The band wanted to expand on the commercial success of their eponymous 1975 album, but struggled with relationship breakups before recording started.
The Rumours studio sessions were marked by hedonism and strife among band members that shaped the album's lyrics.
Rumours is the kind of album that transcends its origins and reputation, entering the realm of legend -- it's an album that simply exists outside of criticism and outside of its time, even if it thoroughly captures its era. Prior to this LP, Fleetwood Mac were moderately successful, but here they turned into a full-fledged phenomenon, with Rumours becoming the biggest-selling pop album to date.
While its chart success was historic, much of the legend surrounding the record is born from the group's internal turmoil. Unlike most bands, Fleetwood Mac in the mid-'70s were professionally and romantically intertwined, with no less than two couples in the band, but as their professional career took off, the personal side unraveled. Bassist John McVie and his keyboardist/singer wife Christine McVie filed for divorce as guitarist/vocalist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks split, with Stevie running to drummer Mick Fleetwood, unbeknown to the rest of the band.
These personal tensions fueled nearly every song on Rumours, which makes listening to the album a nearly voyeuristic experience.
You're eavesdropping on the bandmates singing painful truths about each other, spreading nasty lies and rumors and wallowing in their grief, all in the presence of the person who caused the heartache. Everybody loves gawking at a good public breakup, but if that was all that it took to sell a record, Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights would be multi-platinum.
No, what made Rumours an unparalleled blockbuster is the quality of the music. Once again masterminded by producer/songwriter/guitarist Buckingham, Rumours is an exceptionally musical piece of work -- he toughens Christine McVie and softens Nicks, adding weird turns to accessibly melodic works, which gives the universal themes of the songs haunting resonance.
It also cloaks the raw emotion of the lyrics in deceptively palatable arrangements that made a tune as wrecked and tortured as "Go Your Own Way" an anthemic hit.
But that's what makes Rumours such an enduring achievement -- it turns private pain into something universal. Some of these songs may be too familiar, whether through their repeated exposure on FM radio or their use in presidential campaigns, but in the context of the album, each tune, each phrase regains its raw, immediate emotional power -- which is why Rumours touched a nerve upon its 1977 release, and has since transcended its era to be one of the greatest, most compelling pop albums of all time.
Featuring a soft rock and pop rock sound, Rumours is built around a mix of acoustic and electric instrumentation. Buckingham's guitar work and Christine McVie's use of Fender Rhodes piano or Hammond B-3 organ are present on all but two tracks. The record often includes stressed drum sounds and distinctive percussion such as congas and maracas.
Side one opens with "Second Hand News", originally an acoustic demo titled "Strummer". After hearing Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin'", Buckingham and co-producer Dashut built up the song with four audio tracks of electric guitar and the use of chair percussion to evoke Celtic rock. "Dreams" includes "ethereal spaces" and a recurring two note pattern on the bass guitar. Nicks wrote the song in an afternoon and led the vocals, while the band played around her. The third track on Rumours, "Never Going Back Again", began as "Brushes", a simple acoustic guitar tune played by Buckingham, with snare rolls by Fleetwood using brushes; the band added vocals and further instrumental audio tracks to make it more layered. Inspired by triple step dancing patterns, "Don't Stop" includes both conventional acoustic and tack piano. In the latter instrument, nails are placed on the points where the hammers hit the strings, producing a more percussive sound. "Go Your Own Way" is more guitar-oriented and has a four-to-the-floor dance beat influenced by The Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man". The album's pace slows down with "Songbird", conceived solely by Christine McVie using a nine-foot Steinway piano.
Side two of Rumours begins with "The Chain", one of the record's most complicated compositions. A Christine McVie demo, "Keep Me There", and a Nicks song were re-cut in the studio and were heavily edited to form parts of the track. The whole of the band crafted the rest using an approach akin to creating a film score; John McVie provided a prominent solo using a fretless bass guitar, which marked a speeding up in tempo and the start of the song's final third. Inspired by R&B, "You Make Loving Fun" has a simpler composition and features a clavinet, a special type of keyboard instrument, while the rhythm section plays interlocking notes and beats. The ninth track on Rumours, "I Don't Want to Know", makes use of a twelve string guitar and harmonising vocals. Influenced by the music of Buddy Holly, Buckingham and Nicks created it in 1974 before they were in Fleetwood Mac. "Oh Daddy" was crafted spontaneously and includes improvised bass guitar patterns from John McVie and keyboard blips from Christine McVie. The album ends with "Gold Dust Woman", a song inspired by free jazz, which has music from a harpsichord, a Fender Stratocaster guitar, and a dobro, an acoustic guitar whose sound is produced by one or more metal cones
Side A
A1. Second Hand News - 4:43
A2. Dreams - 4:14
A3. Never Going Back Again - 2:02
A4. Don't Stop - 3:11
A5. Go Your Own Way - 3:38
A6. Songbird - 3:20
Side B
B1. The Chain - 4:28
B2. You Make Loving Fun - 3:31
B3. I Don't Want To Know - 3:11
B4. Oh Daddy - 3:54
B5. Gold Dust Woman - 4:51
Companies, etc.
- Marketed By – WEA Records B.V.
- Distributed By – Negram B.V.
- Recorded At – Record Plant, Sausalito
- Recorded At – Record Plant, Los Angeles
- Recorded At – Wally Heider Recording Studio, Los Angeles
- Recorded At – Criteria Recording Studios
- Recorded At – Davlen Sound Studios
- Recorded At – Zellerbach Auditorium
- Mixed At – Producers Workshop
- Mastered At – Capitol Mastering
- Phonographic Copyright (p) – Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Credits
- Bass – John McVie
- Drums, Percussion – Mick Fleetwood
- Engineer – Ken Caillat, Richard Dashut
- Engineer [Assistant] – Chris Morris (2)
- Guitar, Vocals – Lindsey Buckingham
- Keyboards, Synthesizer, Vocals – Christine McVie
- Producer – Fleetwood Mac
- Vocals – Stevie Nicks
Notes
Release: 1977
Format: LP
Genre: Pop, Rock
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Catalog# WB 56344
Prijs: €14,99
Vinyl: VG
Cover: VG
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