Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

I had to do this one today because while I was listening to some college radio so I could hear all things not Classic Rock (which when I look at the records on this blog it looks like they're all Classic Rock to me and I'm just as boring as WNCX), and this girl, who was having trouble playing a song by Can or The Fugs or something, decided to play a request by "a band I normally despise, Fleetwood Mac."  How can you despise Fleetwood Mac?  I suppose I can understand her not liking some of their stuff (I think the Peter Green era stuff is Dullsville, man), but they have too many different kinds of things to be despised.  So all day long, I'm thinking, "I'm gonna listen to Fleetwood Mac when I get home, and I'm gonna say why I think they're fucking great!"

Which brings us to here.  I lost this album for a few months because I filed it under "N" or something weird like that.  Now, you may wonder how anyone that grew up in the 70's could even listen to this, because it was pretty much the soundtrack of 1977 and a big chunk of 1978.  Those were some good years for music, too, and this was popular with just about everyone.  Because it's a great album, and it deserves to be looked at that way.  Not just because it has songs politicians steal and miss the point on, but because everyone can take something from this record.

I remember this dude we called Cabbage, and we used to go to this church teen club (believe me, our church already knew I thought the whole thing was bullshit, but these people were gonna lead me down the right path) and we'd skip out half the time, get Cabbage to drive us around in his really bitchin' 72 Chevelle and drink beers.  That was fun!  I don't think Cabbage really liked us, but one of the girls we hung out with had the poor guy wrapped around her finger.  I didn't care so long as I got out of the house and got to party.

I think this thing was called Hi Club, like for high school, and also the greeting, because we were high school kids meeting god or something.  They had a jukebox that was filled with some truly rank crap, and one of the projects I decided I needed to work on was getting new records for the jukebox and getting it fixed and to play for free.  Well, that turned out to be an easy project because we had the key to the jukebox and it was full of change.  I think the parent that did Hi Club called a jukebox company and they sent us a list of available 45's, and I was probably the most opinionated as to what songs would go and what would stay (I know The Flamingos I Only Have Eyes For You stayed, and I think some other stuff that you could dance to.  I know that Rumours was the biggest thing on the planet, and we got several singles from that.  I know Dreams was pretty constantly played, and so was Go Your Own Way.  We also got some slightly more rocking material on there, and I think I was able to keep Freebird off the jukebox not by arguing that I hated Lynyrd Skynyrd, but by arguing that the single version would only be one song, and it would fade in the middle and then it would have to be flipped over and if lots of people were playing songs, you could actually hear the second half before you ever heard the first half.  That worked, and to this day I have no idea if the single version of Freebird is like that, or if it's edited and there's another song   I'm just devious, and I didn't like Skynyrd at all back then.

Rumours was the soundtrack to long swimming meets, cool parties, dorky parties, driving around with a cool stereo with a cassette deck, and even in a car with a boring AM radio.  Rumours was everywhere, and it was cool as hell.  It still is.

I always tell people not to spend any money on this record, though.  I think mine was a quarter at a garage sale, and it's in great shape.  Songbird is a little crackly, but it's not annoying.  I've got the insert with the songs and lyrics, too.  This will never get an audiophile alert because it's just not a stunning recording, but it is a very good recording and you can get a nice one very reasonably.  Why get a reissue when there are literally 20 million to choose from?