1001 Albums Generator - Fleetwood Mac - Rumors

 Album 9

Rumors (1977)

by Fleetwood Mac

How many times have I listened to this? I am surprised that my original 1977 vinyl copy still has grooves, it's been played so much.

Obviously this belongs on this list. It plays like a Greatest Hits record because every song has been ubiquitous for the past ~50 years. And deservedly so. Immaculately produced this is an album from the sky. It's remarkable and rewards with every subsequent listen. 

5 out of 5

Second Hand News

Dreams

Don't Stop

Go Your Own Way

Songbird

The Chain

You Make Loving Fun

Gold Dust Woman

The 1984 Listening Post - Christine McVie - Christine McVie

Christine McVie - Christine McVie

#13

January 27 1984

Christine McVie

Christine McVie

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Love Will Show Us How

So Excited

Got a Hold on Me

If you can play your instrument and you know how to write perfectly good pop rock tunes those two qualities are going to come out in spades no matter the style in which you decide to traffic. 

This is MOR and there’s no chance Christine is going to venture too far out of that box. But the opening track “Love Will Show Us How” is a good indicator that this won’t be too precious. The edges might be a bit sanded but she’s not interested in the wispy-witchy balladeering of Stevie (though she does have some ballads and they are worth skipping, for the most part) and, in fact, she might give Lindsey a run for his money. Well, he is actually on this record. As are Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood & Steve Winwood. If she failed with this record, she would really have to have been trying to. If “Got a Hold on Me” was kept for Fleetwood Mac I bet it would’ve been an even bigger hit. 

Sure, this is the stuff of the late 70s soft rock. But it’s not Chris Cross. And it’s more fun than, say, Sheena Easton. This is a  soundtrack to a midwest state fair and I’m just here for the kettle corn. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/christine-mcvie/358040564

The 1983 Listening Post - Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart

Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart

272

1983

Stevie Nicks

The Wild Heart

2.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Stand Back

There is a singer songwriter named Beth Hart. I met her a few years ago at an music function. She heard my band. She loved us. Blah blah. She was also a favorite of my wife’s who had her song “L.A. Song” on repeat before she moved here. Beth (Hart) was a star search contestant and told us that she had been met with pushback by record labels because of the incessant vibrato in her singing. And I’ve always wondered…did any of those record execs ever listen to Fleetwood Mac? Cuz…Stevie Nicks is all vibrato. And oddly nasal.

Anyway. This is her second solo album. It’s kind of boring. Kind of ok. It’s very pub rock. It dances close to the edge of country but I think a lot of California 70s sounding rock is where country and rock meet.

Those are a lot words to say that this is a sub-par Mac-less Fleetwood-esque album. The single, “Nightbird” is such a redux of “Dreams” that the author of that song should sue.

And I would love to live in a world where Stevie Nicks sues herself for plagiarism.

Also, synthesizers. The 80s are all about synthesizers. I forgot just how much.

This is the sound of too much money + studio time. Dull.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-wild-heart-remastered/1168959050