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

[HejiraNYC]

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

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/26/showbiz/fleetwood-mac-rumours/index.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."

[Richard B]

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?

[michelej1]

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

[michelej1]

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. White hadn't peaked yet, when they began production.

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

Michele

[chiliD]

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

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

[skcin]

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?

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.

[Richard B]

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 (http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/albums/fmcharts.htm) 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

[michelej1]

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

[Macfanforever]

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?

Again .The lazy media skipped doing their research homework.

[Macfanforever]

Yes Indeed Still the 'perfect album' .

[Artemis]

Again .The lazy media skipped doing their research homework.

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.

[michelej1]

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 [email protected] with “Guest Post” in the subject line.

http://midlifemixtape.com/2012/08/still-in-rotation-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.

[mikephxaz]

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 [email protected] with “Guest Post” in the subject line.

http://midlifemixtape.com/2012/08/still-in-rotation-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!!

[michelej1]

Stuff.Co.NZ
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/the-album-i-can-t-live-without/7705596/Album-I-couldn-t-live-without-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.

[michelej1]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/the-album-i-can-t-live-without/7705596/Album-I-couldn-t-live-without-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.

[michelej1]

[Liked this Onion-style rambling]

Death and Taxes, January 4, 2013

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/192923/rumors-era-fleetwood-mac-still-totally-the-jam-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.

[michelej1]

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

[michelej1]

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

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/review-of-the-week-20130117-2cudi.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/music/review-of-the-week-20130117-2cudi.html#ixzz2ILrgpV9C

[michelej1]

Female First, January 24, 2013
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/music/features/fleetwood-mac-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

[michelej1]

The Telegraph, January 27, 2013 by James Lachno

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/9827561/Fleetwood-Macs-Rumours-Why-the-under-30s-still-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

[michelej1]

The Oxford, by Oliver Hancock, January 27, 2013
http://oxfordstudent.com/2013/01/27/back-with-second-hand-news-fleetwood-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.

[Dragonfly]

The Oxford, by Oliver Hancock, January 27, 2013
http://oxfordstudent.com/2013/01/27/back-with-second-hand-news-fleetwood-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.

[michelej1]

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

[michelej1]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2267882/Fleetwood-Mac-Rumours-review-35-years-classic-album-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/article-2267882/Fleetwood-Mac-Rumours-review-35-years-classic-album-twist.html#ixzz2JD78eoMM
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[Dragonfly]

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

[michelej1]

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

Michele

[michelej1]

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

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/fleetwood-mac-rumours-expanded-edition-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.

[Josh2003]

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

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

[WildHearted]

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

They squeezed it in at the very last moment.

[Josh2003]

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 ;-)

[michelej1]

NPR,

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2013/01/29/170552631/why-ive-never-liked-fleetwood-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.

[michelej1]

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-back-on-fleetwood-macs-rumours-more-than-35-years-later#rxAs0fxHgg4GssF8.99

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-back-on-fleetwood-macs-rumours-more-than-35-years-later#rxAs0fxHgg4GssF8.99

[michelej1]

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

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2013/01/fleetwood-mac-rumours-35th-anniversary-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.

[bluefox4000]

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

[michelej1]

Fantastic album..one of my top fav..not perfect though. I don't wanna Know, I'm looking at you.....

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

[michelej1]

Adelaide Now

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/entertainment/rumours-remains-true-36-years-on/story-e6fredpu-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

[CADreaming]

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

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:

[michelej1]

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

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/02/album-review-fleetwood-mac-rumours-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”

[michelej1]

Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-30/fleetwood-mac-s-rumours-spills-secrets-of-love-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.

[michelej1]

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

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/rumours-the-album-that-made-splitsville-a-cool-place-to-live/article8108305/

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.

[michelej1]

The National

The art of falling apart, John Robinson on Feb 2, 2013

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/the-art-of-falling-apart#ixzz2JnJ7mmcX

The centrepiece of Fleetwood Mac's biggest-selling album starts with the sound of an exasperated profanity - a strange beginning, or so it first appears, for so stirring a song, on so ubiquitous a collection.

Rockers love it, and for a long time, part of the piece has been the signature tune of BBC motor racing coverage. For the members of Fleetwood Mac, The Chain has become nothing less than an anthem: to see footage of the band performing the song is to witness a group in near-delirious celebration of themselves and their enduring connection. We will never, they tell their ecstatic arena crowds, break the chain.

If that fact feels like a cause for celebration now, it certainly didn't at the time of the song's composition. Rather than being connected by some kind of mystical interlocking of energies, at the time they made Rumours, Fleetwood Mac were more manacled together by circumstance. A group until recently chiefly made up of two couples - John McVie (bass) and his wife Christine McVie (keyboards and vocals); Lindsey Buckingham (guitar, vocals) and Stevie Nicks (vocals) - the relationships were now breaking down. Amid this emotional scene, they faced a challenge: to write and record the follow-up to an album (1975's Fleetwood Mac) that had debuted their new and sophisticated transatlantic pop-rock sound, and become a platinum seller.

The album they made, rather than reflecting the ease brought about by the dramatic improvement in their professional lives, instead anatomises the relationship fallout that engulfed the band while holed-up in a windowless studio in Sausalito, California, working on it. Buckingham, the studio perfectionist and inspired pop arranger, wrote the hostile Go Your Own Way for (more accurately "at") Nicks. Christine McVie wrote the optimistic Don't Stop for her soon to be ex-husband, reminding him that things would look brighter with passing time. This was possibly only a small consolation for the fact that she had also written You Make Loving Fun for her new boyfriend, Fleetwood Mac's lighting director. Nicks wrote the slightly vaguer, disappointed Dreams ("You say you want your freedom …") for Buckingham. Nicks also wrote Gold Dust Woman about another damaging affair - her relationship with cocaine.

Given its confessional, incestuous nature, John McVie suggested the album be titled Rumours - an album that has since become so popular that it can regally turn up, as it does here, a year late for its 35th-anniversary edition. Over the course of the material collected here, meanwhile (a three-CD "expanded" edition that includes a live album and a CD of working roughs; a "deluxe" edition that adds to this another disc of near-complete mixes, and a DVD of Rosebud, a much-bootlegged 1977 documentary film), you can intimately chart the band's progress through their unenviable task.

The toxic, humid mood is tough to hide, even outside the songs. In photos of the period, Christine McVie is seldom seen without a bottle of white wine. In the Rosebud film, Buckingham asks McVie how he wants to do something, and McVie just shrugs blankly. "I don't care," he says, "I just want to go home." The album took a year to make, during which time the mastertapes began to degrade from overuse - as if the very hardware of the recording studio was reminding them how damaging it could be to go over the same emotional issues.

The only group composition on an album made by self-obsessed individuals, it is The Chain that best articulates Fleetwood Mac's situation at the time - its three discrete elements articulating the band's estrangement from one another. As you can hear over the course of this set, one part comes from a rather sleepy Nicks song called The Chain. The concluding guitar blowout comes from an outro to a McVie composition called Keep Me There. The verse comes from a reworked old song by Buckingham. It's not called The Chain because of some cosmic understanding between band members. It's called The Chain because it comprises three utterly separate elements that have been pragmatically stuck together by Lindsey Buckingham. Hence, one presumes, his exasperated swearing on the lead-in.

Time has made it an anthem, but the expedient composition of the song reveals an important truth about the pragmatism at the heart of Fleetwood Mac. Once a stalwart hard rock band, necessity had forced them to change so often that by the time they arrived at the line-up that made Rumours, the band were in their third distinct phase. Fronted by the mercurial Peter Green, at the end of the 1960s the band had enjoyed chart success with an eerie and lyrical take on the blues. When Green left, mellower songs were written to diminishing commercial returns by another guitarist, Bob Welch. When Welch departed, Mick Fleetwood (the drummer for and sergeant major of the band) doggedly searched again for new musicians.

As is often the case with relationships, Fleetwood went looking for one thing, but found another - he went looking for a guitarist, but found the defining sound of the 1970s. Buckingham and Nicks, musically speaking, were an odd couple (he a meticulous tunesmith and arranger; she a far vaguer writer, her wafty persona part white witch, part reiki masseuse), but their talents, even when directed at one another, helped create an affluent, supremely harmonious new sound.

For the "Me" decade, Fleetwood Mac delivered the "me" album. Rumours, with its gleaming tunes and subtext of "we need to talk about us" is as indivisible from the affluent American culture of the period as a woman in a beret discussing her aura. At precisely the moment when punk rock was thought to have the monopoly on rawness, Fleetwood Mac provided all of the emotional rancour and disappointment ("Being with you/Isn't the right thing to do …") of the most ardent punk band, and yet delivered it in the most fabulously smooth and appealing fashion. These are hard words that are softly intimated.

Still, as modern as it sounded - critics said it was "very 1970s", even in the 1970s - there were still traces of the band that Fleetwood Mac had once been. Christine McVie's Don't Stop (later Bill Clinton's election campaign song) was based on the kind of gutsy piano shuffle that would have pleased the blues aficionados they once played to. On Go Your Own Way and The Chain, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood provide groovy rhythm support for Buckingham's screaming lead guitar.

Things never quite become unhinged, however. McVie's piano is Bluthner grand rather than battered barrelhouse, and Buckingham's guitar is simply another texture that he adds to his palette in his ongoing mastery of studio dynamics. Throughout the album, in fact, we find the very signifiers that we formerly associated with the wild and searching nature of 1960s rock music to have been repurposed and redirected. Turned inwards, in order to articulate a set of raw, domestic, and individual truths.

On Rumours, the band's disparate talents (Buckingham's folky pop melodies; Nicks's mystic incantations) are all likewise polished to serve the streamlined sound. It is probably Christine McVie's writing, however, that seems most absolutely in tune with the times. You Make Loving Fun, a sprightly funk on a Fender Rhodes piano, is a tidy, Steely Dan-like groove. Her solo showcase Songbird, meanwhile, is a classic confessional ballad of the period, simultaneously completely personal and instantly universal. That it was recorded in an empty concert hall, a rose and a bottle of champagne atop the piano should almost go without saying.

That mix of public and private is the peculiar genius of Rumours: it transformed the utterly specific human resources problems arising from a rock group's workplace romances into the ninth biggest-selling album of all time. The album's massive commercial success, meanwhile, has become a different kind of chain for the band: a diamond-studded leash and collar that has kept them together long after it would arguably have been healthier to part. The band will tour again this summer.

Successive generations of fans, meanwhile, have come to the record seduced by its melodies, and stayed for the emotional veracity of the songs. A younger generation has found its own labels ("coke rock"; "divorce rock") as an ironic way to distance themselves from their enjoyment of such a mainstream, even unfashionable record.

Neither are wrong: from the very start of its lifespan, Rumours has been an album impossible to separate from the circumstances of its making. In 1977, Stevie Nicks didn't shy away from the fact that the torrid romantic narrative behind the album would help sell it. Of the story, to Rolling Stone magazine she shrugged, "Am I going to try and say that's not interesting?" Today, in the liner notes for the album, she has hardened her position: "The truth about Rumours," she says, "is that Rumours was the truth."

John Robinson is associate editor of Uncut and the Guardian Guide's rock critic. He lives in London.


Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/the-art-of-falling-apart#ixzz2JnJTv6u2
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook

[michelej1]

Forbes Magazine by Michele Catalano, Contributor , February 2, 2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelecatalano/2013/02/02/35-years-of-rumours-a-retrospective-on-fleetwood-macs-iconic-album/


35 Years Of Rumours: A Retrospective On Fleetwood Mac's Iconic Album

There are skeletons in my musical closet

I’m fourteen years old and I have two albums sitting on my bedroom floor. It’s winter, maybe late February. There’s a heavy snow falling, enough snow to send most fourteen year olds outside to do stupid things like attach themselves to car bumpers so they can slide down the slick streets. Not me. I’ve opted to stay in and study. Not schoolwork. I was never the kind to study for school on a Friday night. I’m studying music.

On my right side is Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same, an album I’d been listening to non-stop since Christmas. On my left is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, an album I’ve yet to put on my turntable. It was a gift from my grandfather, who knew someone who knew someone at a record label who gave it to him to “give to that granddaughter of yours that likes music.” That’s me.

I’m into rock and roll. I’m into deep lyrics about stairways to heaven and hobbits. I’m into noisy guitars and the high pitched wails of Robert Plant. I’m not into whatever this Fleetwood Mac group is selling me. That’s for people who like pop music. Not for rockers like me.

But something compels me to give it a try. What can it hurt? No one is around. None of my friends will know that I’m sitting here listening to what is ostensibly a top 40 album while I’m supposed to be rocking the hell out.

On my right side is Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains the Same, an album I’d been listening to non-stop since Christmas. On my left is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, an album I’ve yet to put on my turntable. It was a gift from my grandfather, who knew someone who knew someone at a record label who gave it to him to “give to that granddaughter of yours that likes music.” That’s me.

I’m into rock and roll. I’m into deep lyrics about stairways to heaven and hobbits. I’m into noisy guitars and the high pitched wails of Robert Plant. I’m not into whatever this Fleetwood Mac group is selling me. That’s for people who like pop music. Not for rockers like me.

But something compels me to give it a try. What can it hurt? No one is around. None of my friends will know that I’m sitting here listening to what is ostensibly a top 40 album while I’m supposed to be rocking the hell out.

And my god, that bass line on ‘The Chain.” Even beyond the words, those precious few notes speak to me of a certain darkness. The last minute and fifteen seconds of the song encompass everything the members of Fleetwood Mac were trying to tell me about life and love and loss and misery.

Trust no one. Everything is a lie.

The stories unfolding in front of me while listening to Rumours are far removed from hobbits and heaven. There’s a level of profundity that’s a startling revelation to a fourteen year old. Music nowhere near the simplistic pop I thought I would find on the album? Another revelation. Rumours is just a different version of rock and roll, I think. A more complex, intricate and even intimate version.

It wasn’t until many years later that I fully understood the process behind the making of Rumours and everything that led up to it. The breakups, the drugs, the romantic entanglements and estrangements, they all served a purpose in creating what is truly one of the greatest albums ever made.

35 years later (it’s really 36 years, but it’s their anniversary so we’ll let them call it 35) with the stories all public knowledge, the background of Rumours only adds to the mystique of the album and the band.

The just released 35th anniversary reissue contains three discs encompassing the original album, twelve unreleased tracks and B-sides, acoustics, demos and instrumentals. Very few albums in history are worth this kind of attention 35 years after their inception. If such lavish attention all these years later keeps Rumours alive, so be it. Let every generation discover and ingest what I took in at fourteen, with the benefit of having the whole story at hand.

Does an album that’s already had a celebratory reissue deserve another one? When that album is Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, the answer - my personal one - is yes.

[michelej1]

NPR
By Tom Moon February 5, 2013 8:29 am
http://kunm.org/post/fleetwood-macs-expanded-rumours-bit-much

An expanded version of Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album Rumours comes out this week, to mark the 35th anniversary of one of the top-selling albums of the '70s. The deluxe set includes demos, outtakes from the recording sessions, live recordings and a documentary DVD, along with a vinyl pressing of the original album.

The original 11 songs of the pop-rock classic Rumours can be experienced easily in one sitting. Apparently, that's just not enough anymore. When the die-hards plunk down their $85 for the superpremium version, they'll get intimate early glimpses of familiar tunes like "Songbird" and a version of "The Chain" with completely different verses.

We've seen a bunch of these Special Editions of landmark albums in the past few years. Nirvana did one for Nevermind. The Smashing Pumpkins issued a five-disc marathon containing presumably every scrap from sessions for its commercial breakthrough from 1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. And to mark the 25th anniversary of his hit record So, Peter Gabriel put together a box that includes an unusual collage-like demo disc entitled So DNA. It chronicles the evolution of the songs from early inspiration through the final product.

This kind of peek behind the curtain can be fascinating. But to be honest, sometimes it's less than that. For every revealing moment on the expanded Rumours, there are two or three tracks that don't add much to what we already know about this iconic album. Listening to a full disc of demos and outtakes can teach this much: Not every step in the creative process is intended for public consumption. Sometimes the well-known final versions are all you really need.


Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Last week, Fleetwood Mac released an expanded version of their 1977 album "Rumours," marking the 35th anniversary of one of the top-selling albums of the 1970s. The deluxe set includes demos, outtakes, live recordings and a documentary DVD, along with a vinyl pressing of the original album. It's one of a number of anniversary editions to be released lately. And to critic Tom Moon, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

TOM MOON, BYLINE: The original 11 songs of Fleetwood Mac's classic "Rumours" unfold in a little over 39 minutes. For several decades, that's been perfection. But apparently, it's just not enough anymore. When die-hards plunk down their $85 for the superpremium version, they'll get intimate early sketches of familiar tunes like "Songbird."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SONGBIRD")

FLEETWOOD MAC: (Singing) And the songbirds are singing like they knew the score. And I love you, I love you, I love you like never before.

MOON: And among the surprises is this version of "The Chain" with completely different verses.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE CHAIN")

MAC: (Singing) I won't want to watch you go, no. And I won't even try. There you go down the road. Don't look to me to say goodbye. And if you don't love me now, you will never love me again. I can't stay and hear you say you would never break the chain.

MOON: We've seen a bunch of these special editions of landmark albums in the last few years. Nirvana did one for "Nevermind." The Smashing Pumpkins issued a five-disc marathon containing presumably every scrap from the 1995 "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness." And to mark the 25th anniversary of his hit record "So," Peter Gabriel put together a box that includes an unusual demo disc entitled "So DNA." Each track is a collage tracing the evolution of the songs from very early inspiration...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOON: ...through the final product.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOON: This kind of peek behind the curtain can be fascinating. But to be honest, sometimes it's less than that. For every revealing moment on the expanded "Rumours," there are two or three tracks that don't add much to what we already know about this iconic album. Listening to a full disc of demos and outtakes can teach us this much - not every step in the creative process is intended for public consumption. Sometimes the well-known final versions really do tell the whole story.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN")

MAC: (Singing) Been down one time, been down two times. Never going back again.

SIEGEL: Music critic Tom Moon.

(SOUNDBITE OF CREDITS)

SIEGEL: I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR

[michelej1]

Blog on the Track, stuff.co.nz
All a bunch of Rumours
SIMON SWEETMAN Last updated 12:40 11/02/2013

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/blog-on-the-tracks/8285468/All-a-bunch-of-Rumours

Christine McVie believes it was her estranged husband John who made the call that the new record Fleetwood Mac was creating sounded like "a bunch of rumours". And so, Rumours was what it was called.

Rumours came into my life when I was about 11 years old; by that stage it had been out a decade already and I had in fact listened far more closely to Tango In The Night (and Tusk) and - in fact - the green-cover Greatest Hits album before getting, retrospectively, to Rumours.

Turns out, actually, that I had heard Rumours - all my life up to that point; my father had the tape in his car. And there were the ubiquitous hits covered on the Greatest Hits album (Don't Stop, Dreams, Go Your Own Way, You Make Loving Fun).

But hearing Rumours for the first time, knowingly, was a moment. It was special. Because - as Christine McVie's narration would go on to tell me, the back-story was as important to the album as the songs...around the time of Tango In The Night I was obsessed with the excellent made-for-TV documentary, Fleetwood Mac at 21.

I've thought about all of this over the last few days reviewing the 35th Anniversary Edition of Rumours; a three-disc set that features the original album and two bonus discs: one with studio outtakes, one a live gig from the 1977 Rumours World Tour.

There was a decent fill of Rumours outtakes offered with the 2004 reissue of the album on double CD - and I've got a couple of copies of the album on vinyl. I've read two books that deal specifically with the making of Rumours and the story behind the making of the album and I've read close to a dozen others about Fleetwood Mac's (overall) story.

Rumours is one of those monumentally huge albums. Whilst I (almost) understand the punk fans of the era being still thoroughly revolted by the album - and its concept/conception - at the same time I'm sorta baffled; to my mind anyone who likes music needs to hear - and hold dear this album. If not for the actual music then for the story.

How could five people so strangely entwined and bitterly divided create this perfect pop music? That's the question I have in mind every time I listen to Rumours.

And it was the same last week when the 35th Anniversary Edition arrived.

It's a treat to hear the demo versions of what would become The Chain - if you never have; two distinct songs, the band capable of marrying up tunes to make perfect unions while the marriages within the band were crumbling.

And the live CD shows the now show stopping hits as tentative crawlers...newborn songs heading out into the world. For the first time, or thereabouts...

But it's the original album that still baffles and captivates. How could they have relegated Silver Springs to mere b-side? (Here it is included at the end of the CD, in 2004 it was placed between Songbird and The Chain, the (new) opener to Side Two.

I still prefer Tusk - that album is the true masterpiece, for mine. And the eponymous album that launched the Buckingham/Nicks era is strong; some days I'm more invested in that than Rumours. But Rumours is the one that tells the story - the incredible tale, the breakups and the almost-nonchalant restarts; the band's three songwriters kicking off new relationships and boasting about those while dogging their exes. Two of the band's songwriters sparring - even while Lindsey Buckingham continued to shape Stevie Nicks' material so as to make it her best.

Rumours is the album that has Buckingham stepping into his role as the band's sonic visionary.

Rumours is the album that sees Christine McVie slipping into the background, for the first time in nearly a decade - she was always a supporting player but she had been the silent strength of the band, despite her huge contributions to Rumours she is, slowly but surely on the way out.

And Stevie Nicks' persona is on the rise - her way of inhabiting a song, creating a role for each song - that started with Rhiannon (and maybe Landslide, even) on the previous album but it's Rumours where this really resonates; where she announces this with Gold Dust Woman and Dreams and her role in The Chain.

Rumours is so beautifully, perfectly spit-polished. Hard work and cocaine and booze and loads of money...throw enough vices and cash together to swirl with superb songwriting.

I hear Rumours as a punk album. You probably think that's absurd. But there's something very punk-spirit to me about the setting for these songs, if not the actual songs.

I probably didn't need the extras that came with the 35th Anniversary Edition - but I welcomed them anyway. As a fan does.

Fleetwood Mac's music has meant more to me across the 36 years of my life than any other band; all versions of the band....

And Rumours is huge. Bigger than any of us. Bigger than just about any other album by any other band.

So what do you make of Rumours? Are you a fan? Or will you never give it the time of day? And how about the anniversary edition? Does this interest you at all? Anyone else sucked in by the story behind the making of the album?

And if not Rumours what's your favourite Fleetwood Mac album?

Blog on the Tracks is on Facebook and Twitter.

[PenguinHead]

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

I'm perplexed by the general disdain and lack of love for "I Don't Wanna Know." For me, it's a very catchy Buckingham Nicks duet. Given that, with the absence of Christine, Fleetwood Mac is essentially Buckingham Nicks, so I wish they would perform this song, as well as some tracks from that album.

If they had any sense at all, instead of another "no new album" tour, they would have re-released that album and marketed the tour as such. But I guess it doesn't matter, since ticket sales are very strong.

[michelej1]

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/entertainment/music/guestlisted/2013/02/fleetwood_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!"

[michelej1]

Critic's pick: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, 'Texas Flood Legacy Edition'; Fleetwood Mac, 'Rumours'

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/02/25/2531257/critics-pick-stevie-ray-vaughan.html#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.

[michelej1]

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/music/index.ssf/2013/02/5_reasons_to_love_fleetwood_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.

[michelej1]

The Galleon
http://www.galleonnews.com/2013/03/album-review-fleetwood-mac-rumours-35th-anniversary-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.

[michelej1]

Blog Critics.org by Donald Gibson, March 28, 2013

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-fleetwood-mac-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.

[Macfanforever]

I think no other FM record album will beat Rumours in my book.

[michelej1]

Fleetwood Mac Kittenized

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/caninus-dog-fronted-band_n_3403929.html

[Macfanforever]

Fleetwood Mac Kittenized

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/07/caninus-dog-fronted-band_n_3403929.html

Thats cute.I say meow to that.

[michelej1]

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"

[ChickenStu]

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.

[michelej1]

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/music-records/rumours-fleetwood-mac/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.

[michelej1]

Dave Redford's Log of Rhythms Blog, April 2014

http://logofrhythms.blogspot.com/2014/04/rumours.html#!/2014/04/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.

[michelej1]

Midnight Punk Blog

http://midnightpunk.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/fleetwood-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…

[bobwelchera]

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.

[lovethemac1]

It is the best album EVER, period, full stop.

[secret love]

It is the best album EVER, period, full stop.

Rumours is great but what is most remarkable about it is how over-rated it is, there I said it, full stop.
P.S. I am of the Tusk-devotees.
Also LOVE Say You Will which gets a lot of hate from some Ledgies.

[sue]

May or may not be the best Album ever, but its the only music that even after 37 years still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

[secret love]

May or may not be the best Album ever, but its the only music that even after 37 years still makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

Can't say the same, as I don't have a hairy neck. :p

[michelej1]

L. A. Music Blog, March 27, 2015 by Winnie Fan

Top 5 Albums That Will Make You Want to Go Outside

http://lamusicblog.com/2015/03/news/top-5-albums-that-will-make-you-want-to-go-outside/

Enjoy great music in the great outdoors!

Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is great for any variety of situations, but there’s an energy to the tracks that makes you want to get up and just go. Given the story behind the album, that shouldn’t be too surprising, but bitter internal struggles aside, the album drives and that’s just what I want to do when I hear it. Even slower songs like “Silver Springs” are reminiscent of the lazy detours on a road trip. Plus, traveling is one of the best times for self-reflection, and Rumours is painfully good at reminding you of that one time in your life — you know the one.

[michelej1]

http://www.sentryreview.com/entertainment/1978-classic-jubilee-brings-punk-to-chicago-filmmakers-h3194.html

The most significant promoting album of 1977 was Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours." In the words of Spin magazine, it was music produced by "rich, luxuriating hippie sophisticates who cavorted like sprites and nymphs and sipped chardonnay."

[michelej1]

WZLX June 15, 2015 10:00 AM by Sabrina Boyd (@SabrinaKayaB)

Rock’s Best Breakup Songs

http://wzlx.cbslocal.com/2015/06/15/rocks-best-breakup-songs/

Fleetwood Mac made their most famous album, Rumours, in the midst of mass breakups.

Really, everyone in the band was going through a breakup – John and Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, and Mick Fleetwood and his wife.

Somehow, rather than blowing the band apart, the two ex-couples and Mick turned all that pain and heartbreak into an amazing record.

The most successful song from that album, “Dreams,” became the band’s only #1 Billboard single on June 18, 1977. It was written by Stevie Nicks, about Lindsey Buckingham, of course.

“Now here you go again / You say you want your freedom / Well, who am I to keep you down?”
“Like a heartbeat, drives you mad / In the stillness of remembering what you had / And what you lost”

Nicks wrote the song in 10 minutes during a recording session for another track on the album. Surprisingly, but fortunately, Buckingham wasn’t upset by it at all – he appreciated the beauty of the music. Nicks told The Daily Mail,


“I walked in and handed a cassette of the song to Lindsey. It was a rough take, just me singing solo and playing piano. Even though he was mad with me at the time, Lindsey played it and then looked up at me and smiled. What was going on between us was sad. We were couples who couldn’t make it through. But, as musicians, we still respected each other – and we got some brilliant songs out of it.”

“Go Your Own Way” – Fleetwood Mac

“Loving you / Isn’t the right thing to do / How can I ever change things that I feel?”

Come on, they definitely deserve to be on this list twice.

[PenguinHead]

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

"Take a listen to your spirit -- it's crying out loud."

I love "I Don't Want to Know." It's the only Rumours song they have never been performed on stage. It's a rare vocal duet between Lindsey and Stevie - a pure Buckingham Nicks moment on the album.

Though it wasn't on the Buckingham Nicks album, the song was performed in their live shows.

[michelej1]

[Go hear a spoken word tribute to the album in Australia]

http://www.echo.net.au/2015/07/feature-events-promise-to-challenge-and-entertain-at-writers-festival/

Echo Net Daily July 22, 2015 |

Festival favourite, literary cabaret Liner Notes returns on Saturday August 8 at Byron Theatre. A spoken-word tribute to a classic album, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, as song-by-song a stellar line-up of writers, poets, and musicians explore their personal connection to a musical legend. Featuring special guests George Megalogenis, Hannie Rayson, Andy Griffiths, Krissy Kneen, Erik Jensen, Clare Wright, Marc Fennell and Zohab Zee Khan with Emilie Zoey Baker and Sean M Whelan and MC Michael Nolan.

[michelej1]

Prince George Citizen by Neil Godbout / July 27, 2015 06:48 PM - See more at: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/opinion/editorial/authentic-artistry-1.2013490#sthash.mKQwD7TT.dpuf

[This article asks whether if technological improvements allow you to make BETTER music or art now than you could in the past, if the outcome is still art or just mimicry. He discusses Lindsey and FM near the end.]

The biggest debate that runs through the philosophy of art is about authenticity. A series of hypothetical questions exposes the problem: If a 12-year-old produces an exact copy of the Mona Lisa, is it mimicry or is it artistry? If a fake of the Mona Lisa has been hanging in the Louvre for 50 years, how does that ruin the experience for those who saw the fake? How much preservation work is allowed to a piece of priceless art before it stops being the original work? These questions flow through all of the artistic disciplines, not just visual art. For music fans, this can be as toxic a dinner conversation as discussing religion or politics.

The vast majority of John Fogerty's fabulous show Sunday night at CN Centre were Credence Clearwater Revival songs. He was the songwriter, the lead singer and the guitarist on those classic songs, so does he have artistic licence to perform them or is there something inauthentic about his performance? Go back to the Journey show two weeks ago.

Guitarist Neal Schon founded the band and he is the only one who has played on every Journey album and every Journey live show. The current lineup features Schon and two others from the classic early 1980s lineup but can the band call itself Journey without lead singer Steve Perry, the voice behind all of the band's most beloved songs? Has Journey's "Journey-ishness" been lost? The only member left from Foreigner's heyday is guitarist and songwriter Mick Jones, who founded the band. To make matters even more delicate, Jones doesn't play every night the band does. When he sits out, is it Foreigner or a hand-picked cover band by the man who owns the Foreigner name? Should Jones call his band Foreigner when the lead vocals on the band's best-known work were song by Lou Gramm? Here's how weird this can get. Both Foreigner and Lou Gramm are touring this summer independently of each other. According to setlist.fm, an online clearinghouse for the songs performed at each stop on a live tour, both Foreigner and Gramm are consistently opening their lives shows with Double Vision, a rock radio staple. Which version of Double Vision is authentic or is neither? Music purists can twist themselves into knots on these issues.

Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac is still an incredible guitar player but even the most diehard Mac fan would have to admit his voice is gone (and the voice of Stevie Nicks is only marginally better). Is it better to see Buckingham and Nicks struggle to sing notes they can't hit nearly 40 years later or to see a tribute band reproduce the songs note perfect, just the way they did it on Rumours?

This is about not just art but business, of course. Fleetwood Mac charged hundreds of dollars per ticket to see the classic Rumours lineup reunited on its recent North American tour. According to Pollstar, those 56 shows brought in gross revenues of $92 million. Fans have answered with their wallets.

Somehow it's better to hear aging acts struggle to reproduce yesteryear's greatest hits in concert than to hear younger, more capable singers and musicians perform the same material. Although Journey remains a solid concert draw worldwide and in Prince George, more than a few fans passed on their recent CN Centre show, sniffing that Arnel Pineda is no Steve Perry. The problem is no live musical act is who they were in the studio, either, where the best takes out of countless demos, rehearsals and takes makes the final record.

Buckingham's guitar solo on Go Your Own Way is pieces of three guitar solos, pieced together for Rumours, according to album co-producer Richard Dashut in his book Making Rumours. In other words, Buckingham never played it the way we hear it. And that was then.

Recording technology has advanced to such a degree that musicians don't have to ever be in the same place to record together, and every part of their performance can be digitally altered and enhanced. Which then begs the question of why it's so important for so many to see the original artist perform the original songs. The simple answer is because it's cool and it's fun and it feels authentic. And, in the case of people like John Fogerty, with both his voice and his guitar work remarkably well-preserved nearly 50 years into his career, it's inspiring and it makes for an incredible night of live music. -- Managing editor Neil Godbout - See more at: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/opinion/editorial/authentic-artistry-1.2013490#sthash.mKQwD7TT.dpuf

[michelej1]

[I realize this is just an ad more than anything else]

On the record – with Pete Gallon, Blue Belle Digital 9/13/2015

http://bluebelldigital.co.uk/eastgrinsteadonline/2015/09/13/on-the-record-with-pete-gallon-5/

I have Radio Luxembourg to thank for my introduction to Fleetwood Mac.

Listening to Albatross, fading in and out across the 208 medium wave band, jostling for signal amongst a cacophony of foreign stations broadcasting into the European night – wonderful times, and in the days before the clarity and quality really mattered, the music won me over!

There are two distinct eras of Fleetwood Mac, pre and post RUMOURS.

This multi million-selling album originally released in in 1977 in the midst of the Punk explosion, and was seen by many to be a bit of a dinosaur amongst the raging energy of Punk.

Some dinosaur!

Forty years later and withover 40 million copies sold, it remains one of the best-selling albums ever released.

Recorded during a period of personal turmoil amongst band members, it resultedin the divorce of John and Christine McVie.

Fellow band member Stevie Nicks suggests that the band produced their best work when they were in the toughest times.

The tracks – Go Your Own Way, Dreams, You Make Loving Fun and Don’t Stop – were all released as singles. And more recently The Chain has gained huge recognition associated with BBCs F1 broadcasts.

Future Audio now has a stock of the latest incarnation of this iconic album. Pressed as a double album on 180gram Vinyl, with 45RPM playback, the packaging is beautiful gatefold and – as you would expect – the sound quality is awesome.

Available in store now at £28.

[michelej1]

March 30, 2016 Casey Nugent ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

Top 10 Albums of all Times, Emertainment Monthly

http://emertainmentmonthly.com/2016/03/30/top-ten-albums-time//

3. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac

RumoursA question I’ve asked myself a lot over the past years is “where would I be without Stevie Nicks?” Nicks is a weird, wild, wonderful woman. She’s the type of rock star that comes along only every once in awhile, someone’s whose vocal power and stage presence match up to their talents as a writer. I’ve never had a breakup as bad as Rumours, but I’ve had some disastrous fights and falling outs, and Rumours is always the first thing on the queue in the aftermath. But outside of that, Rumours was an album that I first heard with my mother. There’s something forever nostalgic and important about the music your parents gave you, which is what elevates Rumours to one of my personal favorites.

[michelej1]

LAist: Let's Revisit Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
BY DEVON MCREYNOLDS IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ON APR 2, 2016 2:15 PM

http://laist.com/2016/04/02/lay_me_down_in_the_tall_grass_and_let_me_do_my_stuff.php

On April 2, 1977, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours began a long run at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, where it would stay for a (nonconsecutive) 31 weeks. The only brief interruptions in the number one spot were from The Eagles Hotel California and a live Barry Manilow album. No thanks. Since its release, Rumours has sold over 40 million copies worldwide—behind Michael Jackson's Thriller (makes sense), and, for some reason, Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell.
Anyway, Rumours is flawless— don't listen to this guy. And not only is it flawless in and of itself (Robert Christgau wrote that it "it jumps right out of the speakers at you") but the tales of its recording are notoriously bat**** crazy, too.

So join me in this brief history of The Mac's masterpiece born of heartbreak, genius, and cocaine. Lots of cocaine.

In February 1976, the gang headed up to the Record Plant in Sausalito, right after singer/ keyboardist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie had just split up after 8 years of marriage and were barely speaking to each other. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who had been together for six years, were about to call it quits too. In his 1977 piece for Rolling Stone, cub reporter Cameron Crowe characterized the situation in Sausalito as "an emotional holocaust."

Here are some choice nuggets:

"Trauma," Christine groans. "Trau-ma. The sessions were like a cocktail party every night - people everywhere. We ended up staying in these weird hospital rooms...and of course John and me were not exactly the best of friends. Stevie...was going through a bit of a hard time too because she was the one that axed it. Lindsey was pretty down about it for a while, then he just woke up one morning and said, '**** this, I don't want to be unhappy,' and started getting some girlfriends together. Then Stevie couldn't handle it..."

Lindsey Buckingham sets down the guitar. "Tonight I just want to go get drunk," he announces. "I know the exact place too. They let me throw the food..."

"It was clumsy sometimes," said John McVie. "I'm sitting there in the studio and I get a little lump in my throat - especially when you turn around and the writer's sitting right there."

This was apparent, especially in "Go Your Own Way": Nicks did not appreciate Buckingham's pointed lyrics, "packing up, shacking up is all you wanna do," telling Rolling Stone:

I very much resented him telling the world that "packing up, shacking up" with different men was all I wanted to do...He knew it wasn't true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him. He knew it, so he really pushed my buttons through that. It was like, "I'll make you suffer for leaving me." And I did.

There's another Buckingham v. Nicks story to the recording of "You Make Lovin' Fun" from producer Ken Caillat's book Making Rumours:

We played around with some ideas, and, eventually, Stevie and Lindsey were sitting on two high stools out in the studio, each of them in front of a microphone, working on background parts, singing, “You make lovin’ fun, you make lovin’ fun . . .” When I stopped the tape to rewind it, Stevie suddenly looked at Lindsey and cried out, “**** you, asshole! You can go to hell!”
Lindsey responded with a tirade of his own. “When we get back to L.A., I’m moving out.”

“I don’t want to live with you, either!” They went back and forth, screaming and yelling at each other.

I couldn’t rewind the tape fast enough. When I got to the beginning of the tape, I hit RECORD. Stevie and Lindsey looked at each other. Then they turned toward their microphones and, right on cue, right in the middle of a fight, they nailed their parts! What just happened? I was flabbergasted.

Here's more from a 2013 interview with The Guardian:
"We were cool onstage," Nicks says. "But offstage everybody was pretty angry. Most nights Chris and I would just go for dinner on our own, downstairs in the hotel, with security at the door."

As McVie explains: "John and I used to be civil - 'What key is this in? What do you want me to do on this song?' - but Stevie and Lindsey were fighting all the time. Very volatile. Their relationship still is an ongoing battle."

The band had various ways of dealing with the tensions, one of which was through the nostrils. "It wasn't like we woke up one day and everybody had bowls of coke on the tables," Nicks says. "It was a gradual thing."

It was also a glamour thing. In Sausalito, California, where the two women were based during the recording of Rumours, McVie recalls the paraphernalia on offer fondly: "You could go to these shops and buy these little beautiful coke bottles that you wore around your neck - gold, turquoise, all sorts of colours with diamonds and a little spoon. So Stevie and I wore those - it was very aesthetic."

We'd be remiss not to include the backstory for "Dreams," the only Mac song to reach #1 (and a song all-too-often prone to obnoxious covers). Caillat told Sound on Sound:

Stevie used to get bored, sitting around while all the technical stuff was going on, so she asked if there was a room with a piano to noodle around on. Well, the Record Plant told her she could use Sly Stone's studio — a little sunken room that they'd built for him to work in — and one day while we were working on some track, she came in and said, 'I've just written the most amazing song.' 'Really? Let's hear it.'

And I've just got to include "The Chain"—my personal go-to karaoke pick—and soundtrack to one of my fondest Philadelphia memories (and, the only song on Rumours credited to all five members of the Mac).

Fleetwood Mac will never escape the legends and legacy of Rumoursbecause it's so much more than just a slice of the '70s. Buckingham revisited the making of album in a 2013 Rolling Stone interview:

That really was a lot of the appeal of Rumours. The music was wonderful, but the music was also authentic because it was two couples breaking up and writing dialogue to each other. It was also appealing because we were rising to the occasion to follow our destiny. So you had to live in denial, you had to learn to compartmentalize your emotions and do what needs to be done. It brought out the voyeur a little bit in everybody.

I know this is an impossible request, but what is your favorite track from Rumours? Tell us in the comments.

[bombaysaffires]

LAist: Let's Revisit Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
BY DEVON MCREYNOLDS IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ON APR 2, 2016 2:15 PM

http://laist.com/2016/04/02/lay_me_down_in_the_tall_grass_and_let_me_do_my_stuff.php

On April 2, 1977, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours began a long run at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, where it would stay for a (nonconsecutive) 31 weeks. The only brief interruptions in the number one spot were from The Eagles Hotel California and a live Barry Manilow album. No thanks. Since its release, Rumours has sold over 40 million copies worldwide—behind Michael Jackson's Thriller (makes sense), and, for some reason, Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell.
Anyway, Rumours is flawless— don't listen to this guy. And not only is it flawless in and of itself (Robert Christgau wrote that it "it jumps right out of the speakers at you") but the tales of its recording are notoriously bat**** crazy, too.

So join me in this brief history of The Mac's masterpiece born of heartbreak, genius, and cocaine. Lots of cocaine.

In February 1976, the gang headed up to the Record Plant in Sausalito, right after singer/ keyboardist Christine McVie and bassist John McVie had just split up after 8 years of marriage and were barely speaking to each other. Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who had been together for six years, were about to call it quits too. In his 1977 piece for Rolling Stone, cub reporter Cameron Crowe characterized the situation in Sausalito as "an emotional holocaust."

Here are some choice nuggets:

"Trauma," Christine groans. "Trau-ma. The sessions were like a cocktail party every night - people everywhere. We ended up staying in these weird hospital rooms...and of course John and me were not exactly the best of friends. Stevie...was going through a bit of a hard time too because she was the one that axed it. Lindsey was pretty down about it for a while, then he just woke up one morning and said, '**** this, I don't want to be unhappy,' and started getting some girlfriends together. Then Stevie couldn't handle it..."

Lindsey Buckingham sets down the guitar. "Tonight I just want to go get drunk," he announces. "I know the exact place too. They let me throw the food..."

"It was clumsy sometimes," said John McVie. "I'm sitting there in the studio and I get a little lump in my throat - especially when you turn around and the writer's sitting right there."

This was apparent, especially in "Go Your Own Way": Nicks did not appreciate Buckingham's pointed lyrics, "packing up, shacking up is all you wanna do," telling Rolling Stone:

I very much resented him telling the world that "packing up, shacking up" with different men was all I wanted to do...He knew it wasn't true. It was just an angry thing that he said. Every time those words would come onstage, I wanted to go over and kill him. He knew it, so he really pushed my buttons through that. It was like, "I'll make you suffer for leaving me." And I did.

There's another Buckingham v. Nicks story to the recording of "You Make Lovin' Fun" from producer Ken Caillat's book Making Rumours:

We played around with some ideas, and, eventually, Stevie and Lindsey were sitting on two high stools out in the studio, each of them in front of a microphone, working on background parts, singing, “You make lovin’ fun, you make lovin’ fun . . .” When I stopped the tape to rewind it, Stevie suddenly looked at Lindsey and cried out, “**** you, asshole! You can go to hell!”
Lindsey responded with a tirade of his own. “When we get back to L.A., I’m moving out.”

“I don’t want to live with you, either!” They went back and forth, screaming and yelling at each other.

I couldn’t rewind the tape fast enough. When I got to the beginning of the tape, I hit RECORD. Stevie and Lindsey looked at each other. Then they turned toward their microphones and, right on cue, right in the middle of a fight, they nailed their parts! What just happened? I was flabbergasted.

Here's more from a 2013 interview with The Guardian:
"We were cool onstage," Nicks says. "But offstage everybody was pretty angry. Most nights Chris and I would just go for dinner on our own, downstairs in the hotel, with security at the door."

As McVie explains: "John and I used to be civil - 'What key is this in? What do you want me to do on this song?' - but Stevie and Lindsey were fighting all the time. Very volatile. Their relationship still is an ongoing battle."

The band had various ways of dealing with the tensions, one of which was through the nostrils. "It wasn't like we woke up one day and everybody had bowls of coke on the tables," Nicks says. "It was a gradual thing."

It was also a glamour thing. In Sausalito, California, where the two women were based during the recording of Rumours, McVie recalls the paraphernalia on offer fondly: "You could go to these shops and buy these little beautiful coke bottles that you wore around your neck - gold, turquoise, all sorts of colours with diamonds and a little spoon. So Stevie and I wore those - it was very aesthetic."

We'd be remiss not to include the backstory for "Dreams," the only Mac song to reach #1 (and a song all-too-often prone to obnoxious covers). Caillat told Sound on Sound:

Stevie used to get bored, sitting around while all the technical stuff was going on, so she asked if there was a room with a piano to noodle around on. Well, the Record Plant told her she could use Sly Stone's studio — a little sunken room that they'd built for him to work in — and one day while we were working on some track, she came in and said, 'I've just written the most amazing song.' 'Really? Let's hear it.'

And I've just got to include "The Chain"—my personal go-to karaoke pick—and soundtrack to one of my fondest Philadelphia memories (and, the only song on Rumours credited to all five members of the Mac).

Fleetwood Mac will never escape the legends and legacy of Rumoursbecause it's so much more than just a slice of the '70s. Buckingham revisited the making of album in a 2013 Rolling Stone interview:

That really was a lot of the appeal of Rumours. The music was wonderful, but the music was also authentic because it was two couples breaking up and writing dialogue to each other. It was also appealing because we were rising to the occasion to follow our destiny. So you had to live in denial, you had to learn to compartmentalize your emotions and do what needs to be done. It brought out the voyeur a little bit in everybody.

I know this is an impossible request, but what is your favorite track from Rumours? Tell us in the comments.

It probably sounds totally weird but I've always been curious to find a photo in which either of them is wearing such a thing, coz I've seen gazillions of pics from that time and can't recall seeing any jewelry on either of them that fits this description....

[Mr Scarrott]

Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac [/B]is still an incredible guitar player but even the most diehard Mac fan would have to admit his voice is gone (and the voice of Stevie Nicks is only marginally better). Is it better to see Buckingham and Nicks struggle to sing notes they can't hit nearly 40 years later or to see a tribute band reproduce the songs note perfect, just the way they did it on Rumours?

This is about not just art but business, of course. Fleetwood Mac charged hundreds of dollars per ticket to see the classic Rumours lineup reunited on its recent North American tour. According to Pollstar, those 56 shows brought in gross revenues of $92 million. Fans have answered with their wallets.



This kind of thing annoys me. I don't go to a Fleetwood Mac gig expecting to be transported back in a TARDIS to 1977. I know that Stevie and Lindsey's voices have lost a lot of their range.. their timbres are decidedly different.. Christine's occasional vocal flubs are to be expected but we understand this, accept it, and embrace it. We're getting older, too .These people are aged 65 to 72. They still perform credibly and with passion and have an audience that overwhelmingly goes home happy to have been in their company for two and a half hours...

I'm seeing these people now and that's what great about it. If they're still performing just for the money, they're hiding their motivation well enough for me. They still play and sing every note as if their lives depend on it.

[michelej1]

Emertainment Monthly, Editor's Choice Top 10 Albums

EDITOR’S CHOICE: Top 10 Albums April 15, 2016 Anna Marketti

NUMBER NINE

http://emertainmentmonthly.com/2016/04/15/editors-choice-top-10-albums/

Yes, it’s the album that made Fleetwood Mac famous. No, it doesn’t have “Landslide” on it. Rumours is still a hot topic in the music industry due to its production values and pure diversity of sound. Steady bass and drums underscore the entire album, with Lindsey Buckingham free to shred away on his guitar. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks passed the mic back and forth for the vocal components of the album, giving some songs the edgy rasp of Nicks’s voice, and the sultry, clear tones of McVie’s. Though their eponymous album (yes, the one with “Landslide”) that was released prior to Rumours reached number one on the charts, Rumours wins out in its appeal as a whole album. “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” were great for radio play, but the remainder of Fleetwood Mac isn’t as rife with rich musicality as Rumours. The twinkling guitar riffs on “Never Going Back Again” that support Buckingham’s nervous vocals are mystifying, and McVie’s command of the piano and her voice in “Songbird” is truly heartbreaking. Every member of Fleetwood Mac gets a turn to strut their stuff on Rumours, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

Fun fact: You may know “I Don’t Want to Know” thanks to Paul Rudd.

[michelej1]

Pacific Standard By Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, April 21, 2016

https://psmag.com/seven-albums-to-stop-the-apocalypse-12f234c17553#.ce4nbpqve


Seven Albums to Stop the Apocalypse

When the aliens finally descend to crush humanity, we must be prepared to beat them back with our last remaining resource: hit records.


2. Fleetwood Mac—‘Rumours’:

The thing about Rumours is that it provides both hits and drama, two elements essential to bonding time with anyone, especially with aliens who want nothing more than to watch civilization burn. Imagine the excitement! The aliens on your couch, leaning close to your record player, fully engrossed in the stories behind the music. Yes, my alien friends. Lindsey Buckingham was maybe a bit of a jerk to Stevie Nicks. Yes, they are singing “I Don’t Wanna Know” to each other. The bonus here is that you can show them videos of Buckingham and Nicks in 2016, getting along perfectly well. If those two gave each other another chance, surely the rest of us deserve one.

[lilyfee]

Pacific Standard By Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, April 21, 2016

https://psmag.com/seven-albums-to-stop-the-apocalypse-12f234c17553#.ce4nbpqve


Seven Albums to Stop the Apocalypse

When the aliens finally descend to crush humanity, we must be prepared to beat them back with our last remaining resource: hit records.


2. Fleetwood Mac—‘Rumours’:

The thing about Rumours is that it provides both hits and drama, two elements essential to bonding time with anyone, especially with aliens who want nothing more than to watch civilization burn. Imagine the excitement! The aliens on your couch, leaning close to your record player, fully engrossed in the stories behind the music. Yes, my alien friends. Lindsey Buckingham was maybe a bit of a jerk to Stevie Nicks. Yes, they are singing “I Don’t Wanna Know” to each other. The bonus here is that you can show them videos of Buckingham and Nicks in 2016, getting along perfectly well. If those two gave each other another chance, surely the rest of us deserve one.

Rumours is in very mixed company on this list...

[michelej1]

[From an interview with Lee Aaron]

From KNAC By Curt Miller, Pittsburgh Correspsondent Monday, April 25, 2016

http://knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=19588

One of my favorite bands growing up was FLEETWOOD MAC. When the Rumours album came out I remember listening to it over and over. What made that album great was the fact that they have several writers in the band each with different influences. It really comes through in the music. You’ve got Christine McVie doing a tender piano ballad. “The Chain” and “Gold Dust Woman” are heavy, blues/rock songs. There’s “Second Hand News", which borders on bluegrass with Lindsey Buckingham’s influence and guitar playing. Then there’s “Dreams”, which is a straight-ahead rock/pop song. That record is so fantastic because FLEETWOOD MAC still sounds like a cohesive band. The album takes you on a musical journey. It’s interesting every time you listen to it and that’s what merits its longevity.

[SisterNightroad]

Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' revealed a tumultuous band

It’s 1976 and Fleetwood Mac is a band in crisis.

Given the success of their self-titled 10th album the previous year, this might be surprising. After all, the band was newly invigorated with the addition of singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, both of whom had helped it evolve from its beginnings as a British blues group to what would become a California pop-rock band.

But with the commercial success of 1975’s “Fleetwood Mac” and hits like Nicks’ “Rhiannon” also came personal turmoil. Buckingham and Nicks broke up. Bassist John McVie and keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie divorced. And even drummer Mick Fleetwood was dealing with his own divorce from Jenny Boyd, who had an affair with the band’s previous guitarist, Bob Weston.

As a result of all these breakups (and various, interspersing trysts), the lyrical content of 1977’s “Rumours” is often bitter. But it’s also brilliant. If one thing has been proved by popular music in the past 70 years or so, two of the greatest inspirations for songwriting are love and the loss of it.

“Rumours” kicks off with Buckingham’s bouncy “Second Hand News.” It’s about as close as Fleetwood Mac ever came to crafting an all-out pop song. Despite its buoyant melody, the lyrics still address the songwriter’s relationship status: “I know there’s nothing to say / Someone has taken my place.”

Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way” is perhaps one of the best breakup songs ever written with lyrics like, “Packing up / Shacking up / Is all you wanna do,” directed at Nicks, of course. Fleetwood pummels his drums as John McVie pounds on his bass and Buckingham’s guitars catch fire. Yet the chorus is soaring as Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie combine their voices for this super-charged barnburner.

The intricate guitar structure of “Never Going Back Again” came to define the sound that Buckingham would pursue through much of his solo career. The song’s title and chorus again reference a relationship gone wrong. But this time it’s not about Nicks. Supposedly it’s about a post-Nicks rebound.

While “Rhiannon” became Nicks’ signature song, “Dreams” remains one of her … well … dreamiest. Even though it has a sweeping chorus, that simple John McVie bass line keeps the song grounded in its serious storyline: “Now here you go again / You say you want your freedom / Well who am I to keep you down.” Then, of course, there’s that classic kiss-off line: “Players only love you when they’re playing.”

Take that, Buckingham. Yes, the lyrical content here is downright toxic.

Nicks’ “I Don’t Want To Know” sounds happy by comparison but it too is about love that “keeps right on walking down the line.” Then there’s the searing “Gold Dust Woman,” which is about a different type of toxic relationship, namely her romance with cocaine. Again, bad relationships inspire absolutely brilliant songwriting and “Gold Dust Woman” remains one of Nicks’ best.

With all of Buckingham and Nicks’ musical bickering, the positivity of Christine McVie’s sunny “Don’t Stop” is warmly welcomed. Buckingham lends a hand on lead vocals as he and McVie sing about smiles and the hope of tomorrow. Yes, she had just divorced her bassist husband, but she was looking toward the future.

Of course, during the recording of this album, Christine McVie had already moved on to dating the band’s lighting director. Her happy little tune, “You Make Loving Fun,” is about him while her sweet and tuneful “Songbird” is another pleasant break from the angst as she sings, “And I love you, I love you, I love you / Like never before.” Even the sad-sounding “Oh Daddy” is fairly optimistic.

Despite all the in-fighting, Fleetwood Mac came away from “Rumours” with a series of hits and even greater popularity than before. It went on to achieve critical acclaim and Rolling Stone eventually named it No. 25 on its list of the Top 500 Albums of All Time.

Ultimately, the band came together to create an album of musical brilliance. That unity also led to the song “The Chain,” which is the only track on “Rumours” where all five band members contribute to the writing. In addition to a killer bass line from John McVie and some of Fleetwood’s best beats, the song features the all-important lines: “I can still hear you saying / You would never break the chain.”



http://www.thespectrum.com/story/entertainment/music/backbeat/2016/11/14/fleetwood-macs-rumours-revealed-tumultuous-band/93816110/

[aleuzzi]

Meanwhile, we wait for new music....

[Newzchspy]

Now, nearing 40 years since its release, its still one album that crosses many generations and constituents. We can wait all we want for "new music" , BUT this is the one album that will always stand the test of time.

[dreamsunwind]

I know some people think with Rumours it's like not necessarily always a good thing that Rumours was huge because it's what everyone associates them with but to me, that just shows how significant that album was. I'd compare it to the likes of Thriller by Michael Jackson in terms of significancy. Even groups like the Stones, who are a lot bigger than FM, never had an album like that.

[Newzchspy]

I know some people think with Rumours it's like not necessarily always a good thing that Rumours was huge because it's what everyone associates them with but to me, that just shows how significant that album was. I'd compare it to the likes of Thriller by Michael Jackson in terms of significancy. Even groups like the Stones, who are a lot bigger than FM, never had an album like that.

RIAA has it at # 8 @ >20 Million Certified Sales. Pretty impressive when you think of the very few that are ahead of Rumors. If you look closely, its like the late 70s, early 80s really cleaned UP for album sales. NOT even Prince was up in the Top 10 which is pretty atmospheric!!

[dreamsunwind]

RIAA has it at # 8 @ >20 Million Certified Sales. Pretty impressive when you think of the very few that are ahead of Rumors. If you look closely, its like the late 70s, early 80s really cleaned UP for album sales. NOT even Prince was up in the Top 10 which is pretty atmospheric!!

Didn't that recent article thing that got posted on here say that FM as a whole has sold 140 million? Wikipedia needs to be updated :lol:

Everyone knows Rumours, I think out of the list of those top selling albums, it's one of the most popular amongst people. Everyone and their mother has listened to it.

[michelej1]

MTV.com HANIF WILLIS-ABDURRAQIB 3h ago

http://www.mtv.com/news/2977796/fleetwood-mac-rumours-forty-years/

FLEETWOOD MAC’S RUMOURS AT 40: HEARTBREAK AND MAGIC
REVISITING THE CLASSIC 1977 ALBUM’S PEAK DRAMA AND INCOMPLETE ENDINGS

When I was fresh into my twenties, a pal of mine moved into a small, one-bedroom apartment with his girlfriend. Our friend group thought she was wonderful, but we still had our concerns, not all of them tied to the fact that he was splitting from our established post-college, pre-adult house and leaving his portion of the rent uncovered. The concept was entirely foreign to me: I hadn’t yet loved anyone enough to want to share a space with them that wasn’t temporary and, perhaps, quickly forgotten. The shared machinery of love and trust has many parts and many flaws, and therefore many opportunities for disaster. At the time, it all existed on too thin a ledge for me to imagine walking.

When my friend and his girlfriend broke up three months into the lease, they stayed in the apartment together. Breaking the lease was too expensive, as was one of them taking on the rent alone. It also seemed that there was something about remaining inside of the wreckage that was more seductive than pushing one’s way out of it alone. It seemed, at the time, like stubbornness, but really it was a judgment call: If I can carry with me the destruction of something that I once loved, isn’t it like I still have a companion? The summer of the breakup, my friend would stay at our house late, making sure he could get home after his now ex-girlfriend fell asleep. They would avoid each other in the mornings, one sleeping on a tiny couch in the living room. Though it seemed like an absolute nightmare to me then, I remember both of them on the day we helped move them out of the apartment, as sad as I’d seen them in any of the months before. There are endings, and then there are endings.

In this way, heartbreak is akin to a brief and jarring madness. Keeping up the fight in order to not have to reckon with your own sorrow isn’t ideal, but it might help to keep a familiar voice in your ears a bit longer than letting go would. Heartbreak is one of the many emotions that sits inside the long arms of sadness, a mother with many children. I suppose it isn’t all bad, either. For example, right now I am heartbroken at the state of the world, so I take to the streets again. But the real work of the emotion happens beneath the surface. When the room you once shared with someone goes quiet, there are few good ideas. I have gutted a record collection because too many of the songs reminded me of someone I didn’t want to be reminded of. My friends have fled jobs, bands, states. I don’t enjoy being heartbroken, but I might enjoy the point in heartbreak at which we convince ourselves that literally everything is on the table, and run into whatever will dull the sharp echoing for a night, or a week, until that week becomes a year. It is the madness that both seduces and offers you your own window out once it’s done with you.

At some point, a person figured out that the performance of sadness holds value, and art has bowed at its altar ever since. Sometimes it’s a game we play: If I can convince you that I am falling apart, or in need of love, then perhaps I can draw you close enough to tell you what I really need. Other times, it is not entirely performance. In 1976, Fleetwood Mac were in desperate need of a hit to cement their shift from second-string blues-rock band to pop giants. Mick Fleetwood had higher aspirations than kicking around small clubs, and could sense the band’s time running out. Its previous album, 1975’s self-titled effort, was the first with California duo Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the band. Containing songs like “Rhiannon” and “Landslide,” now seen as Nicks’s signature tune, the album saw success, paving the way for a monster follow-up.

But in the two years that followed, everything began to come apart. Here is the part everyone knows: First, bassist John McVie and keyboardist-vocalist-songwriter Christine McVie divorced at the end of a tour after eight years of marriage. Then Buckingham and Nicks, embroiled in a volatile on-again, off-again relationship since before joining the band, finally turned it off, which didn’t reduce any of the volatility. The press, catching wind of what was believed to be the band’s collapse, circulated inaccurate stories. In reality, the band was breaking apart, but not broken up. When the spring of 1976 came, they retreated to a recording studio in California. No longer at the edge of chaos, they fully immersed themselves in it.

The lyric that opens Rumours — the band’s most iconic album, released 40 years ago this week — is Lindsey Buckingham’s. “I know there’s nothing to say / Someone has taken my place,” he sings, and just like that, the tone is set. There are few lyrics that set an album’s tone like this one, and few songs. Nicks’s vocals weave in to clash with Buckingham’s in the verses, littered with bitter proclamations. What sells Rumours as more than just high drama spun out on record is the clean brilliance of its pop leanings. While their previous album felt like a blues-ish band trying on some new clothes (which it was), Rumours was the sound of the band fully committed to its new role as a pop act, playing the game and aiming for the charts. The collaborative spirit of Buckingham and Nicks, even fractured, played into this more than anything else. Taking on the bulk of the album’s writing and vocal duties, they fashioned a dual tone: Nicks, both remorseful and hopeful on “Dreams,” with Buckingham angry and spiteful all the way through the album, most impressively on “Go Your Own Way.” Even beyond this, the album's most interesting character, in some ways, is John McVie. He was the band’s most private and reserved member, and didn’t provide lead vocals on any song. This meant that the narrative of his failing marriage could only play out on record through Christine, the most brilliant and stunning example being “You Make Loving Fun,” an ode to an affair she’d had. She told John at the time that the song was about a new dog. It’s hard to ignore that the women made Rumours exciting. Christine McVie wasn’t as flashy as Nicks, but her familiarity and comfort within the band, paired with her and Buckingham’s musical rapport, allowed space for her to emote with ease and nuance. In comparison, she often made Buckingham sound like he was having a frantic, exceptionally skilled temper tantrum.

These are the politics of splitting apart: We run to our friends and tell them the version of the story that will ignite in them a desire to support our latest bit of grief. It becomes a bit tastier, of course, if your friends are millions of pop fans. If, in the telling of your heartbreak, you have to share a microphone with the person who broke your heart. If, perhaps, the drugs wore off just in time for you to remember watching your ex-partner go home with someone else the night before. This is what’s so fascinating and slightly troubling about the dynamic between Buckingham and Nicks: Rumours sounds like a real-time plea to see which of them could come out of the breakup more adored than they were inside of the relationship. Buckingham lost, and, really, he didn’t stand much of a chance. Nicks, gifted, charming, and singular, was the greatest and most fully developed character in the album’s soap opera, despite taking solo lead vocals on only two songs. But the album’s unique appeal goes beyond winners and losers. For the voyeur who prefers public collapse, there is no better combination than someone who is both sad and willing to lie to themselves about it.

Without a healthy investment in the art of denial, Rumours wouldn’t work. Only denial of an emotional desire for escape could lead a band to complete an album when, at its worst moments, its members were unable to talk to each other without screaming. In one of the rooms in the Sausalito studio where the album was recorded, there were no windows. Mick Fleetwood, after a few weeks of recording, removed all of the clocks from the walls. When there is no image of time to make stand still, everything can become a type of stillness. The album represents the sound of ’70s excess at every turn, asking the band how much of the process and all of its demons it could take into itself. It all spoke to the band’s interest in self-torture for the sake of Mick Fleetwood’s mission, his desire to make The Great American Pop Album at all costs, even if Fleetwood Mac had to be held together by cocaine and scotch tape.

“The Chain,” the album’s centerpiece, is haunting, angry, teeming with regret and disgust. It is the whole of the album, condensed into just four and a half minutes. It was crafted largely in separate rooms, pieced together with past parts of old songs. It churns along painfully, driven by a McVie bass riff that sounds like a caged thing finally coming to terms with its surroundings. On the song, Buckingham and Nicks engage in a tug-of-war on the chorus — “If you don’t love me now / You will never love me again” — and they sound like they are shouting at each other from across the studio. It is the one song on the album that makes me feel like something could be broken at any moment. It is the song that you play for someone when they ask you what the fuss behind Rumours is about. It is the entire emotional cycle of dissolution, peaking at the end of the song with the band singing, “Chain, keep us together” in unison, more as a plea than anything else.

It helps to think about Rumours as not just an album, but a living document. Once you push past the theatrics of it, the massive album sales and the thrilling gossip, it is a deeply sad project. Yes, it was such a hit that it afforded the band an ability to take risks in coming years, most notably with Tusk, the exciting Buckingham passion project that followed Rumours in 1979. But it is still an incredibly sad album. It reflects the human conflict of leaving and not leaving and trying to find some small mercy in the face of something that has left you briefly torn apart. The songs are perfect, drenched so richly in the late-’70s California aesthetic that, for a moment, you might even forget the conflicts that produced them. For anyone who has ever loved someone and then stopped loving them, or for anyone who has stopped being loved by someone, it’s a reminder that the immediate exit can be the hardest part. Admitting the end is one thing, but making the decision to fully break ties is another, particularly when an option to remain tethered can mean cheaper rent, or a hit album, or, at the very least, a small and tense place where you can go to turn your sadness into something more than sadness. It’s all so immovable, our endless need for someone to desire us enough to keep us around. To simply call Rumours a breakup album doesn’t do it justice. Most breakup albums have an end point — some triumph, a reward or promise about how some supposed emotional resilience might pay off. Rumours is an album of continual, slow breaking.

My favorite photo of the band from the Rumors era was taken by Annie Leibovitz for the March 24, 1977, Rolling Stone cover, a month or so after the album was released. The band is sprawled on a queen mattress that is resting on the floor, a single sheet covering most of the group. Mick Fleetwood is the glue in the middle, his long limbs stretching from the top of the mattress to the bottom. Buckingham has Christine McVie in his arms, a hand in her hair. Christine’s hand is outstretched, reaching over to touch Fleetwood’s foot. Nicks is resting on Fleetwood’s bare chest, her legs draped over John McVie’s stomach. John McVie is unbothered, reading a magazine. The joke is that they were always too connected to let each other go so easily. I like to think of this as the great lesson hiding in Rumours: There are people we need so much that we can’t imagine turning away from them, people we’ve built entire homes inside of ourselves for that cannot stand empty, people who we still find a way to make magic with, even when the lights flicker and the love runs entirely out.

[SisterNightroad]

FLEETWOOD MAC - RUMOURS

I confess, I’m not much of a Fleetwood Mac fan. Their limo driven, pseudo hippie decadence makes my skin crawl. Everything I couldn’t stand about the 70’s. The long hair. The beards. The coke. The football jerseys and flairs. Then there’s Stevie, with her ballet slippers, gypsy costumes and patchouli posturing. When it comes to 1977, I’m far more drawn to the likes of Television and The Clash. In terms of late 70’s Pop, give me Blondie or give me death. Which makes it even more ironic, that I simply adore the album, Rumours.

Of course, this is Fleetwood Mac in name only. The original Fleetwood Mac was a killer British blues band, with a godsend of a guitarist and front man in Peter Green. But then Peter flipped out, leaving Mick Fleetwood and John McVie to tread water in some very choppy seas. They eventually found a life raft in the form of the duo, Buckingham and Nicks. Also manning the oars was John McVie’s then wife, Christine, a keyboardist and songwriter with a keen Pop sense. So, while the band should have been called, Fleetbuck MacNicks, Fleetwood Mac has a much better ring.

Lindsey Buckingham may be a SNL joke to some, but when it comes to ‘Second Hand News’ he’s the furthest thing from a punchline. Regardless of one’s musical pretensions, it’s a positively irresistible kick off to an irresistible album. Those bamp bamp bamp’s get your foot tapping and singing along right from the get go. He’s also responsible for one of the biggest hits off Rumours, ‘Go Your Own Way.’

As for Christine McVie, ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun’ were the other big hits. Rock solid, pieces of FM friendly Pop. On the flipside however, it’s her two other songs which prove to be the weakest links on album. ‘Songbird’ is as mawkish as it’s maudlin. And, ‘Oh Daddy’ is a total bum trip compared to the rest of the album.

Speaking of links, ‘The Chain’ is the strongest, the pinnacle of all Rumours has to offer. Dark and driving, with some haunting acoustic guitar that can’t help but bring Neil Young to mind. This is the sound of the entire band on top of their game. John McVie’s bassline, a classic.

The songs that keep me coming back, however, are all Stevie Nick’s doing. ‘Gold Dust Woman’ remains one of my favorite tracks on the album. ‘Dreams’ is as haunting as, ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ is catchy. As much as I make a pretense of eschewing her image, there’s no denying her talents and those dusty, coke laced vocals. Nick’s personality is not only a dominant force on Rumours, she completely changed the face of the band. Her pivotal role cannot be underestimated.

Whether you love or hate Fleetwood Mac, Rumours is for the most part, undeniably seductive. Despite the following that’s developed over founding member Peter Green, this is the album that will forever be synonymous with Fleetwood Mac. And there is absolutely no shame in surrendering to its copious charms. Any music snob who thumbs their nose up, is just trying too hard. This is the sound of pure temptation and as Oscar Wilde once advised, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.



https://soundblab.com/reviews/albums/classic-albums/19650-fleetwood-mac-rumors

[Hawkeye]

[QUOTE=SisterNightroad;1219465]FLEETWOOD MAC - RUMOURS

I confess, I’m not much of a Fleetwood Mac fan. Their limo driven, pseudo hippie decadence makes my skin crawl. Everything I couldn’t stand about the 70’s. The long hair. The beards. The coke. The football jerseys and flairs. Then there’s Stevie, with her ballet slippers, gypsy costumes and patchouli posturing. When it comes to 1977, I’m far more drawn to the likes of Television and The Clash. In terms of late 70’s Pop, give me Blondie or give me death. Which makes it even more ironic, that I simply adore the album, Rumours.

Of course, this is Fleetwood Mac in name only. The original Fleetwood Mac was a killer British blues band, with a godsend of a guitarist and front man in Peter Green. But then Peter flipped out, leaving Mick Fleetwood and John McVie to tread water in some very choppy seas. They eventually found a life raft in the form of the duo, Buckingham and Nicks. Also manning the oars was John McVie’s then wife, Christine, a keyboardist and songwriter with a keen Pop sense. So, while the band should have been called, Fleetbuck MacNicks, Fleetwood Mac has a much better ring.

Lindsey Buckingham may be a SNL joke to some, but when it comes to ‘Second Hand News’ he’s the furthest thing from a punchline. Regardless of one’s musical pretensions, it’s a positively irresistible kick off to an irresistible album. Those bamp bamp bamp’s get your foot tapping and singing along right from the get go. He’s also responsible for one of the biggest hits off Rumours, ‘Go Your Own Way.’

As for Christine McVie, ‘Don’t Stop’ and ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun’ were the other big hits. Rock solid, pieces of FM friendly Pop. On the flipside however, it’s her two other songs which prove to be the weakest links on album. ‘Songbird’ is as mawkish as it’s maudlin. And, ‘Oh Daddy’ is a total bum trip compared to the rest of the album.

Speaking of links, ‘The Chain’ is the strongest, the pinnacle of all Rumours has to offer. Dark and driving, with some haunting acoustic guitar that can’t help but bring Neil Young to mind. This is the sound of the entire band on top of their game. John McVie’s bassline, a classic.

The songs that keep me coming back, however, are all Stevie Nick’s doing. ‘Gold Dust Woman’ remains one of my favorite tracks on the album. ‘Dreams’ is as haunting as, ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ is catchy. As much as I make a pretense of eschewing her image, there’s no denying her talents and those dusty, coke laced vocals. Nick’s personality is not only a dominant force on Rumours, she completely changed the face of the band. Her pivotal role cannot be underestimated.

Whether you love or hate Fleetwood Mac, Rumours is for the most part, undeniably seductive. Despite the following that’s developed over founding member Peter Green, this is the album that will forever be synonymous with Fleetwood Mac. And there is absolutely no shame in surrendering to its copious charms. Any music snob who thumbs their nose up, is just trying too hard. This is the sound of pure temptation and as Oscar Wilde once advised, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.



https://soundblab.com/reviews/albums/classic-albums/19650-fleetwood-mac-rumors[/QUOTE

So his taste in music is the clash and blonde and he’s against everything this version of Fleetwood Mac stands for but the one bright spot to their career is turnouts to him and not tusk?

[button-lip]

So his taste in music is the clash and blonde and he’s against everything this version of Fleetwood Mac stands for but the one bright spot to their career is turnouts to him and not tusk?

Yeah, and only Stevie changed the face of the band. Clearly, you're not a fan.

[SisterNightroad]

Career Overview: Fleetwood Mac

Originally formed in 1967 in London, the original lineup of Fleetwood Mac only included two of its present members, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. Though the first incarnation garnered success in Europe, it was only after the addition of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in 1974, followed by their self-titled album in 1975, that the band rose to mainstream popularity.
The album “Fleetwood Mac,” known among fans as “The White Album,” includes two of Stevie Nicks’ songs that eventually came to represent the band’s era, one characterized by uncertainty and change as the band relocated from England to California and began to amass commercial success. In “Landslide,” written while Nicks admired the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, stripped-back acoustic guitar backs Nicks’ plaintive questioning: “What is love? / Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? / Can I handle the seasons of my life?” The song is contemplative, but in signature Stevie Nicks style, it equivocates—this time, between clinging to the past (“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing”) and trying to embrace change (“I’m getting older, too”).

“Rhiannon,” the second popular track from the album, is “about an old Welsh witch,” as Nicks famously prefaces the song in its music video. Based loosely on the story of a Welsh goddess, “Rhiannon” channels Nicks’ well-known obsession with the occult—but more generally, the song is about a woman who can’t be controlled, a “woman taken by the wind.” As guitars ascend on a minor scale, then descend again, there’s a constant, sonic swell and deflation, a rising and falling energy. In live versions of the song, Nicks delivered high-powered, knockout vocal performances, almost too passionate for comfort. “Her Rhiannon in those days was like an exorcism,” Mick Fleetwood said in a VH1 documentary.

As band members continued to flirt, fight, and fall in love, tensions within the group rose more than ever. By 1977, two couples—John and Christine McVie, as well as Buckingham and Nicks—had separated, and even Fleetwood was in the process of divorcing his wife. Coupled with this turmoil, there was a particular pressure to produce a stellar follow-up to the “White Album,” which drove members of the band to abuse drugs and alcohol.

But out of all this anxiety came the band’s most famous album to date: “Rumours,” released in 1977, stayed at the top of the Billboard Hot 200 for 31 weeks and went on to win a Grammy for Album of the Year in 1978. Its stand-out tracks provided a voyeuristic view of the interpersonal drama unfolding backstage. From Buckingham and Nicks’ earlier career as a duo, “I Don’t Wanna Know” proves that ignorance is bliss, a sarcastic end to a torrid affair: “I don’t wanna stand ‘tween you and love, honey, / I just want you to feel fine.” The love affair between Buckingham and Nicks served as the source material for the iconic songs on “Rumours.” “Go Your Own Way” was Lindsey Buckingham’s angsty, drum-heavy account of his quickly devolving relationship with Nicks, who wrote “Dreams,” her own, ethereal version of events in ten minutes with only a few chords. The tracks diverge tonally, but chart the same frustration. “If I could / Baby, I’d give you my world, / How can I / When you won’t take it from me?” Buckingham complains, while Nicks offers self-reflection and redemption, singing, “When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know.” Redemption was a recurring theme for Nicks, who struggled with addiction, first to cocaine, and then to Klonopin. In “Gold Dust Woman,” penned and sung by Nicks, she warns herself of the tragic downfall that befalls a “pale shadow of a woman”: “Take your silver spoon, dig your grave.”

There’s not much optimism to be found on “Rumours,” with the exception of Christine McVie’s “Don’t Stop,” the most cheerful breakup song in music history. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, / Don't stop, it’ll soon be here,” Buckingham and McVie sing in the chorus. “It’ll be here better than before / Yesterday’s gone, yesterday’s gone.” Its message was so compelling that President Bill Clinton used it as the theme of his 1992 presidential campaign, even convincing the then-disbanded members to reunite for a performance.

The discography of Fleetwood Mac, a prolific band, long extends beyond “Rumours.” It includes “Tusk,” “Mirage,” and “Tango in the Night,” which feature quintessential hits like “Gypsy,” “Little Lies,” and “Everywhere.” Band members pursued solo projects outside of Fleetwood Mac, too—namely, Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” on her album, “Bella Donna.” Yet something about the 1977 album resonates above the rest. Despite its release dating back 40-ish years, “Rumours” manages to sound new with every listen, its lyricism idiosyncratic enough to eschew cliché, yet general and humanly true enough to be universal. It’s a voyeuristic look at the heart of Fleetwood Mac, the story of their numerous entanglements: a fortuitous and complicated meeting of musical styles and love stories. It’s the music, which is simple and somehow always fresh, but it’s also their glamorous ’70s California style, their history of break-ups and make-ups, the melodrama and the forces that kept them together. As they sing in “The Chain”—symbolically, the only song that credits all five members—“I can still hear you saying, / You would never break the chain.”


http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/3/6/career-overview-fleetwood-mac/





'Rumours': The Greatest Breakup(s) Album

It’s the kind of knowledge more commonly associated with stalkers, but all longtime fans of Taylor Swift can rattle off a major segment of her “long list of ex-lovers,” including not only A-listers like John Mayer and Harry Styles, but also her high school flings. Even casual fans (and haters) might admit some voyeuristic interest in who inspired the cutting “Picture to Burn” or optimistic “Begin Again,” and Swift undoubtedly knows it. Why else leave hints in the liner notes? Most songwriters are less quick to publicly hint at the real-life inspiration for their work. But, as any acolyte of “Lemonade” or “4:44” knows, a touch of authenticity can make every production decision feel a bit more meaningful.
Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Grammy win for Album of the Year last month. It did not win for any grand social statement—which the Grammys tend to ignore—or for shattering musical barriers, though little innovations like drumming on an office chair contributed to its impeccable pop-rock sound. It won for having 11 brilliant songs—some wistful, some buoyant, some haunting, and all seemingly directed at bandmates.

“Rumours,” was forged in the ugly aftermath of breakups and divorces involving all five of its members, all in the year directly preceding “Rumours”’s release, 1976. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, the guitar-and-vocals duo who had catapulted Fleetwood Mac to the heights of commercial success when they joined the band two years earlier, saw their relationship unravel. So did John and Christine McVie, the bassist and keyboard player respectively. So too did drummer Mick Fleetwood and his wife. The band channeled their personal pain into making some of the best, and most devastating music of their career. “Rumours” rightfully came to be considered an iconic breakup(s) album.

The legacy of “Rumours” is, in many ways, complicated to evaluate. It sometimes stands for the entirety of Fleetwood Mac’s “golden era” output (from their 1975 self-titled album to 1987’s “Tango in the Night”), which is a shame. All of those albums are classics to varying degrees, but the power and success of “Rumours” acts as a sort of black hole into which Fleetwood Mac discussions vanish. This reductionism is at least partly due to gender. Women comprise two of its three primary songwriters (Nicks and Christine McVie), making Fleetwood Mac a relatively feminine outlier in the classic-rock canon. Critics tend to minimize and simplify the female artists in that canon. Take, for example, Joni Mitchell, who had an incredible string of highly acclaimed albums in the early ’70s, but is mostly remembered only for her magnum opus “Blue.”

This trend persists 40 years later. Given her importance to the band, it is perpetually shocking to see how little space Stevie Nicks gets on “Rumours.” With only two solo lead songs (“Dreams” and “Gold Dust Woman”) and two more where she shares the microphone (“The Chain” and “I Don’t Want to Know”), she has the shortest spotlight time of Fleetwood Mac’s vocalist trio. Her impassioned and iconic “Silver Springs” was cut from the album because of its initial runtime and relegated to the B-side of “Go Your Own Way.” Contemporary critical analysis of Stevie Nicks is in retrospect stunningly problematic, with more space dedicated to her appearance than her music. One piece in the early ’80s by famed critic Lester Bangs was simply titled “Stevie Nicks: Lilith or Bimbo?”

In spite of this unfair treatment, Nicks leaves behind a legacy greater than those of her highly talented and interesting bandmates. On “Rumours,” she further develops the mysticism of earlier Fleetwood Mac songs like “Rhiannon.” Her lyrics on the closing “Gold Dust Woman,” complemented by the song’s captivating instrumentation, are more haunting and evocative than anything Fleetwood Mac had done previously. The mesmerizing two-chord simplicity of “Dreams,” the band’s only number-one single, has a similar effect. On Nicks’s third songwriting contribution, the country-inflected “I Don’t Want to Know,” she and Buckingham turn mutual bitterness into close-harmony fireworks. Often overlooked, it’s a career vocal highlight for both, which is especially clear in the vulnerability of the second verse: “You got me rocking and a-reeling / Hanging on to you.” All three of these songs poignantly turn her struggles with relationships, identity, and substance abuse into near-mythology. Nicks essentially created the image of the ethereal superstar. Artists like Lorde, Lana Del Rey, and even Madonna have all borrowed heavily from her mold to express themselves in similarly mystical ways.

Of course, the rest of the band pulls their weight, too. 1977 caught Nicks, Buckingham, and Christine McVie at their respective peaks. From the glimmering acoustic masterpiece “Never Going Back Again” to the barn-burning hit “Go Your Own Way,” Buckingham’s contributions amaze, though his chair-drumming adventurousness would peak with 1979’s “Tusk.” Meanwhile, McVie found some hope amid the despair: The album’s one unambiguously optimistic love song, “You Make Loving Fun,” alternates between grooving funk and soaring pop. But the irresistible Clinton campaign anthem “Don’t Stop” and heartrending mid-album breather “Songbird” conceal anxiety (“I know you don’t believe that it’s true / I never meant any harm to you”) and longing (“And I wish you all the love in the world / But most of all, I wish it from myself”) under their deceptively cheery surfaces.

And then, there’s “The Chain.” Tying together multiple song-fragments and crediting every member, the band’s signature song starts the second side with some of the richest vocal harmonies ever committed to record—and only builds from there. The chorus layers melodies from Buckingham, Nicks, and McVie over each other, creating a fitting echo: “I can still hear you saying (still hear you saying) you would never break the chain / (Never break the chain)” as John McVie’s bass and Mick Fleetwood’s drums crescendo, driving home this expression of betrayal and disappointment. One breakdown and bass-driven rebuild later, the vocalists sing with increasing desperation, “Chains keep us together.” We don’t need to fully understand this lyric. We know they mean every word.


http://www.thecrimson.com/column/sound-and-vision/article/2018/3/8/soundandvision-fleetwoodmac/

[SisterNightroad]

Love Letter To A Record: Zenith Moon On Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’

Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.

In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.

Here are their love letters to records that forever changed their lives.

Kahli Rose, Zenith Moon – Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours

To my darling sweetheart Rumours,

There are no words in the English language to express my love for you. I knew our love was true when I heard you sing ‘Songbird’ to me when I was in the back seat of my parents’ car, watching the moon and stars through the window. The beautiful tune resonated and inspired me, so much so that years later, I sang that same song at my sister’s wedding for her and her husband’s first dance.

You used to sing me ‘The Chain’ when I went through my first heartbreak – you were somehow always there to empower me, to soothe me and get me back on the right track. I would always make you sing it over and over again, eventually working up the courage to sing along: “And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again.”


You have been there for me throughout my entire life, guiding me and inspiring me. You are a friend I can always rely upon, a wonderfully sweet and intricate friend who becomes more intriguing every time I listen to you. Even though I have heard your stories dozens of times, I only continue to discover new sounds, new meanings of your words and a newer yet never-ending growing appreciation of you.

We were finally united three years ago when I saw you being performed at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, and my goodness, it was such a beautiful moment. Being amongst so many people who loved and adored you as much as I do was an incredible feeling.

You’re the pan to my cakes and the wine to my glass.

We’re meant to be together, like a teacup and saucer.

Our love has been written in the stars, as “the songbirds are singing like they know the score…and I love you like never before”.

❤ Kahli Rose

–

Zenith Moon’s debut single ‘Inhibition’ is out now


Read more at http://musicfeeds.com.au/features/love-letter-to-a-record-zenith-moon-on-fleetwood-macs-rumours/#KUY2OMiq1C2MV83L.99

[sodascouts]

My favorite album by any artist, ever.