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Old 02-12-2014, 11:26 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/music-record...c/1742607/#rev

Rumours: Expanded And Remastered - Fleetwood Mac , DooYoo


Sometimes, a good band will put out a naff record, even though everything seems to be going well for them. And sometimes they'll do the opposite, and defy all the odds and come up with a blinder. Fleetwood Mac's 11th studio record is just that, and is one that is probably going to be found in the music collection of every other household it was such a success.

I doubt that the band had any inkling that come 1976, they would lay down the tracks for what would become one of the best selling albums of all time. Given that the band was a fairly volatile concoction of two couples, both of whom had just split up, and founding member Mick Fleetwood was also getting divorced, it's remarkable that they even managed to work as a unit. If accounts of their entourage are to be believed, a metric shedload of booze and drugs may have helped them muscle their way through such things to get some songs recorded.

But what songs. Although the majority of them have been played if not to death, then at least onto life support, by unimaginative radio DJs, it's easy to see why. While the blues purists would decry this album as nothing short of heresy, since it doesn't have original blues guitar champion Peter Green on it, it's fair to say that this incarnation of the band had evolved beyond their original British blues origins. With relative newcomer Stevie Nicks adding a second helping of female vocals to the lineup, they also recruited a great songstress in her own right.

'Rumours' has often been called (by people on the internets - I can't cite them so sue me) as the ultimate break-up album. Every song on here is devoted to love, relationships, sex, heartbreak and moving on. Opener 'Second Hand News' lets us know right from the off that this is an album born from turmoil. As Lindsey Buckingham declares 'I know, there's nothing to say/Someone has taken my place', we know that this is probably not the best record to listen to if you've just been dumped. Or maybe it is, I'm not sure I've never tried it - it might be quite cathartic.

The songwriting here sees the band firing on all cylinders. 'The Chain' is haunting, and constructed in a very unusual way, with 3 part harmonies delivering the first verses, followed by *that* riff that is now synonymous with Formula One coverage, and the main refrain of the song coming in at the end. Makes a change from the predictable verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/chorus/fade bollocks that blights so many hit songs. Anyway, there's more. 'Dreams' is a typical Nicks song, all dreamy and delivered in her unique ethereal voice, and later covered much less interestingly by the Corrs. 'Go Your Own Way' has been well-cooked by excess radio coverage, but it's still a great up-tempo song that carries the heartache with all sincerity.

The album as a whole works as a unit, even though it is made up of a number of monster hit singles. While most of us will be familiar with 'The Chain', 'Go Your Own Way', 'Don't Stop' and 'Dreams', it is marked out by the appearance and interplay of the three vocalists. Listening to them all in order, it pans out like some sort of demented love triangle; Lindsey Buckingham's 'male' compositions are basically all 'go away, I'm not interested any more', Christine McVie's include the open-hearted, softer ballads 'Songbird' and 'Oh Daddy', and Stevie Nicks flits between wronged woman, love-struck immaturity and the devil in a black dress. She unleashes her man-eater side on final track 'Gold Dust Woman', a murderous ballad seemingly both about coke addiction as well as breaking a man's heart, just because she can. Whether or not they intended it to work as such a performance piece is unknown, but it adds a whole new spin on things. This one is greater than the sum of its already considerable parts.

The album sleeve gave us all the clues before the needle even hit the groove though, as she whirls around Mick Fleetwood in her Welsh witch 'Rhiannon' persona. And I've only just noticed the massive pair of, ahem, 'balls' strategically located under Fleetwood's crotch, while he gazes upon her sporting a look somewhere between fascination and indifference. What's that line from 'When Harry met Sally' - 'boys and girls can't be friends because the sex thing always gets in the way'. Could've been a tagline for this album.

There is one fundamental flaw with this album though, and that was the band took the unwise decision to relegate the best song recorded during the session to a mere b-side. 'Silver Springs', a gorgeous Nicks-penned ballad was intended for the collection, but didn't make the cut for some bizarre reason. Personally I'd have chopped out the slightly naff 'You Make Loving Fun' and replaced it, but some later versions now include this in its rightful place at the heart of the album. Given that it sways and swells and crashes like the surges of a new and tumultuous relationship, it culminates in the best line of the whole album - "You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you". A truer line has never been written.

Crystal-clear production is also worthy of note, capturing everything that the band plays perfectly and presenting it in a marvellous way. There are a few benchmark albums by which I judge others, merely on their clarity, mastering and production. This is one of them, along with Love's 'Forever Changes', Led Zeppelin IV and the 'Black' album by Metallica. Good production can make a good album sound great; here, it makes a great album sound world class. If only albums were created in this way today, rather than via the retarded 'everything up to 11' approach to mastering...

Available almost everywhere, 'Rumours' is one of the 5 best selling albums of all time, so picking up a second-hand copy should be relatively easy. I found mine for 50p in a charity shop. Bargain.

Summary: It's a very, very good popular album. You probably already own it.
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