383. Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (1977)

















Track Listing

1. Second Hand News
2. Dreams
3. Never Going Back Again
4. Don't Stop
5. Go Your Own Way
6. Songbird
7. Chain
8. You Make Loving Fun
9. I Don't Want To Know
10. Oh Daddy
11. Gold Dust Woman

Review

Now we get to the equivalent of Dido for the late 70's. Fortunately, however, this was proportionally better to Dido, much like all the music was proportionally better than what we have now. There is a lot here to smirk at, the songs have been overplayed, misused to the point of utter tackiness, but I can't hate this album.

What shows me that Fleetwood aren't all that bad is the fact that I really quite like the songs I don't know, it is a band which has been more damaged by it's fans and overexposure than anything. That said, this sounds anachronistic, stuck between Talking Heads and David Bowie, this sounds like something which is trying to grab a ship that has sailed. That ship was probably the reason why it sold so much, it was music for people who weren't on or interested in the cutting edge, it was for the equivalent of Dido listeners today. And that is a huge market, not to say the biggest adult market out there.

So yeah, they are commercial and poppy, but sometimes the mask slips into the folksies they would really like to be, Never Going Back and The Chain are good examples. Stevie Nicks has a great voice but she isn't necessarily the best thing on the album, the best thing is when the production slips and you can see a band with some real talent behind it.

Oh and that broad is trying to kick that guy's dangling balls.

Track Highlights

1. Never Going Back
2. The Chain
3. Dreams
4. Gold Dust Woman

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"Go Your Own Way" was believed by Nicks to be a gloomy reference to the break-up of their relationship, and she and Buckingham argued about it. "Dreams" was her attempt to be more optimistic. "You Make Loving Fun" referred to an affair between Christine McVie and the group's lighting director. "Gold Dust Woman" was a reference to cocaine. "Don't Stop" was written by Christine McVie after her divorce with John McVie, and it provided an optimistic outlook on their newly separated lives. "Oh Daddy" was almost certainly a reference to Mick Fleetwood, the spiritual father of the group who largely held it together, and the only member who was a parent at the time. "Songbird" Christine McVie described as "a little anthem" and said it was for "all of us". It took a long time to record because it had to be one continuous take. "The Chain" was an oddity. The final section, the last minute and a quarter or so, was written first, but at that point there wasn't a song for it to be the end of. Stevie Nicks had written that quite separately, and as she put it "gave it to them". Lindsey Buckingham then had an idea about how it should begin and the first section was re-recorded.

Lindsey Buckingham does Never Going Back Again: