Rumours by Fleetwood Mac (Rumours: Expanded And Remastered - Fleetwood Mac)

Member Name: BBTHREE

Product:	Rumours: Expanded And Remastered - Fleetwood Mac
Date:	23/02/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Every song is amazing, none to skip

Disadvantages: none

When I was about 14 I heard the song "Go your own Way" at my friends house. I had heard of Fleetwood Mac, but didn't really know any of their songs, and my friend played me the whole "Rumours" album (which was her parents).

I loved this album and went out and bought it straight away, and it has been one of my favourite albums for about 20 years now. (Gosh I am old!)

From loving this album I went on to find out much more about Fleetwood Mac, and I found that this band have had more drama going on than a Eastenders script.

Fleetwood Mac began in the mid 60's and have had many personnel changes during that time, and the only consistent one has been Mick Fleetwood. At the time that the Rumours album was released, the line up was :-
Stevie Nicks - vocals
Lindsey Buckingham - guitar, vocals (Stevies Partner)
John McVie - bass guitar
Christine McVie - keyboards, vocals (Johns Wife)
Mick Fleetwood - drums, percussion

Rumours took 11 months to create and record, and during this time Mick Fleetwood had a separation and subsequent divorce from his wife. (Though they did remarry again), Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham also split up, as did Christine and John McVie. So you have an album being written where everyone involved in the songwriting and creativity has extreme trauma in their lives.

Because of this John McVie originally suggested that this should be called "Gossip" because with all the backstabbing and gossipping going on between the band members it seemed an ideal name, but eventually they called it "Rumours".

The first track 'Second Hand News' is written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham with backing vocals by Stevie Nicks. It is a very "cowboy" sounding song, and the current track out by Take That (Up all night) is very reminsicient of this.

The second track 'Dreams', sang by Stevie Nicks was one of my favourite songs, and one that I can actually sing. I could do such a mean Stevie Nicks impression after listening to this album that my brother (who also fell in love with this album) even convinced me to consider applying for "Stars in their eyes", that was until I switched on and saw that they already had a "Stevie Nicks" contestant on this, and someone had beaten me to it. Sadly, The Corrs came subsequently came along and ruined this song for me completely.

'Never Going Back Again' is again sang and played by Lindsey Buckingham. This also has a country and western cowboy vibe about it.

'Don't Stop,' is another of my favourite songs which the whole band sing along to, and it just genuniely is a feel good song, which was written by Christine McVie. Don't Stop has since been used by US presidential candidate Bill Clinton as the theme for his first campaign and when he won the election, President Clinton persuaded the Fleetwood Mac line up to reform and perform it for his inaugural ball in 1993.

'Go Your Own Way.' - Another amazing song. This song totally highlights what an amazing guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is, and what a great drummer Mick Fleetwood is.

'Songbird' by Christine McVie is a much more peaceful song and is literally Christine and a piano. The words are beautiful, and if you get the chance to look these up then do.

'The Chain' - "Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise". This song has been written by all members of the band. You probably know the rift on this as it's used on grand prix racing.

'You Make Loving Fun' is written by Christine McVie and is very jolly singalong song, and one I will happily sing along to in the car.

'I Don't Want To Know.' is another country and western style song written by Stevie Nicks.

'Oh Daddy.' is very much a Christine McVie song. It's quite a deep and depressing song, and is one that really makes you stop and think.

'Gold Dust Woman' - The final song is a Stevie Nicks work of genius. It starts off slowly and builds to a thumping cresendo.

There are also probably more stats about this album that any other, apart from maybe "Thriller", and so here are some of them....

1) Not a single one of these songs when released as a single made the top 30 in the UK.

2) Rumours was the best-selling album of 1977 in the United States, spending 31 weeks at number one, and it sold over 8 million copies.

3) Fleetwood Mac won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Rumours at the Grammy Awards of 1978.

4) In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Rumours at number 25 in the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

5) Worldwide, this album has sold more than 30 million copies.

The reason I love this album is that unlike with most albums, every song is great. Theres no song jumping necessary, and each and every track is great.

After I bought this album I was luckily enough to see Fleetwood Mac in concert twice, (though Lindsey Buckingham had left and in the words of my brother "was so good that they had to replace him with TWO guitarists"), and I have bought all their albums since. Whilst their other albums are good (particularly "Tusk"), none hold of them are anything like as good as this one.

It's an album that is quite "timeless", and when you haven't played it for a while and then you do get to listen to it you think "Wow!" all over again.

It you haven't ever heard this, then buy it, borrow it, listen to in online, do whatever you can to hear it. It's amazing!

Summary: One of the best albums ever written