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  #46  
Old 02-13-2013, 01:18 AM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Boston Herald readers had to write about what they liked on Rumours to win a contest giveaway. Here's a little write up on the results:

http://bostonherald.com/entertainmen...od_macs_winner

By Jed Gottlieb, February 12, 2012

Good to see so many Guestlisted readers are devoted to the Mac. They're kind of the ultimate band: pop with amazing rock guitar solos, or rock with amazing pop hooks, and baby boomers and hipsters both adore them (as they should).

Here are a few of my favorite suggestions from last week's "Rumours" giveaway (it was hard even to find a few comments to single out, they were all so awesome).

From Beth:


"Go Your Own Way" is THE quintessential Fleetwood Mac song because it is an allegory of the band's struggles within their own relationships. You can feel their passion, anger, resentment, love, lust, jealousy and pain when you hear that song -- it just fires you up! That said, "Songbird" and "As Long as You Follow" are my favorites -- I walked down the aisle at my wedding to a pianist playing "Songbird." It's ethereal and romantic. How do I pick just one? Impossible task!

From Pinky:


When I was 9, my uncle bought my brother and I Walkmans. Problem was we didn’t own any tapes, so we rummaged around in his car and found The Bangles (my brother) and "Tango in the Night" (me). I listened to that tape until I wore it out. No exaggeration, my grasp on how life worked was from that tape. Of course, there were more mind explosions to come once I dug around and found "Rumours." But really, among the gob-stopping glory of “Silver Springs” and “Go Your Own Way” et al, the song that cuts to the bone has to be "Beautiful Child." I mean what the devil is she singing about? It’s sexy, it’s haunting, it’s pretty, it’s a little pervy. You don’t know the scenario, but man, you KNOW those feelings…Your eyes say yes/ But you don't say yes…I wait for you to say, just go. It’s the most miserable lullaby ever written. Glorious.

But Mike wins this one:


"Tusk" the weirdest song single ever? Kinda reminds me of the Stones when they released "we love you". There's no hook, it's powered by an unwavering tribal drum beat and a freakin' marching band blasts its way through the last part of the song. And don't even bother trying to figure out what it's about. If nothing else,it represents a radical change from the bands pop music hit singles mode which may have turned some fans off but I loved. possibly their best moment in the studio!"
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  #47  
Old 02-25-2013, 09:37 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Critic's pick: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, 'Texas Flood Legacy Edition'; Fleetwood Mac, 'Rumours'

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/02/25/2...#storylink=cpy

By Walter Tunis, February 25, 2013, Lexington Herald Leader (Kentucky)

How do you awaken new generations to decades-old albums that, despite their career-defining popularity in another era, have essentially been pushed aside over time? Simple. You do the same thing everyone does when you want to command attention: You offer a bonus.

Two new reissues of records that completed the pop makeover of the veteran Brit blues brigade Fleetwood Mac and introduced the world to Texas guitar slinger Stevie Ray Vaughan do exactly that by including full bonus discs of unreleased concert material that was cut as their hit studio counterparts solidified the artists' stardom.

We won't waste time here rekindling praise for Vaughan's 1983 debut record, Texas Flood, or Fleetwood Mac's landmark 1977 chart topper, Rumours. Consult the history books instead, or better yet, give both a fresh spin. They remain incendiary works.

Instead, let's examine the new treats.

e bonus disc to Rumours is pulled from four summer concerts that Fleetwood Mac gave in 1977, when the band all but owned pop radio. The performances aren't revelatory, but they are certainly revealing. Without the studio sheen, Fleetwood Mac resorts to its primary strength: the rhythm section of bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Toss in the guitar work of a young Lindsey Buckingham, and the music skyrockets from pristine pop to some rather immediate rock 'n' roll, as shown by denser, muddier readings of Go Your Own Way and Monday Morning.

The melodic appeal is there. But what fun it is to spread some dirty Rumours for a change.
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  #48  
Old 03-02-2013, 01:17 AM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Staten Island Live
By Ken Paulsen/Staten Island Advance
on February 15, 2013 at 7:23 AM, updated February 15, 2013 at 12:45 PM

http://www.silive.com/entertainment/...etwood_ma.html

4 reasons to love Fleetwood Mac's reissued 'Rumours' 3-CD set

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of one of the biggest pop smashes of all time, Fleetwood Mac has reissued "Rumours" in a 3-CD set. Here's why it's so easy to recommend.

1) The original album is a pop masterpiece, from Lindsey Buckingham's breezy opening guitar strumming at the start of "Second Hand News," to the haunting vocals of Steve Nicks' "Gold Dust Woman." In between are songs that still get radio airplay every day because of their timeless appeal: "Go Your Own Way," "You Make Loving Fun," "Dreams" (the band's only No. 1 single) and "Don't Stop." Deeper cuts like Christine McVie's "Songbird" and Buckingham's "Never Going Back Again" would be signature songs for most acts. On "Rumours," they are the powerful tracks that keep you from ever reaching for the "next song" button on your iPod or CD player.

2) The bonus track "Silver Springs" is now the 12th song on "Rumours," and it fits in seamlessly -- where it should have been placed in 1977. Nicks wrote the song to her former lover Buckingham, but band leader Mick Fleetwood knocked it off the album, leaving Nicks devastated. The official reason was that there wasn't enough room on the album, but the potent lyrics had to be a factor: "I'll follow you down 'til the sound of my voice will haunt you / You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you." Can you blame Buckingham if he was freaked out by them?

3) The second CD features 12 previously unreleased live recordings from the band's 1977 concert tour and it provides a snapshot at the peak of its success. Most tracks hew closely to the album versions; among the notable exceptions are "World Turning" and "Rhiannon," both from 1975's "Fleetwood Mac," and "The Chain," the one "Rumours" track with songwriting credits ascribed to the entire band. On the concert version of "The Chain," John McVie's signature bass line gives way to an extended, frenzied Buckingham solo. With the band singing the chorus in harmony, it's a song that could have been prolonged even further.

4) The third CD provides the biggest treat for fans who thought they had explored all of "Rumours." Its 16 songs provide a peek at the evolution of the album's gems. For example, on a slower, stripped-down "Dreams: Take 2," Nicks' ethereal vocals blend magically with gentle accompaniment by McVie's organ. The final version is surely more polished and radio friendly, but "Take 2" is worth revisiting. The CD also shows where some smart decisions were made: "Never Going Back Again" was originally recorded as a Buckingham-Nicks duet. But Buckingham's sentiments -- no doubt inspired by his ex-lover -- are best expressed alone here. An instrumental version is also included, and once again you appreciate Buckingham's touch: The listener can be grateful that he recognized how the melody only needed seven lines of lyrics; the tune sounds naked without them. In addition, "early takes" of tracks such as "Songbird" and "Gold Dust Woman" show that McVie and Nicks, respectively, had it right all along.

The three-CD version, released by Rhino records, retails for about $20. A deluxe edition is available, featuring an additional CD of outtakes from the "Rumours" recording sessions, the 1977 documentary "Rosebud Film" and the entire album on 140-gram vinyl. Both versions (minus the vinyl, of course) are also available in digital formats.

The band is embarking on a tour of U.S. and Europe starting this spring, including a stop at Madison Square Garden in April.
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  #49  
Old 03-14-2013, 05:53 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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The Galleon
http://www.galleonnews.com/2013/03/a...rsary-edition/

Album review: Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (35th Anniversary Edition)

By Flynn Massey, Arts and Entertainment Editor
13th March 2013, 12:27pm

Quintessentially one of the greatest rock albums ever written and produced, Rumours now celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. An album that spans and reveals an immense saga of love and lust, both lost and found throughout a near conceptual and cathartic approach to songwriting, Rumours is truly the record that defines Fleetwood Mac.

After following the successful Sixties and Peter Green’s vision of Fleetwood Mac, to ever-changing lineups within the band, releasing various albums which garnered partial attention both across the Atlantic and within the United Kingdom, the band in 1975 abandoned Green’s inception of British blues and found the virtuoso combination of lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and lead vocalist Stevie Nicks, thus creating the most popular version of the group.

Yet it was only after releasing their tenth eponymous album, Fleetwood Mac, that the band truly began to establish songs which would easily last and span decades, such as ‘Landslide’ and ‘Rhiannon’. However, following the newly found success, personal conflicts between the established couples of the group luckily led to the creation of some of the best and most revered rock songs of the 20th century, merely at the cost of the entire integrity of the band.

The well documented toil of personal relationships within Fleetwood Mac cannot be dissected from the material produced here on Rumours, with each song telling a tale of complete catharsis. The interplay between each member of the group, from percussion to vocals, creates an intensely addictive wall of sound, which even to this day stands in terms of its production, performance and replay value.

Nicks’ vocal performance on ‘Dreams’, an anthemic message of hope following the breakup, combines with Buckingham and McVie’s backing vocals to intersperse, collide and create nothing short of the first classic jewel in this album’s laden crown. With ‘Never Going Back Again’, Buckingham only needs two minutes to chillingly tell the world about remaining adamant about his choices.

Combining his vocals with Christine McVie on ‘Don’t Stop’, her own optimistic message to resolving issues with estranged husband and bassist of the band, John McVie, it still remains a well-played song by DJs, television shows and presidential candidates today. ‘Go Your Own Way’ is Buckingham’s brilliantly pessimistic retort to Nicks’ ‘Dreams’, whilst ‘Songbird’ reveals McVie’s hauntingly beautiful vocals.

Following this melodic masterpiece is another: ‘The Chain’, the only song written collaboratively by the band, which remains a rock anthem for all the right reasons, as vocally, Buckingham, Nicks and McVie all seem to reach near perfection. Completed with John McVie’s thunderous and instantaneously recognisable bass line, Mick Fleetwood’s sharply building snare drum and Buckingham’s fret melting solo, it still to this day manages to send shivers down thousands of spines.

Rumours’ last song, ‘Gold Dust Woman’, fights a good fight for being the best closer to an album, portrayed with Nicks narrating the dangers of LA lifestyle amidst the addictions found with the lifestyle of rock stardom, in which she and the entire band reach an astoundingly climactic and emotional zenith. 35 years on, Rumours still undoubtedly deserves to be regarded as one of the best rock albums of all time.
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  #50  
Old 03-29-2013, 11:47 AM
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Blog Critics.org by Donald Gibson, March 28, 2013

http://blogcritics.org/music/article...-rumours-35th/

Of course they’ve scored plenty of hits over the years, but the prime catalyst of Fleetwood Mac’s legend, why they still generate a buzz and draw arena-sized audiences whenever they re-team for a tour—the band begins a new one next Thursday night in Columbus, Ohio—is Rumours.

For as much as been said and written about the 1977 album’s often-tumultuous creation, of infamous tales of band members feuding and ****ing and shoveling through insane quantities of cocaine, its songs collectively remain the band's crowning achievement. Recently released by Warner Music, Rumours (35th Anniversary Expanded Edition) illustrates over three discs just how driven these musicians were to have something to show for the soap opera their personal lives had become.

Only the second album to include Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the fray—the lineup was rounded out by Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, and John McVie—the Mac were at this point a pop/rock band, with mainstream hits like “Rhiannon” and “Say You Love Me” having moved them beyond the British-blues roots espoused by departed member Peter Green. And yet listening to some tracks on this set’s third disc, More From The Recording Sessions, reveals an unmistakable blues influence. The included demo of “The Chain,” most notably, finds Nicks summoning a feral, sobering vocal accompanied only by Buckingham’s stark, acoustic guitar. Comparably, Ms. McVie leads the band through a brooding take of "Oh Daddy," her slinky keyboard riffs against a thick-and-sultry rhythm giving the song a heavier vibe than the light-string-embellished version on the finished album.

In fact the third disc is what makes this entire set essential—the first disc comprises the album proper (which, if you're interested in this collection, you likely already own) while the second disc is a solid but nevertheless straightforward live performance from the Rumours tour—because it offers perspectives of songs that are, at times, drastically different than the ones to which we’ve been accustomed. Sometimes, as with early, scaled-down takes of "Dreams" and the B-side "Silver Springs," they're as good and, arguably, better than their most familiar versions.
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  #51  
Old 03-29-2013, 01:45 PM
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I think no other FM record album will beat Rumours in my book.
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Skip R........

Stevie fan forever and ever amen.......
the Wildheart at Edge of Seventeen and the Gypsy.....

My sweet Buttons .I love you. RIP 2009 to 08/24/2016
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  #52  
Old 06-07-2013, 08:10 PM
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Fleetwood Mac Kittenized

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3403929.html
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File Type: jpg Kitten.jpg (86.5 KB, 6 views)
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  #53  
Old 06-07-2013, 08:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
Thats cute.I say meow to that.
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Stevie fan forever and ever amen.......
the Wildheart at Edge of Seventeen and the Gypsy.....

My sweet Buttons .I love you. RIP 2009 to 08/24/2016
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  #54  
Old 12-29-2013, 04:49 AM
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The Year's Five Best Albums

December 27, 2013 West Virginia Gazette
http://www.wvgazette.com/Entertainment/201312270060

The year's five best albums

By Nicholas Ransbottom, West Virginia State University

Vampire Weekend's "Modern Vampires of the City," released in May, retains singer Ezra Koenig's witty lyrics but has more emotional heft and maturity than the band's previous offerings.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- This year proved to be absolutely fantastic for the music industry. Picking just five albums to sum it up was tricky, and there are plenty of wonderful ones I've left out.

It should be noted that I used the Billboard chart-year system, which runs Dec. 1, 2012 to Nov. 30, 2013, to determine what albums should be considered a 2013 release, so that explains the lack of Beyonce.

Here are my definitive picks:

5. "Rumours (35th Anniversary Edition)," Fleetwood Mac

"Rumours" is a classic album, both for the rock genre and the music industry as a whole. Not only did it win the Grammy for Album of the Year, it's also one of the best-selling albums of all time and is frequently listed as one of the greatest albums of all time by music publications. Its acclaim is justified, as even after 35 years, the songs feature superb lyrical content, vocals and music that are sure to strike an emotional chord with anyone.

This anniversary edition comes in two versions, expanded and deluxe. The expanded, sometimes mislabeled as "deluxe," includes the original album along with the B-side "Silver Springs," a dozen previously unreleased live tracks and 16 unreleased takes from the album's recording session.

The deluxe edition, sometimes labeled as "super deluxe," includes all that content, plus an additional disk of outtakes from the 2004 reissue, a DVD copy of the 1977 documentary "The Rosebud Film" and the original album on vinyl. It's much pricier, clocking in at around $100, as opposed to $25 for the expanded edition.

Highlights: "Go Your Own Way," "Songbird," "I Don't Want to Know"
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  #55  
Old 01-09-2014, 05:56 AM
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In my humble opinion I think it is the greatest album ever made. I never get bored of listening to it. I upgraded to the three disc set last year and gave my old copy to a friend. I doubt I can say anything here that hasn't already been said - but I love it.
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  #56  
Old 02-12-2014, 11:26 PM
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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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Old 04-28-2014, 12:19 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Dave Redford's Log of Rhythms Blog, April 2014

http://logofrhythms.blogspot.com/201...4/rumours.html

My fave 365 albums, in one calendar year

At one point in my life, when I was infected with that lame strain of snobbery that afflicts all music bores, I would have been horrified at the idea of selecting a Stevie Nicks-era Fleetwood Mac album over one from the group's earlier Peter Green period. The fact this soft rock album came out at the height of punk makes it an even more difficult decision. But I'm unrepentant. As pop albums go, this is close to perfection. As musical trajectories go, the Fleetwood Mac story is one of the most remarkable in pop, starting out as a London-based blues band in the late 60s and transforming beyond almost all recognition into LA purveyors of AOR (Adult Oriented Rock). As group dynamics go, no band has attained the same levels of incestuousness and emotional tension as mid-70s Fleetwood Mac. By the time of Rumours' release, Drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie were the only surviving members from the group's early phase, with John's wife Christine McVie then also part of the lineup as well as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. The relationship between newest members, Nicks and Buckingham, had already been falling apart during the recording sessions and touring for the band's previous album, while Fleetwood's marriage to Jenny Boyd was on the rocks and the McVies were heading for divorce, with Christine having an affair with the band's lighting director, Curry Grant. Many of the songs are messages written by band members to other band members,
a state of affairs that's summed up succinctly in the album's title, Rumours.

Go Your Own Way is a perfect case in point, a song written by Buckingham to Nicks but sung by her with passion ("loving you isn't the right thing to do", "tell me why everything turned around"). This layer of context gives the songs added emotional depth. Buckingham also penned Second Hand News and Never Going Back Again, the latter adding a sense of finality to their crumbling relationship ("been down one time, been down two times, never going back again"). What's interesting to me, having listened to this album on many family car trips and even sung along cheerily, is how catchy and upbeat many of the melodies are, yet hidden beneath this pop sheen is a maelstrom of swirling emotions. This formula of adult themes, catchy hooks and west coast harmonies was hugely successful, with Dreams, Don't Stop, Go Your Own Way and You Make Loving Fun all Top 10 US singles. Any British Grand Prix fan will also immediately recognise The Chain. Two of the album's best moments are the quieter ones at the end of each side, Songbird and Gold Dust Woman. The latter is Nicks exposing the dark underbelly of the drug taking and hedonism that affected the band during this period, while Songbird is one of several wonderful but sad songs that Christine McVie contributes to the album. As break-up songs go, there's something incredibly pure and generous about the singing and lyrics of Songbird ("And I wish you all the love in the world, but most of all I wish it from myself"), the perfect antidote to all the animosity.
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Old 05-17-2014, 02:08 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Midnight Punk Blog

http://midnightpunk.wordpress.com/20...od-mac-rumous/

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours. May 17, 2014

Few albums have passed the 40 million sales mark. I guess it’s hard to bash any album that achieves this feat. I suppose one could moan about The Bodyguard (Whitney Houston) being in this bracket if pushed to do so. Back In Black (ACDC), Thriller (Michael Jackson), The Best Of The Eagles (um, The Eagles), The Dark Side Of The Moon (Pink Floyd) and The Bee Gees Saturday Night Fever are the only other albums that have broke the 40 million barrier – and one can see why they all have. That’s no Elvis Presley, no Beatles, no Led Zeppelin, no Metallica, no Springsteen, no U2, no Prince, no Madonna. Amazing stat that!

What it takes to sell so many copies needn’t therefore be groundbreaking. Arguably of that list Thriller and Dark Side Of The Moon are the most unique. I still can’t fathom out how ACDC sold so many copies of what is far from their best album. We are talking mass consumption here. Albums that are or have been in practically everyone’s household in certain areas of the globe.

Rumours by Fleetwood Mac is 11 times Platinum in the U.K. at time of writing. Almost impossibly it spent only one week at Number 1. ONE WEEK! This is sustained sales over decades. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was in the Top 200 albums right now (can’t be bothered to check). It is, what one might call, an out-and-out ALBUM. Y’know, them things that aren’t singles or E.P’s. Singles released from Rumours didn’t dent the Top 20. You really couldn’t make these figures up.

The album features an iconic sleeve. An image once seen that is never forgotten. Simple. Although 70′s in appearance also kinda timeless. It features flawless production from the band themselves aided by Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat. Its material is inoffensive yet strangely deep sounding – like there’s more going on under the surface. The songs mask two breaking relationships at the time of its recording. I guess this is its magic dust. Through the sheen rises hidden pain scratching away. Beyond the lyrics the clamour of the instruments, usually in harmonic unison comes the sound of what are undeniably great musicians having it out without words. Hidden messages. The soft sounds have fierce turns of foot and rarely have a band sounded so together and as if they want to tear off in different directions at the same time.

Rumours is less than 40 minutes in length. I guess this adds to its charm. It’s not overbearing. It doesn’t over task the listener. It’s no Seven Samurai or The Seer (SWANS). It captures Fleetwood Mac at a commercial and artistic peak, these two things usually do not happen in unison. It’s rock ABBA? The writing credits are fairly evenly split. There is no dominance of one artist. Again, strong traits to have for the magic dust to appear.

Examples of the actual music speaking as clearly as the lyrics on Rumours could be the drumming on Dreams. A ludicrously simple soft sounding (often covered) song. Drums not really keeping a conventional beat padding away and although never over the top – actually evoking Thunder as that lyric drops.

The album has perfect driving music with Don’t Stop and Go Your Own Way which again are telling tales not about the open road. Subtle, almost unintentionally clever and revealing. The songs give Rock guitar solos over to mainstream Popular Music like no previous album. The Chain is perhaps the most well-known track from Rumours due to Formula 1. As uncool as it is to type this The Chain arguably features the best meltdown of instrumentation speaking louder than lyrics until the Stone Roses possibly topped this in 1989 with I Am The Resurrection.

Whilst the sun is out find your copy of Rumours - you know you’ve got it hidden away somewhere. It accompanies a sunny Saturday afternoon fantastically well – quick before the rain comes…
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Old 05-17-2014, 04:32 PM
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The album is brilliant. When I was getting into to the group (circa 2002, 2003, and I am 25,) I borrowed it from the library. Fantastic. I loved every song, but I remember that "I Don't Want To Know" really stuck out to me - probably because of the harmonies and the fun, foot-tapping music.

When I purchased the two-disc version years ago, I feel it's even more perfect with "Silver Springs" in the running order. I am of the opinion that the album would've pushed even higher with it.

That being said, it probably isn't my favorite one? Hahaha.
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Old 05-29-2014, 09:57 PM
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lovethemac1 lovethemac1 is offline
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It is the best album EVER, period, full stop.
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