oxytocin in your brain that reminds you of being in the womb. It’s every triumphant and peaceful experience you’ve ever had. Buckingham’s lead vocal around 3:48 is raucous and incredibly moving, delirious glee with this feeling of earthly satisfaction and incredible luck at getting this person into your life. This is just how I received “You Make Loving Fun” on first listen, unaware of Rumours as anything other than an album that sold really well, like an REO Speedwagon or Asia record. The ubiquity of those mid-late 70s albums in millions of kids’ homes in the 80s and 90s may have turned off as many as they turned on, but having been underexposed all my life, I only now understand how Rumours could be one the most popular albums ever: it’s the human ideal, mushy love, understanding, forgiveness. It transcends schmaltz into the heavens.

—Follow Nicky Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER1992

4 out of 5 stars by Bernard Zuel, The Sydney Morning Herald,
January 19, 2013

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...117-2cudi.html

Approaching the 35-year-old Rumours fresh is nigh on impossible unless perhaps you have grown up in a yurt outside Ulan Bator. Even then, I bet Stevie Nicks's voice has wafted across the steppes singing ''but listen carefully to the sound of your loneliness/like a heartbeat, drives you mad'' and many a discussion has been had over a steaming glass of horse milk on the vexed question of whether Lindsey Buckingham was out of line with his crack about ''packing up, shacking up is all you want to do''.

This 1977 mega-seller is the quintessential mid-'70s pop of an indulgent Los Angeles as well as the clinching argument for the truism that if you start a relationship with a band member, make sure it's not one who can write a song about you. Since we all know the songs and the backstory, we can't come without prejudice to the remastered edition, now variously packaged with B-sides, rarities, a live disc, vinyl and a documentary on DVD.

Still, you could start by looking at the album through something other than the prism of the Nicks/Buckingham songs, giving more attention to the subtle playing of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie but especially to the songs of the too easily forgotten, quiet/not bitter one, Christine McVie.


Quintessential mid-'70s pop ... Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

Buckingham's Second Hand News kicks off the album with a buoyant rhythm and a little randiness. McVie's You Make Loving Fun has an equally sensual subtext, a compulsive little groove from that rhythm section and energy breaking out of the pillow-soft harmonies via a cracking Buckingham guitar line.

If Buckingham's blue-sky Go Your Own Way feels like an encapsulation of driving some long road in the '70s, then McVie's Don't Stop seems tailor-made for a confident strut in flares, wide lapels and a lot of hair. And as sadly resigned and yet lushly appealing as Nicks's Dreams is, there's nothing on Rumours near as quietly beautiful and happily melancholic as McVie's Songbird.

If you're already sold on the album, you may be wondering if it's worth getting the extras. Although it has some decent crunch at times and includes Rhiannon, Nicks's hit from Rumours' self-titled predecessor, I don't think much is to be gained from the live disc. For committed fans, there are more rewards in the rarities/demo material. The demo of The Chain has an eerie, foreboding element to it that suggests it could have been a completely different song; likewise an early version of Silver Springs is lower, less optimistic and intriguing. And for those who doubted at the time, Nicks's compelling and stark Planets of the Universe - a demo not released until 2004 - will convince you there was a lot more than scarves and witchy stuff going on there.



FLEETWOOD MAC


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/...#ixzz2ILrgpV9C

Female First, January 24, 2013
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/music/f...ac-276608.html
Fleetwood Mac - A Look Back At 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

The Telegraph, January 27, 2013 by James Lachno

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...l-love-it.html

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours: Why the under-30s still love it
Ahead of the release of a special boxset edition of the Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, James Lachno argues that the 1977 album has survived better than its punk rivals.

This Monday, a three-disc, 35th anniversary boxset of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 masterpiece Rumours will be released. There’s never been a better time to celebrate the band and their gorgeous 11th album, both of which are more popular and fashionable than ever.

For many music fans in their mid twenties, Rumours has been the soundtrack to large portions of our lives. During my childhood, it used to initiate a brief ceasefire between me and my sister as we squabbled during long car journeys, and in my teens, Songbird often featured on the giddily romantic mix CDs I made for girlfriends. Recently, Go Your Own Way and The Chain – better known as the BBC's Formula One theme tune – have become 2am favourites for bleary-eyed twentysomethings desperate to keep a house party going. By contrast, pioneering punk hits released in the same year such as God Save the Queen and White Riot never seem to get a look in.


But why is Rumours so beloved among my generation? Its resilient popularity is, of course, in part due to the timeless quality of the music, which is warm and sweetly melodic, with coruscating harmonies, breezy rhythms, and virtuoso guitar flourishes. By 1977, Fleetwood Mac had had almost a decade to hone their songcraft, via several line-up changes and subtle changes in style, and Rumours shows a band at the pinnacle of their pop powers. It’s an album that’s chock-full of potential singles, all lushly produced to create an almost faultless, glossy soft-rock sound. It’s sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the bestselling albums of all time, and everyone from family pop quartet The Corrs to Californian hardcore band NOFX have covered its songs. All of this is testament to its broad appeal.

But there’s more to it than that: right now the hippest bands around all want to sound like Fleetwood Mac. What started in the late-2000s with US folk-rock revivalists such as Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver has built up a head of steam. Last year saw the release of fine albums from trendy US acts such as Best Coast and Sharon Von Etten that bore the unmistakable influence of Fleetwood Mac’s classic Seventies period, as did work from blockbuster pop artists Mumford and Sons and Taylor Swift. Barely a cigarette paper, meanwhile, can separate the sound of Stevie Nicks’s songs from Rumours and those of the BBC's feted Sound Of 2013 poll winners, Haim.

Where a decade or so ago the success of New Yorkers The Strokes and British quartet The Libertines led young music fans to devour the visceral debuts released during 1977’s punk explosion – from Television to The Clash – the resurgence in hook-laden guitar-pop has led us back to Rumours.

My generation, meanwhile, can enjoy the album without any of the baggage. We weren’t born until a decade after it came out, and didn’t live through the punk tribalism of the late-Seventies that would have made it so uncool to be the fan of such a “safe” album.

For us, Rumours stands out for its artistic merits. We love it for its easy hooks, and its raw emotion – real stories of love, heartbreak and despair that still resonate. Whether we’re aware of the dysfunctional partner-swapping, cocaine binges and paranoid atmosphere that provided the backdrop to the album’s recording sessions in 1976 is irrelevant. Anguished, vulnerable and embittered lines such as “players only love you when they’re playing” from Dreams will always strike an emotional chord.

Fleetwood Mac will tour for the first time since 2009 later this year, and a headline slot at Glastonbury would have offered a fitting opportunity for my friends and me to toast their current popularity. Much to our disappointment, however, the band's US tour commitments have cruelly ruled out an appearance at the UK festival, leaving us with nothing but Rumours – and those wee-hours party playlists.


Rumours 35th Anniversary 3CD Deluxe Edition boxset is released on Monday, January 28

The Oxford, by Oliver Hancock, January 27, 2013
http://oxfordstudent.com/2013/01/27/...-macs-rumours/


Back with Second Hand News: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours

I remember reading an issue of Rolling Stone a few years ago about the ‘100 Greatest Albums of All Time’, and thinking about how these countdowns might differ in different magazines – NME’s top 10 will almost certainly not be the same as Kerrang’s.

Getting down to the top 10, all the usual candidates I would expect in modern music magazines were there (The Beatles, Stones, Dylan etc.), but the number 4 on the list was an album I’d never really heard of: Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. I wondered how an album considered canonical by one of the world’s biggest music magazines could have passed me by; why all the ‘Top 100…’ articles I’d read in British magazines could have ignored Rumours in the top bracket. The album itself was popular and critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic, unsurprising given the Anglo-American core of the band, and yet an avid reader of British music magazines in the 21st-century might never consider Fleetwood Mac’s seminal LP in the same bracket as many of the well-trodden ‘classic’ albums.

This has the chance to change with the impending re-release of Rumours, more than 25 years after its original release. Whether milking a cash-cow or hoping to disseminate their work to a new, younger audience, there is a sense that such an album is coming at the right time. The musicianship of the songs forms an interesting juxtaposition to the works of many of today’s new breed of guitar bands (From The Vaccines to Palma Violets), and, despite the recordings having inevitably aged, the songs themselves remain just as potent as they did in the 1970s.

When looking back upon the process of its recording, it is hard to fathom that such cohesive, well-written pop songs coincided with a time when the relationships in the band were falling apart; songs like the Nicks-penned ‘Dreams’ and Buckingham’s ‘Go Your Own Way’ even seem a direct discourse, the ‘unfurled back and forth’ Buckingham would later recall in ‘Eyes of the World’. Yet in such a capable group of musicians and songwriters, the talent will always out, and a real ear for melody and intelligently crafted lyrics interact in such a way that can seldom be accidental.

Despite a deceptive amount of experimentation, there is always a sense, simply, that each addition works; the driving rhythm of ‘Second Hand News’, made by McVie hitting his drum stool, the explosive coda of ‘The Chain’, the only song written by all five bandmates, and the now iconic ‘Go Your Own Way’, a song that was nearly scrapped as a single for having ‘no real beat’. Each song knows what it is doing and does it well- every addition stands alone as much as forms part of the album’s overall dynamic.

One could argue that such a mode of song-writing has been lost in recent guitar bands, and the next generation of NME bands could do worse than get themselves a copy of Fleetwood Mac’s best LP. The creative harmonic interchange in songs like ‘Second Hand News’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ shows that a use of familiar modular chords can still avoid sounding dull and derivative (something that bands like Tribes and The Vaccines have yet to learn). There can be many discussions about what makes a classic album, but for sheer song-writing talent, Rumours deserves its place amongst the greats.

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is out on reissue from 29th January published by Rhino Records.

Great review:thumbsup:

Here in the UK the critics have always been a bit lukewarm about this line-up of the band (maybe because some still can't see past the Peter Green era) but I've noticed them getting a really good press lately.

The Daily Express and Daily Mail (not that I buy either but did flick through them) gave the re-issue 5 stars and were very complimentary about them in general.

Oh, your post reminded me to go check out their websites. Thank you.

Michele

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...bum-twist.html

It's still MACnificent! 35 years on, classic Fleetwood Mac album Rumours is back with a twist

By Adrian Thrills, The Daily Mail UK, January 24, 2013

Verdict: *****

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours wasn’t so much a rock record as a fully fledged soap opera.

Fuelled by drugs and tangled romances, it chronicled the five members’ raw emotions with classic songs like Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way and Dreams.

Keyboardist Christine McVie described the sessions as a ‘nightly cocktail party’ while drummer Mick Fleetwood said they were ‘crucifyingly difficult’.

But the Anglo-Americans pressed on to finish ‘the most important album we ever made’.

On Monday — 35 years after its original release — Rumours is back. The landmark album is being re-issued in two packages with bonus material, out-takes and live recordings to mark the band’s reunion tour (UK dates are expected to be in late September).

A three-CD version, selling at around £12, contains the original album, bonus tracks and the live material. For Mac maniacs, a ‘deluxe’ edition, close to £50, is bolstered by further outtakes, a DVD and copy of Rumours on vinyl.

So how does it all stand up three-and-a-half decades on? Very well indeed. Echoes of the album’s radio-friendly hooks and harmonies can now be heard in modern bands like The Pierces and Haim.

The album has even been the focus of a TV episode of Glee, while an a cappella cover of Don’t Stop is currently heard on a Seat cars’ advert.

The main reason why Rumours continues to fascinate is the way it vividly documents the band’s twisted relationships. Mick was in the throes of a painful divorce from Jenny Boyd and would go on to have an affair with Mac singer Stevie Nicks.

Bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine had just broken up after eight years of marriage, while Stevie and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were heading for the rocks following a five-year romance.

The band poured the trauma into their writing: Buckingham’s Go Your Own Way was a hurtful parting shot at Nicks, who responded with Dreams; Christine McVie aimed Don’t Stop at John to show him how she had moved on; he suggested the title Rumours because the group, without admitting it, were all writing songs about each other.

The songs pushed founder members Mick and John away from their roots in British blues to something that sounds contemporary even today.

The rollicking Don’t Stop remains a radio staple while The Chain is the BBC’s theme tune for its Formula 1 coverage.

Stevie once told me: ‘What I remember aren’t the bad nights when we weren’t speaking to one another but the night Dreams was written.

'I walked in and handed a rough cassette to Lindsey. He was mad with me at the time but he played it and looked up at me and smiled.

‘We knew what was going on was very sad. We were couples who couldn’t make it through the perils of fame but we still looked on each other with a lot of respect. It was a shame we had to break up but we got Go Your Own Way and Dreams out of it all. How upset can you be about that?’

The bonus material is strong — especially the songs left off the original album. Of the alternate versions of album tracks, the picks are an early incarnation of Dreams and a new version of I Don’t Want To Know. Less impressive are the jam sessions on the deluxe edition, while the live songs from 1977 don’t add anything.

But the real joys are to be found by listening again to the original, 39-minute album. It’s no wonder Fleetwood Mac were so keen to overcome the tribulations and finish a record with some of the catchiest, most intriguing songs of the Seventies.



RUMOURS AND FACTS

The album topped the U.S. chart for 31 weeks — and has now sold 40 million copies worldwide.

The sleeve features Herbert Worthington’s black-and-white photo of Stevie Nicks and soon-to-be-lover Mick Fleetwood.

Rumours won a Grammy for album of the year in 1978.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...#ixzz2JD78eoMM
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Thanks for posting that Michele.

This was from The Daily Express (25/1/13)
www.express.co.uk/music

FLEETWOOD MAC: Rumours - 35th Anniversary
3CD Deluxe Edition ***** (Rhino)

If you do not have this seminal, wonderful album in your collection, why not?
If you do why not get this too, a very collectible bumper 3CD edition of the album that changed many people's worlds and shone a light into the lives of aspiring singer-songwriters the globe over.

It's dazzling compositions such as Dreams, Go Your Own Way and Don't Stop have proven lucratively slick for not only Fleetwood Mac but the dozens of artists who have covered them since.

Originally released in 1977 this celebratory collection includes remasters, B-sides, live recordings and is still perfect.

STEPHEN UNWIN





This was another review from The Mail On Sunday (27/1/13)

FLEETWOOD MAC RUMOURS 35TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION
*****
Generation after generation loves Fleetwood Mac's luscious, 40 million-selling 1977 soft-rock classic Rumours, we are often told, because with the band's two couples both enduring painful splits, they poured their woes into the songs.

From the nervy explosion of Lindsey Buckingham's Go Your Own Way to the rebound celebration of Christine McVie's You Make Loving Fun, Rumours is a vindication of messy workplace romances.

The add-ons here only gild the lily of a more or less perfect record.

ADAM WOODS

Thanks Dragon Fly, because I didn't see the Daily Express one.

Michele

Ultimate Classic Rock Fleetwood Mac, ‘Rumours (Expanded Edition)’ — Album Review, January 27, 2013

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/fleet...dition-review/

by Michael Gallucci

Breakup albums don’t get much better than ‘Rumours,’ Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 blockbuster that was recorded as band members went through various stages of relationship adjustment. When they made their breakthrough self-titled album in 1975, Fleetwood Mac included two couples, one married; by the time ‘Rumours’ was released, they were broken up. Listen to the record, and you’ll get an idea what happened.

The ‘Expanded Edition’ of ‘Rumours’ – which includes a disc of live tracks and a CD of outtakes and alternate versions – makes things even more clear. In an early take of Lindsey Buckingham’s ‘Go Your Own Way,’ he sings “You can roll like thunder,” a direct reference to former girlfriend Stevie Nicks’ lyric in ‘Dreams’ — “Thunder only happens when it’s raining.” The additional line makes a bitchy breakup song even bitchier.

And that’s where this ‘Expanded Edition,’ which tacks on 29 songs to the original ‘Rumours,’ earns its price tag (there’s also a new deluxe that includes a DVD, vinyl copy of ‘Rumours’ and a CD of outtakes that was included in the 2004 reissue). The early, sometimes raw versions of these familiar tracks are occasionally revealing, especially Buckingham’s sketchier cuts, like early takes of ‘Second Hand News’ and ‘I Don’t Want to Know,’ where he’s finding universal footing on deeply personal songs.

Nicks’ tracks, on the other hand, are mostly fully formed here. In fact, an early take of ‘Silver Springs’ – one of her best songs, initially left off ‘Rumours’ but reinstated here and on the 2004 reissue as part of the original album – is better than the released version. A handful of other leftovers (including one from the band’s other singer-songwriter, Christine McVie) were wisely left off the 1977 masterpiece.

The live cuts, taken from a few different shows on the 1977 tour, don’t stray far from the studio versions. Most are ‘Rumours’ songs, with a few from ‘Fleetwood Mac’ (‘Monday Morning,’ ‘Rhiannon’ and a rumbling ‘World Turning’) tossed in. The heart of the reissue – besides the original album, of course, which still sounds like one of the most perfect records ever made – is the new sides of old favorites. They’re the scars that ‘Rumours’ tried to cover.

*35th* Anniversary of Rumours
 

I'm seeing this everywhere...why???

35 years was last year...they missed the boat, and are pretending nobody will notice? :lol:

Well, TECHNICALLY it still has a week or so before it turns 36 :lol:

They squeezed it in at the very last moment.

Haha...fair point ;-)

NPR,

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/20...d-macs-rumours

Why I've Never Liked Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours'

by Bob Boilen

January 29, 2013 1:15 PM

It has happened over and over again in the past few years. Someone in their 20s tells me how much they love Fleetwood Mac, and in particular its monster-selling album Rumours. My reaction is always the same. Their reaction is invariably deep surprise. I could never stand that record.

In 1977, when Fleetwood Mac's 11th studio album came out, I was working in a record store in Rockville, Md. Needless to say, I heard Rumours a lot. I know the songs all too well. In fact, 35 years later I can still tell you the label and number on the spine of the record: Warner BSK 3010. (To keep track of inventory back before bar codes, we'd write down — on paper with an actual pen that went through carbon paper — the label and number of everything we sold.)

But it wasn't the constant in store listening that turned me off to Rumours. To understand my indifference — verging on disdain — toward this record, you have to think about the state of rock music in 1977. Here's what was selling well back then: the Bee Gees, The Eagles, Abba, KC and the Sunshine Band, Wings, Barry Manilow. In this era, of course, Rumours was No. 1 for 31 weeks. It was the ultimate easy listening album, a mere refinement on what felt like an old L.A. rock formula. But for a music geek looking for new adventures in music, what was great about 1977 were the brash fresh faces and sounds coming out of New York and London. Toward the end of 1976, Patti Smith had led the way for me, and then '77 gave us the debut albums by Talking Heads, Television, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Richard Hell, Wire, Elvis Costello, The Clash and on and on and on.

Having come from a generation that saw huge changes to the musical landscape (The Beatles released "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964 and "A Day in the Life" just three years later), I always expected music to mine new territory. And in the early '70s — with Pink Floyd and Genesis, Bowie and Eno, even Elton John and Electric Light Orchestra — rock was taking chances. But at some point, it got comfy and really bloated and we wound up with Kansas, The Doobie Brothers and the Captain and Tennille.

So 1977 felt like one generation giving the big finger to the the previous one, and it felt good. Rock was shedding its skin; it was a constant amazing rush of wonder and surprise. Attitudes changed. My musical heroes were more likely to be DIY kids than superstars in supergroups. The shows I went to moved from soulless stadiums and arenas to clubs and found spaces. Small labels with tightly defined sounds were popping up everywhere, another middle finger to the corporate bloat that shaped and controlled the music we heard. We think of the Internet as redefining the music industry, but it had a precursor here.

We're a lot more territorial about music we share and hear in our teens and 20s. Back in 1977, my world had zero room or tolerance for a middle-of-the-road, though pretty, rock band like Fleetwood Mac. The shiny production on Rumours felt planned and orderly, which made it suitable for moms and dads in their 30s and up but not for unsettled 20-year-olds and teens. Which makes me wonder why so many in this generation are latching on to that sound.

This morning, 35 years after its release, I thought I'd give Rumours another chance and wirelessly streamed it to my home stereo. For the most part that perfect shine didn't sound as shiny. The pop charts these days are filled with clinical perfection, beats locked to clocks and sequencers that makes Rumours feel more like a casual home recording. Once I got past some of the goofy lyrics ("Lay me down in tall grass and let me do my stuff" made me laugh out loud), I found it to be a fine record, one whose influence is all over many of the records I hear now. Fleet Foxes really aren't that far from Fleetwood Mac in name or in sound ... a bit darker, perhaps. And where Fleetwood Mac, in 1977, was on the extreme pop side of the musical scale, Fleet Foxes feels somewhere in the middle, given the much more extreme landscape today, with, let's say, Carly Rae Jepsen on one side and, say, Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the extreme side.

It's all relative. In 2013, the lockstep dance beats — the heart of electronic dance music — and the drummers playing to click tracks — the heart of pop — make Rumours feel organic. And look at the cover art, with its wistful and graceful image of the soon-to-be-couple Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks. Back then they seemed like hippies dressed too well. These days it seems like a painting from a long ago past, almost Renaissance.

I understand how art can be seen in such different light, that it's never as simple as just the music, that it's always wrapped up in the cultural zeitgeist. And most important, there's no right or wrong to loving what you love. But it's wise to keep an open mind, and that's easier to do as you get older. That said, I won't be putting Rumours back on the stereo anytime soon. Though there's strong songwriting on the record and the drums and harmonies stand out, there are plenty of bands these days making music equally wonderful and — for me — without the taint of the past.

Looking back on Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' more than 35 years later

A new deluxe set drills deep on the classic album

By Melinda Newman Tuesday, Jan 29, 2013 7:25 PM for Hitfix

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/news/looking-b...fxHgg4GssF8.99

Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” came out in 1977, before the internet and tabloid TV. Instead, all we had to do was listen to the lyrics to get all the drama. The album, which celebrates its 35th anniversary (one year late) with today’s release of a four-CD deluxe edition, chronicled the break-ups of three relationships: singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were splitting after seven years together, keyboardist/singer Christine McVie and hubby/bassist John McVie had just divorced. Drummer Mick Fleetwood’s marriage to wife Jenny, who was not in the band, was unraveling, in part because she was having an affair with his best friend.

To be sure there were break-up albums before theirs: Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” comes to mind, and ones after, Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel Of Love,” but no album has ever been quite so public a bloodletting as the life drains out of the various relationships.

The quintet took a year to record “Rumours” in Sausalito, Calif. at the Record Plant. While they were in the studio, their self-titled 10th album (and the first to feature Buckingham and Nicks) was gaining traction and was a clear sign that moving from the blues-based sound of the previous efforts to a pop-oriented sound was the right move commercially. That was only confirmed with "Rumours," which spent 31 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Most of the songs for “Rumours” were written was done on the spot, with the songwriters bringing their not-so-fully fleshed ideas into the studio for the others to noodle on. Often, as in the case of “Second Hand News,” Buckingham withheld revealing the lyrics until the last moment since he knew they weren’t likely to go down well with Nicks.

I got a copy of the deluxe set a few weeks ago and for the first time in years listened to the “Rumours,” as it was originally released 36 years ago, from start to finish.

How does it hold up? Remarkably well. It’s like visiting an old friend. The songs easily move into the next and weave everyone’s stories together. Even more fascinating is revisiting how the couples are talking to each other through the songs. For example on “The Chain,” (the one song co-written by all five) Buckingham sings, “And if you don’t love me now/You will never love me again/I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain.” On “Oh Daddy,” which Christine McVie wrote from Jenny’s perspective, she laments “Why are you right when I’m so wrong/I’m so weak but you’re so strong.” On “You Make Loving Fun,” Christine McVie is singing about her new love, the band’s lighting director (much to John’s dismay).Despite all the cocaine and alcohol that fueled the sessions, or maybe because of them, the overall effect is a voyeuristic look at three break-ups that are raw and complex, and despite their specificity, have a universal appeal for anyone who has found him or herself similarly entangled. The raw immediacy of the tracks still remains.

All the songs individually have held up as well, especially “Second Hand News,” “Dreams,” “Go Your Own Way,” and “I Don’t Want To Know.” The quintet created music that was not of the day —there’s no ‘70s equivalent of a dubstep drop or a hint of electroclash. Instead the production still sounds fresh and clean and not dated. Buckingham’s guitar playing is crisp, with John McVie and Fleetwood Mac’s rhythm section propulsive when need be and totally in retreat when a gentler touch is demanded.

Of course, the big mistake with “Rumours,” one due to time limitations on the vinyl and internecine fighting, is that Nicks’ delicate, searing “Silver Springs” was left off the album. That was corrected in 2001 on a DVD-Audio version and subsequent pressings have included “Silver Springs.”

The other three discs are fun, but not essential unless you're a big fan. Disc 2 includes live versions of much of the album from 1977, as well as other hits, including “Rhiannon” and “Monday Morning.” The other two discs feature outtakes, alternate versions of songs, and demos from the recording sessions, including two songs that didn’t make the album, “Planets of the Universe” and a lovely duet, “Doesn’t Anything Last.” The last disc, originally issued in 2004, also includes rough takes and outtakes. It's very fun an instructive to hear how the songs morphed and were constructed. For example, the demo of "The Chain" is slow and acoustic, but no less haunting.

A super-expanded version also contains “The Rosebud Film,” a 1977 doc looking at the making of “Rumours” and the original album on vinyl.

The current band, which does not include Christine McVie, will start a tour April 4 in Columbus, Ohio.

Read more at http://www.hitfix.com/news/looking-b...fxHgg4GssF8.99

Paste Magazine by Ryan Reed,
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours 35th Anniversary Reissue

http://www.pastemagazine.com/article...y-reissue.html
Published at 2:09 PM on January 29, 2013

Besides squeezing out endless cash wads from the wallets of music buyers (an ever-diminishing breed), what’s the point of a fancy-ass remastered deluxe box-set reissue? In the case of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 pop masterstroke Rumours, it’s a question especially worth asking.

It’s almost impossible to improve, sonically, on one of the warmest, richest recordings in the history of pop music. As a studio document—in terms of engineering, production and performance—Rumours is in the elite company of Dark Side of the Moon and Aja: albums with fidelity as high-class as the songs themselves. This new remaster gives each instrument a more crisp, modern definition, particularly on headphones: Check out Mick Fleetwood’s punchy hi-hat and snare on “Second Hand News,” Lindsey Buckingham’s punchier acoustic strums in the left channel of “Dreams,” the more prominent vocal echo during “Go Your Own Way.” But are these “improvements” necessary? Probably not.

This 35th anniversary package (It’s actually been 36 years) is stuffed to the brim with extras, most of which already showed up on the 2004 double-disc reissue. But they’re still marvelous: Stevie Nicks ballad “Silver Springs” is the most transcendent b-side ever recorded; Fleetwood Mac were so on fire during this fertile stretch that they didn’t even bother tacking it on to the actual album. The early run-throughs and demos are illuminating—proof that some of the greatest pop songs start off as silly doodles with gibberish melodies: On “Second Hand News,” Buckingham mumbles his way through about 20 percent of the lyrics (“Let me do my stuff” was the focal point, even in this unfinished version), as the band pitter-patters unobtrusively behind him. On an early version of “I Don’t Want to Know,” Buckingham and company are figuring out the track in real time, with Buckingham giving transitional cues (“Verse!”).

The most revelatory moment is the “acoustic duet” version of “Never Going Back Again,” which is hardly a “duet” since it features brushed drums, congas, piano, a delayed lead guitar figure and three-part vocal harmonies. It’s the maximalist flip-side to the original’s stripped-down simplicity. On the other side of the “essential” coin is “Mic the Screecher,” in which Fleetwood conjures nails-on-chalkboard screeches over aimless piano chords.

Live tracks from the ‘77 Rumours World Tour are worth seeking out for dedicated fans (especially a ripping take on “Monday Morning,” which harnesses more primal energy in its folky strut), even if none approach the quality of their studio counterparts: “Dreams” is played far too fast, losing its sexy, mystical voodoo; Buckingham’s blaring, out-of-tune guitar on “The Chain” is a distracting deal-breaker. A better live document is the “Rosebud Film,” a previously unreleased mixture of concert footage and chatty interviews. It captures the band in all their late ’70s glory: Buckingham, the afro-glam prince; Nicks, the witchy heartthrob; McVie, the elegant shadow-lurker; Fleetwood, the bearded class clown; McVie, the groove monster in awkwardly short jean-shorts.

In one particularly great scene, Nicks describes the band’s hodge-podge fashion: “I know sometimes we look like—you know, Lindsey’s all Chinese’d-out in his kimona, and I look like I’m going to a Halloween party, and Christine looks like she’s going to be confirmed in the Catholic church, and Mick looks like he’s going to a Renaissance fair, and John looks like he’s going to the beach.”

That unique blend of heavy and playful, mystical and muscular—it was never as potent as it was on Rumours. If there’s ever been an album that deserves the lavish, borderline-unnecessary reissue treatment, it’s this pop behemoth.

Fantastic album..one of my top fav..not perfect though. I don't wanna Know, I'm looking at you.....oh and Oh Daddy I have a love/hate relationship with.

Mick

That's funny. Perfect or not, they should do it this tour, in honor of the reissue. If Stevie still doesn't like the song, let Lindsey do it alone.

Michele

Adelaide Now

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entert...-1226565705002

Album of the week: Fleetwood Mac's Rumours

Hit writers

January 31, 20139:54AM

ALBUM OF THE WEEK: Rumours is one of those albums where you know every song. Even if you think you don't, they've crept in by soft rock radio osmosis.

The band work on Mac time, so this 35th anniversary reissue actually arrives 36 years after the album was released in February 1977.

Rumours - already in 40 million homes - is one of the most complete albums in history and was fuelled by class A harmonies, class A drugs and beautiful music being made in studios and bedrooms between band members.

The vaults have been raided for more unreleased demos to show rock classics as works in progress. Lindsay Buckingham sniffles his way through an early take on Second Hand News with mumbled vocals and a runny nose and there's Go Your Own Way with lyrics - and vocals - that were yet to be polished. Buckingham says "That was good" at the end - he clearly hadn't heard his flat vocals back yet.

An early demo of Stevie Nicks' timeless Dreams manages to be acoustic but also intense. The album was so strong gems such as Nicks' Planets Of the Universe were left off - she'd later finish it and release it in 2001. "Did you get that? It wasn't wonderful or anything," Nicks says at the end of this demo. She's wrong. Her early Gold Dust Woman rocks too.

There's Christine McVie's Keep Me There (once called Butter Cookie) which ended up being an album highlight and The Chain (a Nicks solo version of which is a find here).

One of McVie's songs that did make the album (and made the album), Songbird is here in simple demo form - it'd be honed vocally later to become a soundtrack to weddings for decades to come. There's also an instrumental Songbird for Mac trainspotters' karaoke competitions.

Deluxe versions have a warts-and-all, un-airbrushed live concert from 1977 (check out Rhiannon), which captures a band who really loved each other flying high in their prime.

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

FLEETWOOD MAC - RUMOURS (WARNER)

Rating: 4.5/5

By Cameron Adams

Man I LOVE that song! Prob because as Lindsey pointed out - its the most BN thing on the there! Wanna know what BN sounds like, skeptics? That. :nod:

Consequences of Sound, Album Review: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours [Reissue]
By Jon Hadusek on February 1st, 2013 in Album

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/0...mours-reissue/

5 Stars

I’ll admit: I’ve made love while Rumours spun on the turntable beside my bed. It was beautiful and sentimental, an unforgettable experience (that I probably shouldn’t be divulging in an album review). But there’s no record that better soundtracks sex than this one. Hell, if you’re between the ages of 25 and 36, there’s a decent chance that you were conceived to these songs. They’re romantic — tales of love and lust, love making and love breaking — infused with universal emotions that nearly everybody can relate to and understand. The critics gave it rave reviews, the general public bought 40 million copies, and the Grammy association crowned it Album of the Year in 1977. Rumours was a rare, ubiquitous success. How?

Heartbreak. The five musicians who wrote these songs were a complete mess at the time. Let’s take inventory: Drummer Mick Fleetwood’s wife cheated on him with his best friend; on-and-off couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks finally split prior to these recording sessions; and longtime Fleetwood Mac members Bob John McVie and wife Christine were going through a divorce. **** was ****ed up.

Yet, despite all these tumultuous relationships, the music survived. The McVies bickered and fought in social situations, but worked symbiotically while writing songs. Same goes for Nicks and Buckingham. The record label wanted an album, and Fleetwood Mac delivered. The band took that “****ed up ****” and turned it onto itself, crafting 12 songs about the age-old strife of Boy vs. Girl. Buckingham picked up his acoustic guitar and composed the sparse folk number “Never Going Back Again”. And why would he want to return to a relationship that left him teased and tortured? Nicks was (and remains) a beautiful woman — one helluva vocalist and songwriter. Clearly, their breakup affected him. He also countered with “Go Your Own Way”, an FM staple and a pointed piece of advice. “Loving you isn’t the right thing to do / How can I ever change things that I feel?” He sings it reluctantly.

Nicks was equally transparent with her lyricism. “Dreams” — the band’s only No. 1 single — is literally a direct reply to Buckinghams’ songs: “Now here you go again / You want your freedom.” The dialogue that runs throughout Rumours gives it unity. Rarely do multiple songwriters compile a set of songs that work so well together.

Christine McVie is the odd one out. At first listen, her songs don’t appear to fit the back-and-forth narrative outlined by Nicks and Buckingham. While they sing of post-separation angst, McVie waxes optimistic on “You Make Loving Fun”, clinging to the best parts of her marriage as it begins to crumble. “Don’t break the spell / It would be different and you know it will” — despite the song’s misleading title, you can tell by the longing in her voice that she’s aware of the distance growing between her and Bob John. Her words are tinged with denial, but she knows their spell is being broken. He made loving fun. Now, things are different.

Rumours is quietly distraught, but it sounds so pleasant. On nearly every track, Nicks, McVie, and Buckingham bounce their voices off one another; their harmonies glisten, so cooperative and unified — in utter defiance of the estrangement depicted in the lyrics. Buckingham’s chiming guitar work sticks to the major key and gives these songs the accessibility that made them hits. Christine McVie’s keyboards are an underrated sonic element. She achieves a warm tonality that’s largely responsible for the record’s sexy mood. The sounds are passionate, the words are fragile. And what makes Rumours so remarkable and relevant is that it remains fragile and passionate 35 years later.

The folks at Rhino Records realized this, celebrating the album’s 35th anniversary with all-encompassing box set containing an LP, four CDs, a documentary, and nearly 50 live cuts, demos, and outtakes. In practicality, it’s excessive and overwhelming. Nobody needs three unfinished versions of “Songbird”. But from a historical, archival standpoint, this package is extremely valuable, as Rhino left in the studio banter and rough cuts from the recording sessions; you get to overhear Fleetwood Mac as they make the record.

Earlier this week, NPR blogger Bob Boilen published a dissenting piece called “Why I’ve Never Liked Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours”. He complains of “planned and orderly” production, “goofy lyrics”, and a record stained with the “taint of the past”. The first two points are just opinions, and to each his own. But I adamantly disagree with his closing statement. Just because a record is released in 1977, it’s tainted by the past? No. Aesthetically, Rumours sounds like an older record; however, the songs (and the emotions contained within them) hit with as much poignancy as they did three decades ago. As a 22-year-old in 2013, I can play this album and feel and emote and project my own sappy thoughts onto those of Buckingham, Nicks, and McVie. Or I can play it when I have a girl over and let it set the mood. I can’t help but think that the twentysomethings of the past shared a similar relationship with Rumours. And that’s why, after 35 years, it endures.

Essential Tracks: “Dreams”, “Never Going Back Again”, and “You Make Loving Fun”

Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...ove-chaos.html

Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ Spills Secrets of Love, Chaos

By Mark Beech - Jan 29, 2013

Fleetwood Mac’s nightly recording sessions in a cramped, windowless studio were fueled by booze and cocaine. The band’s complex romances left every member heartbroken. Shouting matches lasted longer than the songs.

Today, 35 years on, an anniversary box set of “Rumours” shows how the musical cocktail of two women and three men was shaken and stirred by their romantic splits. Newly released material shows the tracks getting endlessly reworked and improved as they squabbled.

It was a “crucifyingly difficult” process, drummer Mick Fleetwood notes. He was going through a divorce, with his wife dating his best friend. He never imagined the chaos would lead to a 40-million-selling LP: the best of 1977, according to the Grammy judges, and one of the finest efforts of the 1970s, maybe even of all time.

The American couple in the band added a pop edge to British blues. Californian Lindsey Buckingham had been inseparable from his singer girlfriend Stevie Nicks for five years. When Fleetwood asked him to join, Buckingham insisted she be included too. Now they were all arguing, and the frustrated guitarist started writing a bitter rant called “Strummer.”

On the box set, we hear how this evolved from a simple acoustic demo into a Celtic rag and finally a sleek piece of disco with hints of the Bee Gees, retitled “Second Hand News.” There’s a percussive roll which, it now turns out, was made by bashing an old Naughahyde chair near the mixing desk.

Romantic Links

Buckingham throws the opening words at his ex: “I know there’s nothing to say, someone has taken my place.” (Nicks was romantically linked to Don Henley of the Eagles, then Fleetwood himself.)

Her own breakup lyric “Dreams” is a swift rejoinder: “Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom.” The song’s first mix, nowhere near so radio-friendly, puts her voice starkly to the fore and buries its optimism.

This creative jousting inevitably leads to Buckingham replying, bluntly inviting her to “Go Your Own Way” because he was “Never Going Back Again.”

The band’s other couple, the McVies, were walking from the wreckage of an eight-year marriage. They were on such bad terms that they would only speak about music.

Christine McVie defiantly shows how she’s moved on with “Don’t Stop” about her on-tour romance with the band’s lighting director. “You Making Loving Fun” tells her husband that her new flame is much better.

Tender Songbird

Coproducer Ken Caillat recalls how huge rows in the Sausalito, California studio would be followed minutes later by the composition of sweet harmonies. He deserves credit for singling out the most tender ballad, “Songbird,” and taking it somewhere else -- more precisely, to the Zellerbach Auditorium, Berkeley, which had the right acoustic and a Steinway piano.

The younger Nicks had the tougher words, but McVie is outstanding with her performance here: “And I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before, like never before.”

When the LP came out, I was a very young punk bassist and hated it, of course. This expensively produced, sentimental mush was exactly the stuff we were rebelling against. Just a few years on and I got it. “Songbird” now moves me every time. The record’s soft rock has echoes in acts such as Sting, Heart, Kelly Clarkson and Neko Case, to name just four.

The creative madness which had threatened to sink records as varied as “Exile on Main Street,” “Pet Sounds” and “Station to Station” again resulted in an act coming out with its best. Miracles do happen. As the lyric has it, “thunder only happens when it’s raining.”

The album is available on Warner as a remaster; a 3-CD version including the original album, bonus tracks and live material ($16); and a box with further outtakes, a DVD and a vinyl LP ($86). Rating: ***** for the shorter versions; *** for the large box because it’s too much for all but the most dedicated fans.

Fleetwood Mac’s tour starts in April.

Leah Mclaren, The Globe and Mail, February 1, 2013

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/...rticle8108305/

The Album That Made Divorce Cool

Stevie Nicks, that five-foot-one-inch rock goddess in a floppy hat, one-time lover of cocaine, tranquilizers, Lindsey Buckingham, Don Henley and Mick Fleetwood, a woman who doesn’t just live in California but embodies that state with every fibre of her tiny, glittering, ragged-voiced, flat-ironed blond being, once said that “to be in Fleetwood Mac is to live in a soap opera.” And so it proved to be.

She went on to add, in a much more recent interview, that 2013 would be “the Year of Fleetwood Mac.” Here, again she was correct.

While classic-rock reunions come and go – a tedious conveyor belt of pot-bellied boomers in pleather pants desperately cashing in on youthful glory – this year’s much-anticipated reunion of Fleetwood Mac could not have been better timed. It’s been three and a half decades since the band members overcame their toxic web of mutual heartbreak, divorce and addiction, crammed themselves into a sweaty studio, and emerged with Rumours, quite possibly the most uplifting collection of breakup songs ever written. Just rereleased as a digitally remastered box set, the album, which produced four Top 10 U.S. singles, is the eighth-highest-selling album of all time.

In addition to the new release, the band is preparing for its most ambitious North American tour since the eighties. It won’t be a full reunion – Christine McVie, ex-wife of bassist John McVie (whose name accounts for the “Mac” in Fleetwood Mac) and one of the band’s best songwriters, will not be taking part, having long ago scooped up her royalties and permanently retired to the English countryside.

But that isn’t stopping the waves of adulation pouring forth from both sides of the pond for what is arguably the greatest British-American rock ’n’ roll fusion of all time – and the most drama-prone. In the band’s most famous incarnation, it was composed of two established couples: Stevie Nicks and her long-time partner, guitarist Buckingham; and the McVies; plus Mick Fleetwood on drums. By the time the Rumours tour was finished, Nicks had thrown over Buckingham, first for Henley (of the Eagles), and later for Buckingham’s best friend, Mick Fleetwood. The McVies divorced after Christine’s torrid affair with the band’s lighting director. Add soap, coruscating harmonies and guitar flourishes, and lather vigorously.

But Rumours is more than a big ol’ melodrama. It’s also the record that defined the baby-boomer generation. More than anything by the Beatles. More than anything by the Rolling Stones. It is that rarest of pop-cultural artifacts: a work of art in conversation with itself – a shifting dialogue of angry kiss-offs (Go Your Own Way, The Chain), sexual boasts (You Make Loving Fun) and earnest laments (Songbird) that sum up the emotional condition of a generation learning to live according to an individualistic ethic.

To put the album in context: The cultural shift we’ve come to call the generation gap was actually the popular emergence of the Freudian notion that self-discovery was the key to personal fulfilment. Fleetwood Mac’s original audience was the first generation to believe and act, en masse, as though it was their job to live not according to the circumscribed roles bestowed upon them at birth, but in keeping with Shakespeare’s maxim: “To thine own self be true.” Rumours, which came out in 1977, long after the dust from the sixties had settled, was essentially a pop paean to this new way of life.

The album was (and still is) the unofficial soundtrack of the culture of divorce – a string of easy-listening theme songs for a generation unchained from social expectation. Back in the seventies, the invention of the Pill, combined with the rise of feminism, dovetailed neatly with this new ethos, and a generation of women and men who once might have stayed in stifling marriages suddenly saw a practical way out. Fleetwood Mac, along with Erica Jong, Marilyn French, Sonny & Cher and ABBA, provided the common pop wisdom at the time. And the wisdom was simple: If you’re not happy, get the hell out.

For better or for worse, it’s a relationship mantra most of us live by today. Since the release of Rumours, we have come to see divorce as a disruptive but necessary liberation – something to be endured, overcome and succeeded at in the all-consuming quest to live a fully self-actualized life.

While the ideas in Rumours remain culturally pertinent, it’s the catchy tunes, breezy rhythms, genius guitar lines and lush harmonies that truly explain its ability to endure the test of time. Go into any hipster dive bar in Brooklyn, Parkdale or Hackney, and you are likely to hear it being played, alongside such contemporary inheritors of its sound as Haim, Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes.

The irony, of course, is that when Rumours was released, it was roundly rejected by the counterculture hipsters of the time – punk-rock fans – who saw it for the earnest collection of accessible soft-rock hits that it is. Could anyone have foreseen its eventual success as a generation-defining work of pop art? Certainly not the five baby boomers who made it – they were too busy getting wasted, having affairs and getting divorced. How nice, then, to know that people do sometimes get back together, even if it is only to cash in on their youthful glory.