Rumours

Fleetwood Mac

Warner Bros., 1977

with “rumours,” fleetwood mac turned private turmoil into gleaming public art. The band’s two couples — bassist John McVie and singer-keyboard player Christine McVie, who were married; guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks, who were not — broke up during the protracted sessions for the album. As John later said about the atmosphere during the making of Rumours, “Parties going on all over the house. Amazing. Terrifying. Huge amounts of illicit materials, yards and yards of this wretched stuff.” This frenzied, decadent vibe lent to the highly charged, confessional aura of songs like Buckingham’s “Go Your Own Way”; Christine’s “Don’t Stop”; the group-composed anthem to betrayal “The Chain”; and Nicks’ “Dreams,” which she wrote while sitting on a black velvet bed in a tiny room deep in the Record Plant, where the band was recording. “[In ‘Go Your Own Way’] Lindsey is saying go ahead and date other men and go live your crappy life, and [I’m] singing about the rain washing you clean,” Nicks said. “We were coming at it from opposite angles, but we were really saying the same exact thing.” The Mac’s catchy exposés, produced with Californiasunshine polish, touched a nerve: Rumours became one of the bestselling albums of all time.