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| Sound and Vision April-May, 2013 |
The Road to Rumours: 35 Years On…
Acoustic Magazine - February, 2013
by Andy Hughes
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is an album heard in the homes, cars and computers of more than 40 million people. To mark its 35th anniversary, this landmark album is being re-released with a package of demos and studio out-takes. Andy Hughes looks back at his own personal discovery of this iconic recording, and assesses its enduring appeal.
Any music collector remembers the time they first heard a song that led to an album purchase that still gives value for money decades later. I recall with complete clarity Bob Harris’s voice on The Old Grey Whistle Test as he introduced the first playing of ‘The Chain’. The next day the album was released, I was in my local record shop buying the album – it remains one of the most played albums I own.
Back in the 1970s, before the advent of the internet, album purchases were an event. You bought your album, took it home, took it out of its sleeve, put it on the turntable, and sat and paid attention as it played. There was never the notion of doing anything else but listening and absorbing the music, and music was made with that attitude in mind. I played ‘The Chain’ over and over again, captivated by the sound of Stevie Nicks’ voice and the guitar interplay that Lindsey Buckingham used to enhance its ethereal appeal. From there, I moved onto ‘Gold Dust Woman’, with a similar structure of multi-tracked acoustic guitar, sparse percussion, minor chords, and that ghostly voice. Another story of a broken heart delivered with that Fleetwood Mac trademark of authenticity – this was music made by people who knew of what they sang and played. And know it they did, all of them, with recent and raw experiences of heartbreak, betrayal and loss. The problem for the band was not that they brought their external traumas into the studio and wrote and sang about them surrounded by the unique comfort and support that a band atmosphere offers. The opposite applied – the band were each other’s heartbreakers, betrayers, life-shatterers, and as Christine McVie memorably pointed out at the time – “Most people go to work for a rest from the pressure and strain of a breakup, we went to work with the people who were causing ours, and our work was to sing and play about it all day every day.”
This is the thread that runs through Rumours – it is that in-built sense of naked emotion that runs through the singing and playing that reaches out to generations of music fans. To place its longevity in perspective – you have to be 35-years-old to have been alive when these songs were written and recorded. It’s that timeless feel for love and loss that makes Rumours one of the greatest albums about romance and loneliness that has ever been made.
The Background
