Great Songs, Great Musicians – Fleetwood Mac Rumours

Fleetwood Mac Rumours, a timeless epic of an album by one of the worlds most popular bands, was released in 1977 and received a Grammy Award for best album that same year.

It comprised 11 tracks, several of which became singles and one became forever associated with F1 racing as it was used for years as the theme tune for the BBC’s coverage of Grand Prix racing. You could listen to any one of those 11 tracks and be very satisfied with what you heard, there are many gems among them but I suggest that you just start at the beginning and listen to the entire album, it’s just short of 40 minutes long, and I think you’ll understand why I am nominating the entire album as a masterpiece.

Commercially, this album was a goldmine both for the band and the records company, RCA. The band had been together in this configuration since 1974 and had already released an album, called simply “Fleetwood Mac” which was good and did fairly well commercially but nowhere near as well as Rumours. The songs on this perfectly produced musical masterpiece were more than just good songs – many of them had a depth due to the turbulent interpersonal relationships which were going on between band members at the time.

Listening to music is, in part, an act of trust. Am I listening to great musicians – yes. Am I listening to great songs – yes. Is the album well engineered – yes. Great, now I know I’m in good hands I can just enjoy the music and the experience that it provides. This is a forty minute roller-coaster of great song after great song, all perfect in their own right but when listened to together, dynamite! apart from the quality of the lyrics and the rock solid musicianship there is another treasure which really brings this album to life – superb vovcals from the three singers in the band, all of whom can stand alone or harmonize together perfectly, quite extraordinary.

Official Fleetwood Mac website – https://fleetwoodmac.com/ (pretty underwhelming really but worth a look for tour dates).