An interesting review of Rumours from 1977

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by PenguinHead

Buy 'Rumours' in vast quantities -- you'll get more from it than the insular, contrived and even sanctimonious attitudes of one of LA's other recent offerings, The Eagles' 'Hotel California.' Fleetwood Mac on 'Rumours' are in very good shape indeed.

Eagles, Eagles, Eagles. I've read several articles joining or comparing Rumours with Hotel California. Even Mick in his book mentions Eagles a lot, specially on many roads they went together. Here are just two of those mentions:

The high hopes and countless hours we had poured into Rumours were completely validated when the album slipped into the number one album chart position on May 21, 1977, displacing Hotel California by our colleagues and friendly rivals the Eagles. Rumours stayed at number one on the Billboard and Cashbox charts for the next eight months, a total of thirty-one straight weeks.....

....Rolling Stone put us on the cover (me in lascivious cheerleader drag) to commemorate our receiving their reader awards for Artist of the Year, Band of the Year, Best Album, and Best Single ("Dreams"). To my great satisfaction, the Eagles and Hotel California came in second in all categories. Many theories again appeared in the press to explain Fleetwood Mac's enormous new audience. One held that our three singer/songwriters and their different voices kept the public from getting bored with a monolithic Big Mac sound. Another postulated that the group fulfilled various deeply ingrained Anglo-American archetypes, with myself as the Public School Aristocrat, McVie as the British Cloth-Cap Working-Class type, Christine as an English Rose from the Midlands, Stevie as the California Girl, and Lindsey as Byronic Rock Star.

[jellyman10]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Agreed on both accounts. "You made me a woman tonight." Yikes.

I always like to think of Christine and her beau having a lovely evening sitting by the fire playing with modelling clay when I hear that.

[jellyman10]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

I don't think the reviewer is off the mark that much. He seems to represent a (then) fairly prevalent view of the band, perhaps a tad less generous than most, but ultimately positive.

Has any other band had to put up with so much grudging praise? I've read so many reviews of FM (mostly British ones) that keep coming back to the fact that you really can't deny that they're enjoyable to listen to .... As if it was a crime to enjoy music. But then again, that is just about the only explanation for some of the 'artistes' who were the darlings of the British music press in the late 70s and early 80s: melody and harmony were the work of Satan to those miserable lefties.*

*I'm a lefty myself, but not a miserable one. Which is ironically the way to be the miserable of all.

[michelej1]

From a list of 10 Classic Albums that were released 10 years into a band's career:

http://stereogum.com/915792/10-class...es/listomania/

4. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

In 1967, the British blues-rock band Fleetwood Mac debuted with the single “I Believe My Time Ain’t Long.” Ten years later, the only remaining original member was drummer Mick Fleetwood, and the band had somehow become an expert California studio-rock crew. They had also developed some dazzlingly byzantine intra-band romantic tensions, and those tensions fueled the creation of this album. On the album, the band’s members sang, in stunning multi-part harmony, about falling in and out of love with each other. It’s amazing that those recording sessions, fueled by cocaine and conflicted feelings, produced anything remotely listenable, let alone an album as gleamingly crafted as this one. It went on to sell 40 million copies, which damn.

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by michelej1

It went on to sell 40 million copies, which damn.

This last sentence really bugs me. It's an unfinished thought!