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