Artist: Fleetwood Mac
Album: Rumours
Reviewed by: Johann Badenhorst
By the late 1970s, Fleetwood Mac had all but abandoned the guitar-driven blues sound that had made them a household name in the late ’60s.
With the departure of Peter Green on lead guitar, the band opted for the popular soft rock formula, following bands like Chicago and REO Speedwagon.
This move was luckily salvaged by the excellent songwriting of Stevie Nicks, Christine ‘Mac’ McVie and Lindsey Buckingham.
The vocal talent of Nicks, with her incredible range and vibrato is demonstrated in tracks like Dreams and I Don’t Want to Know.
Buckingham’s raspy rock voice sounds similar to Queen’s Freddie Mercury on Don’t Stop.
Rumours is at its strongest when all four singers harmonise, and this can be heard in the majority of the songs.
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These vocal harmonisations rival many of the greats, such as the Beatles and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and stand out best in the now rock stadium hit Go Your Own Way and I Don’t Want to Know.
These moments give the album that feel good ‘pop’ sound that the band had been striving to accomplish since Green left the band in 1973.
Rumours is also a well-balanced album, with the bigger sounding, electric guitar-driven tracks like Go Your Own Way, contrasted with the stripped-down acoustic sounds of Never Going Back Again and Songbird, the latter featuring McVie singing alone with her piano.
Mick Fleetwood’s straightforward drumming remains the backbone of the band, just as it did since the founding of the group in 1967.
Rumours stands out as one of the best albums in rock history, and one of the bestselling, with sales over 40 million worldwide.
While some listeners will still favour Fleetwood Mac’s early blues days with Peter Green, it is impossible to deny that Rumours is an extraordinary accomplishment in songwriting and vocal harmonisation.
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