... So I couldn't take it anymore. Three copies of "Rumours" on vinyl, and today I finally broke down and got a copy of it on CD, even though I told myself when I started collecting vinyls that I would never buy an album I already had on CD or vice versa ...
... I also got a hold of "Legacy", the "Rumours" tribute album on CD ...
… And so my fascination with Fleetwood Mac, which has been building for a couple years now, continues …
… Growing up, I knew of them. I knew of Stevie Nicks. And I could sing “Landslide” word for word every time it came on the radio. Heck, “Don’t Stop” (I can't mention this song without referring to this live performance!) was on a mix tape my parents made me when I was young, and it’s become one of my all-time favorite songs.
But I never made any of the connections. Any references I heard or saw of Fleetwood Mac being a great band, especially when they had a small resurgence a few years ago with their “Say You Will” album, were pretty much shrugged off …
Until a couple years ago when I was working a late shift and returning from an accident scene. I’ll never forget it -- Pulling up to a stoplight. Listening to The Drive, which was then a new found favorite radio station of mine. And “Hold Me” comes on … I have vivid memories of being much younger and standing in our small town barbershop -- Denny’s -- with my brother and mom, sometime in the mid-‘80s. “Hold Me” came on the overhead stereo, and I’ve loved the song ever since. But again, never knew who sang it. So when it came on the radio again that night a couple years ago, I was filled with glee, and I hung on in hopes of hearing the DJ tell me, finally, once and for all, the answer. It was Fleetwood Mac …
Not long after that, I was listening to The Drive again, driving through the parking lot of our local DMV, and I heard “Never Going Back Again” for the first time. I was mesmerized by that song’s guitar picking, the bouncy melody and those fresh harmonies. Once again, I hung on to hear the DJ tell me the song was from, who else, Fleetwood Mac …
And not long after that, I was downloading Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits album. Only then did I realize that the super group was behind all these songs I’d come to know and love for as long as I’d been listening to a radio -- “Don’t Stop,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Rhiannon,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Everywhere,” (I remember hearing that one for the first time at the barber shop too) “Little Lies” and on and on …
A couple months later, as if I didn’t feel low enough for not realizing what Fleetwood Mac has represented all these years, I was sorting through an old box of cassette tapes and discovered I’d had the green Greatest Hits album in my collection the whole time -- I inherited it in college from a professor and never gave it a listen. Like everything else, I’d shrugged it off …
Then, last year of course, I recovered my parents turntable and stereo system and began buying up vinyl albums. “Rumours” was one of the first albums I bought. I fell in love with it immediately -- and hard …
…It was released in 1977, but somehow remains timeless. It doesn’t sound anything like what you’d expect to hear on a ‘70s album, let alone a “break-up” album and it’s one of the few albums I can consistently listen to all the way through. Without skipping songs …
There's a reason why Rolling Stone has called it one of the greatest albums of all-time ...
The classics stand out, of course -- “Don’t Stop,” “Dreams,” “Go Your Own Way,” and “You Make Loving Fun.” But I’ve been hearing all of those for years …
The real gems for me now are “Never Going Back Again,” which still blows me away every time, and the punchy lead-off track “Second Hand News,” along with its Side B counterpart, “I Don’t Want To Know.” And speaking of gems -- how about “Songbird” !? Kates and I got to know and love Eva Casidy’s version on the “Love Actually” soundtrack, so imagine my wonder when I realized it too was part of the “Rumours” album …
There’s a special dose of attitude, emotion and intensity within every song that pushes the album to such heights. It begs me to sing along. It begs me to dance. It always leaves me wanting more … and I can’t find any more words to describe it than those ...
Unfortunately, though, the "Rumours Legacy" doesn't hold a candle to the original -- which actually may be another testament to how great the original is ... Tonic's "Second Hand News" is, dare I say, as good as the original, and I like The Cranberries luscious spin in "Go Your Own Way" but the rest of the disc is a throw-away. Elton John does a decent "Don't Stop," but it's too much like Elton John and not like Fleetwood Mac. And while I love Shawn Colvin, her version of "The Chain" doesn't quite do it for me either. I mean, jeez, there's a lot of artists to love on this album -- The Corrs, Jewel, the Goo Goo Dolls (singing their version of "I Don't Want To Know") Duncan Sheik, Sister Hazel (heck, that's one of the reasons I got so interested in it in the first place) -- but they don't get it done ...
How disappointing is the Legacy album? I never want to hear Matchbox Twenty's dark, twisted version of "Never Going Back Again" again ...
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