365 – New Music Daily

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 release Rumours firmly slots in at #2 in the famous albums I had never listened to (Thriller was #1). I had obviously heard many of these songs before – many times through my bedroom wall as a certain reader of my blog belted them in the shower – some of them still having their novelty (Dreams, The Chain), some of them having worn on me pretty fucking heavily (If I hear Go Your Own Way one more time and it’s outside of the me playing it on guitar in Rockband context, I will lose it. I will also probably hear it next time I’m in public.)

This record is insanely late 70’s/early 80’s pop – if there were a measure of the pop genre and surrounding sounds, this would be the top of the scale. It also can get incredibly cheesy – which is a given for the territory. For those reasons, anyone who knows my music taste will know that is not exactly a positive. However, I can respect the effort from the band – and Dreams still goes hard especially knowing that it’s a song that basically consists of the band shitting on each other because of their relationship drama (thanks for the fact, Brendan).

In comparison to Thriller, which is not only the other really famous album that I had never heard before this but also a major staple of popular music culture in this time period, I would give the nod to Rumours. Thriller has much more iconic songs – however as a cohesive piece of music, it is not all it’s cracked up to be. Rumours is a cohesive album with enough diversity in the tracklist, along with great musical talent surrounding it that it does provide for a good listen – just maybe not for a person who is not a big fan of pop. Fair?

Favorite songs: Second Hand News, Dreams, The Chain, Gold Dust Woman