Anyone remember "You Light Up My Life"?

Such is not the case with Fleetwood Mac's masterpiece, RUMOURS. The energy, emotion, passion, and musical mastery of this album is just as compelling today as it was in 1977. On top of that, today's technology only makes listening to RUMOURS even more of a pleasurable and spellbinding experience.

For me, having been a college student when this album was released, each track from this troubled band is a wondrous trip down memory lane. Among my favorites: "Dreams"; "Don't Stop"; "Silver Springs"; "You Make Loving Fun." And "Go Your Own Way" is musical nirvana, a glimmering, golden rock 'n roll keeper.

The inner turmoil Fleetwood Mac was experiencing when RUMOURS began shattering the Billboard charts received as much publicity as the album itself. Despite the band's dysfunction--or perhaps because of it--members Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie were hitting on all musical/creative cylinders. As a result, RUMOURS is timeless, ageless, and enthusiastically recommended.
--D. Mikels


BETTER THAN THE FIRST TIME!   June 4, 2001
 37 out of 44 found this review helpful

Rumours is my favorite album of all time. Hearing this DVD was BETTER than hearing Rumours for the first time. I bought a DVD player just so I could hear this DVD! It would have been well worth the money for "Silver Springs" alone. My scratchy old 45" pales in comparison to the beautifully haunting version on this production. The album was remastered especially for DVD, and the sound is absolutely incredible. I heard sounds and voices that disappear on the album. The sounds in "Gold Dust Woman" are chilling. And the harmonies, my God, the harmonies! If "Songbird" doesn't make you cry, you have no heart! In addition to the songs from the album, there is a "Making Of..." which is pure gold to any Fleetwood Mac Fan. I cannot gush enough. I'm in love all over again! Go out and by a DVD player and this DVD. You won't regret it!


Love, anger, jealousy, heartbreak, spite and even more...   May 6, 2006
 20 out of 21 found this review helpful

As countless people before me have written and said, this is undeniably one of the greatest albums put out by any rock band--ever. I played it endlessly when I was in junior high--so much so I practically wore the grooves off the record! I got the CD early on and after so many years in my CD collection this remains one of my favorites.

Yes, the band was going through some tough times when they produced this music--and maybe that DID help them to produce such a great set of songs here. However, despite all their internal struggles, you'd just never know of it by simply listening to the songs, the overall smooth flow of the song set, and the electricity and energy of the songs and the way they are performed. The CD boasts numerous classic rock songs such as Christine McVie's "Don't Stop;" Stevie Nicks' "Dreams;" Lindsey Buckingham's "Go Your Own Way;" a song written by the band called "The Chain;" and a song I always liked personally, "Second Hand News" by Lindsey Buckingham.

The quality of the sound is excellent, even after all these years of playing this CD on several different CD players. I love the way the liner notes are so nicely done. You get great photos of the band and the lyrics are there along with the song credits.

This CD remains-and will remain-as timeless as the best of the best of the rock CDs. The songs deal with relationships between lovers as well as the entire range of emotions that come about when people are in love, together or be it unrequited. Indeed, Q magazine included this album as one of the "Best Relationship Albums Of All Time." When you listen to this album and the incredibly thoughtful way with which the songs are performed it will truly touch a nerve in you!

This CD is highly recommended for fans of rock, pop, and classic rock. If you fit into one of these fan groups, as I certainly do myself, you can't go wrong with this CD.



Fleetwood Mac shows that breaking up inspries great songs   May 13, 2003
 14 out of 17 found this review helpful

When the remnants of Fleetwood Mac merged with the folk-rock duo Buckingham Nicks, the resulting 1975 eponymous album was simply a dry run for one of the best selling albums of all time, 1977's "Rumours." The entire group took a producers credit for the album, but clearly the driving creative force was Lindsey Buckingham, who appreciation for the vocal harmonies of the Beach Boys and Beatles was manifest in the distinctive vocal sound of the new and improved Fleetwood Mac.

What made it all the more amazing was that long time couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had broken up and John and Christine McVie were going to divorce. After watching what John and Yoko and Paul and Linda did to the Beatles, the idea that love lives that existed totally within the membership of a rock band could implode and the result would be that the parties involved, along with interested bystander Mick Fleetwood, would all get together and write a song about it, "The Chain," that would allow them to exorcise their demons on stage, was truly mind boggling.

"Rumours" was also able to take advantage of the two year period it took to put the album together from the best of what Fleetwood Mac's three songwriters came up with during that time. Buckingham had contributed the least in terms of quality songs on "Fleetwood Mac," but this time he makes his mark laying out the destruction of his relationship with Nicks in "Go Your Own Way," which does everything but name names and has not only a great chorus but one of his finest guitar solos. "Second Hand News" sets the tone for the album and "Never Going Back Again" represents what he could do even with a stripped down song.

However the ladies of the band end up being the defining force on "Rumours." Stevie Nicks had already put her two most popular songs on the first album, "Landslide" and "Rhiannon," but continued in the same vein with the moody "Gold Dust Woman." Again we had a Fleetwood Mac Song, which in retrospect clearly foreshadows Nicks's substance abuse problems, that was brazenly autobiographical. In contrast "Dreams" is one of the most melodic offerings in her catalogue, with a nice little groove and the sort of flighty lyrics we came to expect from Welsh Witch music.

Christine McVie was never out in front of Fleetwood Mac, over there on the left behind her keyboards, but it is her songs that ultimately end up defining "Rumours" musically. It is impossible not to think of "Don't Stop" today without it conjuring up pictures of Bill Clinton's 1992 election campaign, but since the song was rather directly responsible for this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac getting back together that would be a good thing on-balance. The song is simple but delightful. The same can be said for "You Make Loving Fun." "Oh Daddy" shows that she can get just as melancholy as the others, and anybody who saw Fleetwood Mac in concert during their glory days probably remembers "Songbird" as the song that would McVie would come out and play by herself at the end to mellow out the audience.

"Rumours" was commercial and it was slick. But it sold all those copies because it was great music, characterized by the sort of vocal harmonies that have been appreciated by listeners of pop music from the Mamas & the Papas to the current boy/girl group du jour. The downside was that it ended up representing Everest for the group and the next time out Fleetwood Mac knew they could not do better, so they went with bigger and the double-album "Tusk" in 1979 to try and keep the momentum going. This proved impossible because "Rumours" was just too good.


A Rock Classic   December 1, 1999
 13 out of 14 found this review helpful

If you don't know the story, three relationships were falling apart while this album was being recorded: Christine and John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, Mick and Sara Fleetwood. Each song told a different story: anguish, wonder, pain, confusion, anger, all written from the heart. It's amazing that for a group of people being pulled in several different emotional directions at once, they came together and put out this album, unequivocally a milestone. You can hear two sides of every relationship virtually from one song to the next, listen to "Dreams" followed by "Go Your Own Way" for a great example. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie formed a solid rhythm section, and Lindsey Buckingham was, and still is, one of the most underrated guitarists in rock and roll. This album is filled with some of the best classic rock ever recorded, from "Don't Stop" to "Dreams" to "You Make Lovin' Fun". Stevie and Lindsey do a great harmony duet with "I Don't Want to Know", and "Songbird" is just Christine and her piano, a soulful, threadbare ballad. Almost every song here is a staple on classic rock radio, and it's still one of the best selling albums of all time. This was the first album I ever bought with my own money, and it was money well spent.