The Fleetwood Mac Paradox: would ‘Rumours’ still be deemed iconic without the drama?
Sometimes, the story behind an album can eclipse the content to the point that people rarely speak about the music without alluding to the myth surrounding it. From a band or artist’s perspective, surely the endless chatter about the external factors that contributed towards the album’s creation should always come second to the work of art itself, but sometimes they’re too inextricably connected that it becomes impossible to have a conversation about one element without talking about the other. Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 classic Rumours is perhaps one of the greatest examples of this, but there have been countless other albums in history that have also become tied to the legend behind the album.
For example, tell me the last time you saw a discussion about Wilco’s 2002 masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that didn’t make reference to the constant delays it was subjected to due to label rejections, its scheduled release date, unfortunately, coinciding with the September 11th attacks, and the band initially streaming it via their website in order to curb illegal downloads of low-quality leaks that had surfaced. The album itself is more than worthy of being praised without needing to discuss its laboured release, but the history that comes with the brilliance displayed on the record almost supports its legendary status rather than taking away from it.
With Rumours, the album itself is, much like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, a showcase of a band at the peak of their powers, and its merger of pop with the soft rock direction that Fleetwood Mac had begun to take after abandoning their bluesier roots was at its most refined on the record. Consisting of 11 arguably perfect songs that each highlight the individual talents of each member as well as their strength as a creative unit, few albums capture the art of making an album as majestically as Rumours does.
See, it’s easy to highlight the merits of Rumours based on its musical offerings alone, but it’s also virtually impossible to go into a deeper conversation about the history of the album and the drama that surrounds its existence. There were inter-band feuds going on that had been sparked by the breakdown of romantic relationships between members, and there were drug addictions spiralling out of control on the side of that as well, but how crucial were these factors to the creation of the album?
Unfortunately for the previous hypothesis, they were more than significant to the album’s existence. Much of the lyrical content zooms in on the different ways in which members were processing their own individual heartbreak, but the dissolution of their personal relationships also meant that their focus on the matter of making music together was heightened.
Following the end of their marriage, John and Christine McVie were not on speaking terms about anything except for their work together, and the on-off relationship shared by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks might have been fraught with trouble away from the band, but it was leading them to pen some of the finest work of their respective careers in response to one another.
This leads to the creation of a paradox when it comes to discussing the album’s genius: how much of it was down to the difficult circumstances it was created, and how good was Fleetwood Mac becoming prior to the release of Rumours? Their 1975 self-titled album had been their most commercially successful release until its successor came along and blew it out of the water, so there’s already enough there to suggest that the band could have written an album of this magnitude without all of the cocaine and marital issues, but those played such a dramatic role in the themes of the album in the first place that you’re having to return to the start of the question.
At the end of the day, however, it is possible to talk about Rumours as a great album without acknowledging any of its history. When removed from all context, the power of the music can stand up on its own and continues to draw in new listeners who have little to no understanding of what was unfolding at the time of its recording, therefore proving that it can still be an iconic record without all of the drama that surrounds it.
