Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

...with another album I know reasonably well and, although I don't listen to it very often, I always enjoy it when I do.

#7: Rumours - Fleetwood Mac (1977) 

With Rumours, Fleetwood Mac turned private turmoil into gleaming, melodic public art. The band’s two couples — bassist John McVie and singer-keyboard player Christine McVie, who were married; guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, who were not — broke up during the protracted sessions for the album. As John later told Rolling Stone of the atmosphere during the making of Rumours, “Parties going on all over the house. Amazing. Terrifying. Huge amounts of illicit materials, yards and yards of this wretched stuff. Days and nights would just go on and on.”

This frenzied, decadent vibe lent a highly charged, confessional aura to such songs as Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way,” Nicks’ “Dreams,” Christine’s “Don’t Stop,” and the group-composed anthem to betrayal, “The Chain.” The band’s soap opera fueled its own intricate creative conversation; on “You Make Loving Fun,” Christine sang about her new boyfriend, the band’s lighting designer, as her ex John dutifully drives home the song with a sunny, funky bass line. To write “Dreams,” Nicks sat on a black velvet bed in a tiny room hidden deep in the Record Plant, where the band was recording, creating one of her most haunting songs in 10 minutes. “[In ‘Go Your Own Way’] Lindsey is saying go ahead and date other men and go live your crappy life, and [I’m] singing about the rain washing you clean,” Nicks said. “We were coming at it from opposite angles, but we were really saying the same exact thing.” The Mac’s catchy exposés, produced with California-sunshine polish, touched a nerve: Rumours became the sixth-best-selling album of all time.

I had a home-taped version of this way back in the day, but I've got no idea who would given it to it me.  I think I own a copy somewhere (but certainly wouldn't be able to find it quickly) but do stream the album from time to time (and there aren't actually many albums I listen to on streaming).  Whilst I was obviously looking forward to revisiting this, I was mostly interested to see if there was a dud track or two on there - because I didn't remember any.  So, let's see...

1. "Second Hand News"
Well, this certainly isn't a dud - a great up-tempo number to open the album, which I don't think I'd ever heard through headphones before but there's some lovely subtle guitar work in there that shines through when you do.
2. "Dreams"
This is an unusual track - I'm struggling to think of another track that's like it and I can't.  Google suggests "Hotel California" and I can see there's some resemblance there, but with female vocalists instead with some lovely vocal interplay.  Google also suggests "Born To Run" which just goes to show that you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.
3. "Never Going Back Again"
Yeah - nothing wrong with this one either.
4. "Don't Stop"
This is a very 70s track - but in a good way.  It would be very easy to imagine The Band or Crosby, Stills & Nash doing it and making it a bit of a dirge, but Fleetwood Mac avoid all of that nonsense.

5. "Go Your Own Way"
Another cracker of a track.
6. "Songbird"
And now a nice change of tempo - yes, more people probably know the Eva Cassidy version now, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with this one.
7. "The Chain"
I think everyone in the UK knows this one from when their dad used to watch F1 but the other 4 minutes of the track are quite good as well.

8. "You Make Loving Fun"
Some nice lightness after the less than happy previous track.
9. "I Don't Want To Know"
This is one of the few tracks on the album I couldn't hear in my head just from reading the title, so I was wondering if it was a dud.  But no, two seconds in I remembered it's another goodie.

10. "Oh Daddy"
And this one I could remember and I was thinking it might be a bit rubbish.  But whilst I wouldn't describe it as my favourite track on the album, it's perfectly fine - there's an air of the start to "Stairway To Heaven" about it.

11. "Gold Dust Woman"
And there's nothing wrong with this track either with fine interplay between the vocals and the guitars, crescendoing nicely to close a fine album off.

So, no dud tracks in my opinion (although I realise that familiarity bias may well be coming into play here) - some excellent vocals and tunes with a reasonable amount of variety both in tempo and tone across the album.  What more could you ask for?  I think "The Chain" is my favourite, but maybe that's just because my dad used to watch F1.  It's certainly an album that wears its 44 years well - if you have somehow managed to avoid it in all this time, then I recommend you give it a try.   It's also got such an iconic album cover that you don't spend nearly enough time looking at it and thinking "errrr - OK".

Wikipedia backs up Rolling Stone's description of a band in turmoil and extends it by explaining that Mick Fleetwood was also having marital difficulties at the time as well.  And he was married to Jenny Boyd, who was the sister of - guess who?  Yes, she was Pattie Boyd's sister - that woman has appeared on this list more times than most artists, it appears.  And once we've dealt with all the strife and its effect upon the recording this album, we're pretty much into how successful the final result was.  And boy, was it successful - Purple Rain might have managed 24 consecutive weeks at #1 in the US, but Rumours managed 31.  Thirty one weeks!  As an aside, Thriller holds the record - at 37 weeks, which I conspicuously failed to mention at the time for no obvious reason.  Back to Rumours, it sold 10 million copies in the month after release and currently stands at somewhere north of 40 million.  Amusingly it was also the best selling vinyl album in the UK last year, thanks to Nathan Apodeca and his skateboard - and you'll either know what this means or you're currently thinking "huh?".

Wikipedia tells us that the group has had a somewhat varied existence over its lifetime, starting life as a blues band with "Albatross" getting to #1 in the UK in 1968.  They then managed to work their way through 5 guitarists over the next 6 years, before settling on the "classic" lineup featuring all the people who were at war during the making of this album (which somewhat surprisingly is the bands 11th album).  And considering how they weren't speaking to each other, they lasted for quite some time afterwards - until 1988 when Lindsey Buckingham left after an argument with Stevie Nicks.  The band continued on with various members coming and going, until 2014, when we found ourselves back with the classic lineup again - which lasted until 2018 when Lindsey Buckingham left after an argument with Stevie Nicks.  It's nice to see some things never change!

Given the somewhat changing lineup, the Wikipedia entry is somewhat patchy but certainly doesn't give the impression of a constant state of happiness surrounding any aspect of the band's career.  It also reminds me that Mick Fleetwood has branched out into acting at times, appearing in The Running Man and a Star Trek - Next Generation episode and I seem to recall both times I was kinda curious, but thought that Robert De Niro didn't have anything to worry about.  And, right about now, he's probably thinking "Phew - at least he didn't mention The Brits".

"Customers also listened to" Blue Oyster Cult, Steve Miller Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas and Eagles - a somewhat strange mix.  But there's no denying this is a mighty fine album and is their first entry on the list - making Fleetwood Mac the highest placed debutants and it probably won't surprise you to learn this is their only entry.  Having said that, I think they can probably consider themselves unlucky that Tango In The Night didn't make the list - whilst not being a particular favourite of mine, it was everywhere at the time, sold bucketloads and is considerably better than a lot of albums on this list.  But they will have to make do with "just" this album making it - I'd say I'm perfectly happy with its position on the list but looking at what's to come, I suspect I might well have nudged it slightly higher.

#8 - Whose life isn't improved by the addition of some purple?
#6 - I found it hard, it was hard to find