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[Keith]

Fleetwood Mac has always made their best music with tension. Thanks for sharing the interview, Les.

I came across this article in yesterday's Washington Post. The paper was doing a 25 years retrospect in celebration of the Weekend section's 25th anniversary. It's about 'Rumours'.. sort of.

# 19. . Easier Listening

It's 1977 and you're listening to Fleetwood Mac's new hit album, "Rumours," on vinyl.

But you want to hear it in your car, so you've got to make a choice: eight-track or cassette? For much of the '70s, they've been the preeminent car audio formats, with eight-track sounding better, cassettes being cheaper. Though the record industry frowns, you go with the cassette, and that "home tape" you make sounds pretty good -- particularly after you pick up on Sony's Walkman in 1979, inaugurating a whole new era of personal music listening.

In 1983, you replace your scratchy master of "Rumours" with a copy in a promising, and promisingly more durable, new format, the compact disc. You hold onto your cassette and shelve your vinyl, which is proving to be the weakest audio link; this is the first year prerecorded audiocassettes outsell LPs. By 1988, CDs outsell LPs for the first time. That dusty vinyl "Rumours" might as well have come out on 78 rpm; you bury it in the attic.

(Another new format, Digital Audio Tape (DAT) was introduced in 1987, but was prevented from being marketed to American consumers by major record companies claiming to fear digitally perfect copies of CDs; DAT is now used mainly in professional recording studios. Ironically, the CD, a format that the industry didn't fight, led to recordable CDs (CDR) outselling prerecorded CDs for the first time in 2001.)

Jump to 1997 and Fleetwood Mac has reunited for a tour and you suddenly want to hear "Go Your Own Way" but you can't find the album, your disc has slipped behind some couch, your tape warped in the sun and you don't want to shell out more money. Say, didn't your computer-savvy kid tell you something about this new Internet site, MP3.com, which compresses audio files with only a small sacrifice in sound quality and, hey, your hearing's not what it used to be anyway. A year later, Winamp shows up as a free music player, and suddenly you're part of the MP3 craze, listening to "Rumours" on your portable MP3 player.

In 1999, a college freshman invents Napster and peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), allowing you and everyone else with an Internet connection to search and download favorite songs, and so what about copyrights? You start sharing "Rumours" outtakes, alternative tracks and rehearsal tapes.

Now "Rumours" is available in yet another new format, DVD-Audio (list price: $17.9 , with bonus features that rival a DVD movie: a making-of documentary with commentaries from band members dubbed over the album's instrumental tracks, photo archives and treats like the previously unreleased "Silver Springs," not included on the original album because of vinyl's time constraints. It features a 24-bit, six-channel surround mix that puts you right in the studio, where you can almost feel the whoosh of Stevie Nicks's swirling skirts and sense the marital tensions that were then just rumors.


Richard Harrington writes about music for Weekend.

[David]

This Jancee Dunn lady ... this gal is a gusher. She's been drooling over Stevie since ... what? 1994? This is the first & only Stevie Nicks gusher Rolling Stone has ever hired.

I think Stevie ought to hire Jancee as her publicist ... just fire the crew she has now & hire Jancee. Bigger bang for the buck definitely.

[Jo and Jensen]

Very nice, Keith! Thank you. That Washington Post article was very entertaining.

FM is FINALLY...everywhere!

Love,
Jo and Jensen

[Rumours]

Great articles!!
Thanks so much for those!

I was so excited to see the ads this weekend for Circuit City and Best Buy--they're both advertising the new greatest hits 2-cd set to be in stores on Tuesday........Finally, Fleetwood Mac being advertised again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stephanie