Oakland's Vinyl Vault - Rumours

How do you measure the success of an album?  Is it by the critics reviews?  The commercial profits?  The awards won?  Well if you go by number of albums sold, with over 19 million copies sold in the US alone, today's album was one of the most successful of all time.  It's Rumours by Fleetwood Mac!

Release Date: February 4, 1977
Singles: Go Your Own Way, Don't Stop, Dreams, You Make Loving Fun

In 1976, Fleetwood Mac was enjoying their greatest success as a band, with their previous album, Fleetwood Mac, reaching number 1 on the US charts and selling over 4 million copies.  Personally, however, things weren't so rosy.  John and Christine McVie got divorced, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were in a tumultuous on again/off again relationship, and Mick Fleetwood discovered that his wife had an affair with his best friend.  But out of this trying situation, the band came together and made one hell of an album. 

You can hear the band's personal problems in the lyrics of this album.  And it turns out that a lot of people can identify with going through relationship problems, and I think that is a big part of what made this album so successful.  The music is also top notch, and perfectly compliments the vocals.

Rating: 10 thumbs up - It's no secret why Rumours is one of the best-selling albums of all time: it earned it.  All the songs are great, and they flow together wonderfully.  A great album to have in the regular rotation, and it's obviously easy to find in the bins because there were so many of them produced and sold.  No reason not to pick it up.

A lot of the songs on this album receive regular airplay on the "hits of the '70s, '80s and today" stations, so here's one that maybe doesn't get as much.  Here's "Songbird."  Enjoy!



Pat is crazy.