Fleetwood Mac Rumours, and How Turmoil Breeds Brilliance

What an incredible story, what an incredible album, what an incredible mess. This, one of the all-time great albums ever made, is born out of one of the great Rock'n'Roll stories of all time. A story of marital breakdown, tumultuous love triangles, divorce, birth, lies, deceit, power-struggles and terrible in-fighting - and that was just the band! How the hell they managed to work under the strain of everything that was going on I have no idea. I suppose it's a testament to the human spirit - the power of music as a resistance against the wicked wrath of Mother Nature. Or maybe they just wanted to carry on pissing each other off by writing the best songs? I don't know. The finished product is as formidable as anything out there on the shelves, that's for sure.

Ok, so here's where I do my Ok Magazine gossip bull-shit and fill you in on the situation. Singer/songwriter/keyboard player Christine McVie and bassist John McVie, who had been married for eight years, were in the midst of a permanent split, which rapidly became a divorce. They would only communicate in the studio regarding musical affairs. Singer/songwriter/ guitarist Lindsay Buckingham and long-term girlfriend, singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks had hit a bad patch and were persistently splitting up, fighting and causing mayhem with their personal problems within the band. Drummer Mick Fleetwood had just discovered that his best friend was shagging his wife, and would embark on a behind the scenes affair with Stevie Nicks behind Lindsay Buckingham's back. The band had just sacked their manager, Keith Olsen, and were handling their own financial affairs with potentially disastrous, drug inflamed consequences, and tensions ran high since the press repeatedly reported reunions of the original members of Fleetwood Mac, including the AWOL Peter Green. All in all, in the thick of all this wasn't an ideal place in which to be.

The highlights on the album include the roaring You Can Go Your Own Way; a pessimistic, angst-ridden slur against Nicks from former lover Buckingham. Dreams - penned by the infallible Nicks - became the album's only number one single, and is a hypnotising, moody retort: "Now here you go again/You say you want your freedom." As if that wasn't enough in the way of internal sly digs, Chritine McVie's You Make Loving Fun - an ode to her new boyfriend (Fleetwood Mac's lighting director) - really salts the wounds of former husband John McVie. Gold Dust Woman, another of Nicks' magnificent compositions, is the stand-out track on an outstanding album. Written about the hardships of being a star in the metropolis of Los Angeles, this spiralling, atmospheric refrain is Nicks' journal about sinking into coke addiction. Christine McVie's Don't Stop is an emphatic, radio friendly singalong that has become a staple Fleetwood Mac classic, and The Chain, the anthem for the legendary, underlying glue holding these troubled souls together, is a driving epic. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just a selection of the highlights.

I was lucky enough to see Fleetwood Mac's reunion tour at Manchester's MEN Arena in which the band sailed gloriously through their catalogue of hits with spectacular conviction. At one point, during Mick Fleetwood's mammoth drum solo intro to Tusk, Stevie Nicks screamed angrily "how dare you!" pointing into the darkened front rows. She had spotted a fight and had made examples of the morons involved. It was with that fire that she, and three of of the other members of the second incarnation (Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Lindsay Buckingham) delivered that magnificent gig. A return meeting in the same venue in 2009 was equally as memorable - Buckingham stealing the show with his amazing intensity. Rumours is quite simply one of the greatest records of all time - a landmark in Pop/Rock history that has now sold over 40 million copies. Mac are Back, and as good as ever, shining their light throughout the world with one of the most memorable collections of popular songs ever written. Long may they reign, and long in the history of popular culture may Rumours live on.