Rumours

Fleetwood Mac "Rumours"

It sometimes surprises people to hear all of the music that I thoroughly enjoy. I have a fondness for some "oldies" of jazz and rock from the 1950s, the beginnings of rock in the 1960s as well as the continuation of these genres in the 1970s and 1980s. So it shouldn't be a complete surprise that one of my favorite albums is Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours", an album released in 1977 that still holds up today.

The year of 1977 was an interesting one for music, featuring the releases of "The Stranger" by Billy Joel, The Clash's debut album, "News of the World" by Queen, "Low" from David Bowie, as well as the magnificent "Star Wars" score from John Williams. Amidst all of these iconic albums, Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" was released and made its way into this upper echelon of music. As soon as you sit down to listen to this album in full, it becomes clear that this album deserves all of the acclaim it got and continues to get over forty years later. 

Production of "Rumours" began in early 1976 after the band had ridden the success of their previous album as far as they could through touring. In the year between the release of "Fleetwood Mac" and the recording of "Rumours," the personal relationships of all five band members had deteriorated all at the same time. Drummer Mick Fleetwood learned of his wife's affair, bass guitarist John McVie divorced keyboardist/vocalist Christine McVie and guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham had split with vocalist Stevie Nicks for the final time. What resulted was a band who couldn't talk to each other outside of the recording studio. Yet somehow, this produced Fleetwood Mac's magnum opus when it had no right to. The recording of this album, fueled by sleepless nights, partying and cocaine, somehow got the best out of Fleetwood Mac when their personal lives were at their worst.

One thing that I find interesting is the shared responsibility of writing within Fleetwood Mac. When looking down the line of songwriters, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie got an equal share of the songwriting credits, each singing their respective songs (barring McVie's "Don't Stop" that was performed as a duet between Buckingham and McVie). The lack of collaboration on all but one song in the writing of the album almost makes the album feel like three people who stumbled into the same album. Yet the cohesion in sound is remarkable given how little say each of them had in everyone's individual songs. One could argue accurately that a lot of that cohesion is through Fleetwood and John McVie's heavy rhythm section pacing the album perfectly, no matter the style of music.

The album opens with Buckingham's "Second Hand News", a biting song about feeling tired in his relationship with Nicks. The lyrics claiming Buckingham has been "down so long/been tossed around enough" show his dissatisfaction with his relationship. The cheery style as well as the backing vocals of Nicks makes this song feel even more like a slap in the face for Nicks and, oddly, a song you could find yourself dancing along to. Nicks responds immediately with the hit song, "Dreams", a song that seems in direct conversation with the previous song. Nicks disputes the image of her that Buckingham tries to paint, asking "who am I to keep you down" but reminds him of the loneliness he'll inevitably feel without her. The bass of this song is outstanding and gives a fantastic funky feel to this song, even as it stays within the soft rock genre.

"Never Going Back Again" is another song by Buckingham, where the entire song seems to rely entirely on the strumming of his guitar. It's a short song, barely over two minutes, but it seems to reinforce Buckingham's stance that he'll never go back to Nicks, the name of the song the last phrase sung. "Don't Stop" is a song written by Christine McVie and performed with the dual vocals of Buckingham and McVie. It's probably the cheeriest song on the record, seemingly McVie's anthem to herself after her divorce, claiming that tomorrow "will be better than before" and to look toward the future. McVie and Buckingham were probably the two of the band who had the easiest time working together because of their shared musicality and it seems as though both of them are looking toward their lives without their previous significant others.

We continue the Stevie Nicks bashing in the next song. "Go Your Own Way" is a classic pop-rock song about letting go of someone. Buckingham laments "If I could/maybe I'd give you my world/How can I/When you won't take it from me" alluding to how he was willing to give Nicks everything and she wasn't willing to accept. Nicks has said later that the line "Packing up/Shacking up's all you want to do" particularly affected her in later concerts because it made her sound like a slut. Even still, it's a crowd favorite and with the high energy chorus it's not hard to see why. "Songbird" slows the album down considerably with McVie taking vocals and the piano part in this song. What's different about this song is that it's a love song, coming after five songs from Nicks and Buckingham about hating each other. It's an interesting side-step, and McVie claims that the song isn't about anyone in particular. The lyrics "And I wish you all the love in the world/But most of all I wish it from myself" have always been my favorite of the song.

Back in 1977, this song was the beginning of side two, and there's no better way to start a half than by the song "The Chain." This song is the only song on the record credited to all five Fleetwood Mac members. The pounding drum sets the mood of this song immediately and the vocal harmonies between the three vocalists are so tight you almost wish they had sung all of the songs together. The impassioned chorus where Buckingham sing-yells "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" seems to reek of the on-off relationship of Buckingham and Nicks, where they couldn't seem to break the looping of the relationship. It's one of the songs I can't help but sing along to and the guitar solo to end it is fantastic.

"You Make Loving Fun" is McVie's second solo song, a song she wrote for a new boyfriend but told John McVie was about her dog in order to avoid a fight (which I find hysterical). The bass in this song is so funky and gets the listener in a groove. I'd love to say that, musically, this song is my favorite but then I remember the entire first half of this album. It just goes to show you how solid this album is, top to bottom. Still, the bass is the real star of this song. "I Don't Want to Know" is a song written by Nicks prior to the recording of "Rumours". Her original contribution to the album, "Silver Springs," was found to not fit in with the rest of the album and so the band told Nicks to use this song instead. Nicks wasn't pleased but relented because she wanted the three writing credits. The song does fit in with the rest of the album lyrically and the duet of Buckingham and Nicks is more than fitting with lyrics "I don't wanna stand between you and love/Honey, I just want you to feel fine" getting a passive aggressive tone. I read somewhere that no couple would sing this song together unless there was something deeply wrong, and I'd have to agree. The cheery tone makes this a repeat song for me.

"Oh Daddy" by McVie is an interesting song that tonally doesn't quite match up with the rest of the album. A song that McVie claims to be for Mick Fleetwood, a father of two, doesn't seem to match up with the break-up and love songs of the rest of the album. Still, it's beautifully sung and the instrumentation is beautiful underneath McVie's voice. "Gold Dust Woman" is the final song of this album, a song written and sung by Stevie Nicks. Nicks has come up with many conflicting interpretations of this song, including being about cocaine, girls who used to give McVie and Nicks dirty looks except around men, and even about dealing with life. It's probably some combination of all of it so the lyrics shouldn't be taken too literally. What's interesting about this song is that Fleetwood can be heard breaking glass behind Nicks's vocals. The song is very folky and the lyrics of "did she make you cry/make you break down/shatter your illusions of love" seem to perfectly wrap up an album that relies heavily on the illusions of love these band members had.

Overall, "Rumours" is a masterpiece of soft rock. It's an album that can be played over and over where you can find something new every time you listen. It's no wonder that this album has been chosen for preservation in the Library of Congress. Its influence on music, rock and pop is incalculable. Its 20 million sold in the U.S. is still climbing and should continue to climb as long as we're able to appreciate the lyrics and musicality of this amazing band.