#7 Fleetwood Mac, 'Rumours' (1977)

Previously #26

The greatest break up album ever. In the lead up to this record, Fleetwood Mac had seen multiple lineup changes. First finding success as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Green left the band after 3 albums. Bob Welch would then join the band for 5 albums, leaving in 1975. Having relocated to LA, and needing a new guitarist, Mick Fleetwood randomly bumped into an old friend while out shopping with his kids. The chance meeting lead him to Sound City Studios where producer, Keith Olsen, played him snippets of a new album he’d been working on, something called Buckingham Nicks. Fleetwood was in awe of the guitar playing and immediately invited him to join the group. The guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham, said he’d only join on condition that his musical partner and girlfriend, Stevie Nicks could join the band too. The pair would take the sound of the Blues Rock group into a new, more poppy direction resulting in the subsequent album charting at #1 in the US. Following that, things started to fall apart for the band. Fleetwood and his wife separated after he discovered she’d been cheating on him, John and Christine McVie (bass and vocals/keyboard) got divorced after 8 years of marriage, and the relationship of the band’s newest members would implode. All of this would destroy most bands, but Fleetwood Mac used these experiences to write an album of solid masterpieces. All killer, no filler on this one (which is exactly what they’d intended). Besides for the broken relationships, the album was fuelled by cocaine, and a lot of it. John McVie came up with the title as he felt the members were writing journals and diaries to each other via the songs.

Opening with the line “I know there's nothing to say/Someone has taken my place,” ‘Second Hand News’ sets the tone for the album. Originally an acoustic folk song, Buckingham was inspired by the Bee Gee’s ‘Jive Talking’ to give it a more disco-like groove. ‘Dreams,’ both the second single and second track on the record, went on to become the band’s only #1 single. And their biggest song. How big? Well, in 2021, 44 years after its release, it’s still on the charts (thanks to a viral video on TikTok). The song is a letter directly from Nicks to Buckingham; “Like a heartbeat drives you mad/In the stillness of remembering what you had/And what you lost/And what you had/Oh, what you lost.” ‘Never Going Back Again’ was written in the wake of the breakup once Buckingham had started a rebound relationship. Enter Christine McVie with her break up song to ex-husband, John. Buckingham handles vocals on the chorus, with McVie herself singing the verses. ‘Go Your Own Way,’ the first single, is almost a direct response to ‘Dreams’ from Buckingham; “You can go your own way/You can call it/Another lonely day/You can go your own way.” Now’s probably a good time to mention the quiet achievers of this band, the namesakes and one of the greatest rhythm sections in the history of music, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. They build the foundations on which these amazing songs stand, giving them their own unique sound. I love McVie’s bass line in this song. It’s so melodic. And of course, Buckingham’s guitar solo is amazing. I can just see him flicking the strings in his own unique style. ’Songbird’ is another Christine song, and one of the most beautiful in the band’s catalogue. McVie wrote the song in about half an hour around midnight. Everyone else had gone to sleep, though, so to ensure she didn’t forget it, she stayed awake all night. To give it a live concert type feel, the song was recorded live in Zellerbach Auditorium as McVie played in darkness save for 3 spotlights illuminating flowers on top of her piano. ‘The Chain’ opens side two of the record and is the most collaborative on the album, the only one credited to every member. It also features my favourite part on the album, possibly my favourite in all their music, John Mcvie’s bass solo in the middle of the song, leading into the guitar solo. The band often open their sets with this song. ‘You Make Loving Fun,’ the album’s fourth Top 10 single, was written by Christine about the band’s lighting director, with whom she was having an affair. She told John it was about her dog, to avoid a fight. ‘Oh Daddy’ is another haunting Christine song about Mick Fleetwood, who was the only father in the band. It ends with one of Nicks’s signature songs, ‘Gold Dust Woman,’ recorded at 4am with a black scarf wrapped around her head. The most amazing and unique thing about this album is that it was being performed by the people it was written about, and regardless of all the ill will and strife amongst them, they pulled it off to make one of the greatest records of all time. The definitive break up record. Nicks and Fleetwood would start an on-again-off-again affair following the release of the record, because this is a real life soap opera. ‘Rumours’ sold 10 million copies within the first month of its release and would go on to sell 40 million copies worldwide. Fleetwood called it the most important album that the band ever made because it allowed them to continue recording and touring for many years to come.

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