2-HR French program on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Re-issue from RTL.be

French program on the re-release of Rumours.  Narrative and they play a really nice wide variety of Fleetwood Mac tunes going all the way back to the Peter Green era right up to this re-issue playing some of the live material contained.  Includes vintage interview snippets..

Fleetwood Mac STILL Undecided on Releasing New Music.

Rolling Stone Q&A: Fleetwood Mac on Reissuing 'Rumours' and Making New Music
'I am more appreciative of the fact that we are really family,' says Lindsey Buckingham
Rolling Stone
By Steve Appleford
January 28, 2013

What are your current recording plans?

Buckingham: When Stevie was on the road, and not long after her mom had passed away, Mick, John and I got together and we cut a bunch of tracks, and they turned out great. They were all done in Stevie's keys. They were done with her in mind. Subsequently, Stevie and I have gotten together, and she's sung on two of those. There's also another track that dates back to [pre-Fleetwood Mac project] Buckingham-Nicks that Stevie and I built up from scratch. There's a lot of stuff there. Some of this we will do in the show. We're not pushing it. We're just going to wait and see what everybody wants to hear.

I think we need to make Fleetwood Mac aware LOUD AND CLEAR that WE the fans want to hear NEW MUSIC!  Why isn't this getting through to them?!

Few expected the reunion of Fleetwood Mac's classic Seventies lineup back in 1997, and even fewer could have predicted it would still be going strong in 2013. On April 4th, in Columbus, Ohio, the band begin a North American tour with a set list that will include new songs. And on Tuesday comes the release of expanded editions of Rumours, their multi-platinum, career-defining disc from 1977.

"After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case," singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham tells Rolling Stone.

Buckingham, drummer Mick Fleetwood and singer Stevie Nicks recently gathered for interviews in a huge, wood-paneled room at the Village Recorder, a legendary recording space in West Los Angeles. More than three decades earlier, the band spent 13 months there making the 1979 double album Tusk, the surprisingly experimental follow-up to Rumours.

"We have a connection with this building like we have with nothing else," said Nicks. "It's hallowed ground."

At the interview Nicks and Buckingham held hands, Fleetwood sitting beside them as votive candles flickered around the room. (Bassist John McVie stayed home, and former singer-keyboardist Christine McVie has been retired to the English countryside since 1998.)

Few expected the reunion of Fleetwood Mac's classic Seventies lineup back in 1997, and even fewer could have predicted it would still be going strong in 2013. On April 4th, in Columbus, Ohio, the band begin a North American tour with a set list that will include new songs. And on Tuesday comes the release of expanded editions of Rumours, their multi-platinum, career-defining disc from 1977.

Rolling Stone's cover story about the making of Rumours featured a photo of you all in bed together. Were the stories of romantic turmoil true?

Stevie Nicks: They're all true. [Laughter]

Lindsey Buckingham: That really was a lot of the appeal of Rumours. The music was wonderful, but the music was also authentic because it was two couples breaking up and writing dialogue to each other. It was also appealing because we were rising to the occasion to follow our destiny. So you had to live in denial, you had to learn to compartmentalize your emotions and do what needs to be done. It brought out the voyeur a little bit in everybody.

Nicks: Most people, when they break up, you don't see each other for a while. You hope that you don't run into that person ever at that point. In our situation, the breakups were going on, and we had to go to work the next day. It was very hard. You had to walk in with your head high and an open heart. We had to be very focused, and we knew that because no matter how hard it was on us – and it was awful – we still wanted to make a great record. Nobody was going to say, OK, I'll just quit.

You knew you were going to the studio at 2 [p.m.], and you knew you would be there until 3 or 4 in the morning. And you couldn't sit there at the board and glare at your ex-partner. You had to be a grownup. Even though there were a thousand people around us saying to do this or do that, we still had to gather together as a fivesome and say, "We're not going to let this beat us."

When you do the Rumours songs now, do any of those original feelings ever come back?

Buckingham: Oh, I hope not.

Nicks: I think the original feelings do come back. They take me right back to where we were. The songs morph a little bit every time we do them. Instrumentally, they morph. "Gold Dust Woman" is sometimes Indian. Sometimes it's just rock & roll. It travels, and all these songs do that. To me, they are always exciting. I never feel bored when we burst into one of our big hit songs, because what they were all written about was so heavy that they could never be boring.

What is it like to look closely at Rumours again so many years later?

Nicks: We've been waiting a long time to put this out. If you were a Fleetwood Mac fan, you get to hear the songs turn into the songs without a lot of overdubbing. It's very simple. When I listen to it, I think if I was 20 years old, I would definitely want to be in that band. There is something strangely timeless about it that makes you feel like it was just recorded last year. I now know why I went to Lindsey and said, "I think we should give this a chance. This is a really good band." It's quite an interesting group of crazy people that managed to meld their styles together.

Mick Fleetwood: The cause and effect of that album was so humongous – not only for us as musicians, but what it did and what it allowed for the journey. It was the start of something for sure – the enormity of everything we were faced with and were going to go through, and the opportunities, and the opportunities maybe blown and then retrieved. Now we're sitting here excited about going out and playing. This album wasn't the trigger for us doing this, but it's quite a story.

Nicks: It's pretty great that it's coming out at the same time.

Fleetwood: I'm glad it is. It wasn't planned that way at all.

Nicks: There's a lot of great stuff on it, and a lot of creepy, weird stuff that never got on an album – just cool stuff, little minute things, little snippets of stuff that's really intriguing.

Since it is coming out at the same time as your tour, will it affect your set list at all?

Nicks: There are a lot of songs on Rumours that are in the set no matter what. I think what will happen is we'll end up talking about it onstage. Most of those songs are in our set anyway. We'll just end up telling stories and talking about how these things happen. It's always fun to share that with your audience.

Fleetwood Mac's reunion in 1997 for The Dance live album was fairly unexpected, but you've managed to stay together ever since. How did that happen?

Nicks: The Dance was very strong, and I think it really opened up our eyes. We had been apart for a long time. I absolutely did not think Fleetwood Mac was coming back at that point. Then all of a sudden it was, and it was like, all our plans were canceled, everything was flipped over, and Fleetwood Mac was coming back.

Buckingham: I took off in '87 because –

Nicks: You quit.

Buckingham: [Nods] I quit because things were getting a little too crazy, and I wanted to try to get my feet back on the ground. We did Clinton's inauguration in '93, and that was sort of the catalyst and had a delayed reaction. I think by the time you cut to '96, when we contemplated doing The Dance, there had been enough time where we all settled down as people. The craziness that existed in '87 and '88 was gone. We were – for all intents and purposes – adults. I think the time apart helped us appreciate each other. The group has always been a group of people you can say maybe didn't belong in the same band together, but it's the synergy that makes it so magical. We were able to see that more clearly.

Lindsey had hesitated in the past to come back, so did something get resolved?

Buckingham: There were a number of false starts where I was trying to make solo albums. They would get constantly folded into group efforts. In retrospect I can say fair enough that you call yourself a band member and you've got to step up to the plate when the need arises. So that was an issue I had for a number of years that has come and gone. I am more appreciative of the fact that we know each other, we've been through so much together and we are really family.

Nicks: What else happened is I went into rehab on December 12th, 1993 and came out on the 27th of January – 47 days to come off of Klonopin. I nearly died. And I think one of the reasons that Lindsey left is because I was very, very high on this horrific tranquilizer. I didn't even make it to most of the recording sessions for [1987's] Tango in the Night. I was sick. And I think he was horribly worried that I was going to die. That's one of the reasons you [turns to Buckingham] wanted to quit. We had this huge tour and it was booked. We were at Chris' house and [Lindsey] stood up and said "I quit," and I – being so high and so messed up – just raged across the room and I wanted to kill him.

When I came out of rehab, I did a small three-month tour, and I got through it. I was going to be OK, and everyone knew I was going to be OK. And I think that's when Lindsey thought Fleetwood Mac could go on, because his beloved ex-girlfriend was not going to die. She was going to make it.

So everything since then has been different from what it was before?

Buckingham: It's still evolving, and that's the beauty of it too. I've known Stevie since high school. We were a couple for many, many years, and we've been a musical couple forever. After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, nothing left to work out, no new chapters to be written. But that is not the case – there are new chapters to be written. It's quite extraordinary.

You have some history in this studio.

Buckingham: We recorded Tusk in Studio D.

Nicks: Thirteen months. We were here a lot.

That was right after Rumours, so you had a lot of freedom.

Buckingham: That was my line in the sand, the Tusk album. It was clearly an undermining of what was expected of us.

Nicks: It was the opposite of Rumours.

Buckingham: It was an undermining of upholding the brand, which we now represented. It was also an undermining of what a lot of groups find themselves doing, which is painting themselves into a corner by doing only what's expected of them. It was a stand for art and for spontaneity and for the left side of the palette. It certainly did not perform commercially in the same way, nor would we have necessarily expected it to. It was a double album, for one thing. I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when Warner Bros. put that on in their boardroom and listened to it for the first time. Over time it has been vindicated as a piece of work. It has become a darling for the indie bands, or at least the mentality of what that represents.

Nicks: Studio D was covered with Polaroids and shrunken heads and angel wings, and all of our stuff was in there. You walked into that room and there were big massive tusks on each side of the board, and the board was called Tusk. All of those songs – "Save Me a Place," "Sara" – it became something so beautiful and so ahead of its time. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall too when they played it, because they had to be horrified. I was a little horrified myself over that 13-month period, but it was an experience. We were going to the top of the mountain, and it was very spiritual. And again, we were having serious relationship problems during Tusk, but when we went into that studio and saw those tusks, and all the amazing stuff we collected and brought in every day, we became part of a world that was fantastic.

What are your current recording plans?

Buckingham: When Stevie was on the road, and not long after her mom had passed away, Mick, John and I got together and we cut a bunch of tracks, and they turned out great. They were all done in Stevie's keys. They were done with her in mind. Subsequently, Stevie and I have gotten together, and she's sung on two of those. There's also another track that dates back to [pre-Fleetwood Mac project] Buckingham-Nicks that Stevie and I built up from scratch. There's a lot of stuff there. Some of this we will do in the show. We're not pushing it. We're just going to wait and see what everybody wants to hear.

Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' There’s never been a better time to celebrate the band and their gorgeous 11th album,

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours: Why the under-30s still love it

Ahead of the release of a special boxset edition of the Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, James Lachno argues that the 1977 album has survived better than its punk rivals.

by James Lachno

Available Monday in the UK: iTunes | Amazon

The Telegraph

This Monday, a three-disc, 35th anniversary boxset of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 masterpiece Rumours will be released. There’s never been a better time to celebrate the band and their gorgeous 11th album, both of which are more popular and fashionable than ever.

For many music fans in their mid twenties, Rumours has been the soundtrack to large portions of our lives. During my childhood, it used to initiate a brief ceasefire between me and my sister as we squabbled during long car journeys, and in my teens, Songbird often featured on the giddily romantic mix CDs I made for girlfriends. Recently, Go Your Own Way and The Chain – better known as the BBC's Formula One theme tune – have become 2am favourites for bleary-eyed twentysomethings desperate to keep a house party going. By contrast, pioneering punk hits released in the same year such as God Save the Queen and White Riot never seem to get a look in.

But why is Rumours so beloved among my generation? Its resilient popularity is, of course, in part due to the timeless quality of the music, which is warm and sweetly melodic, with coruscating harmonies, breezy rhythms, and virtuoso guitar flourishes. By 1977, Fleetwood Mac had had almost a decade to hone their songcraft, via several line-up changes and subtle changes in style, and Rumours shows a band at the pinnacle of their pop powers. It’s an album that’s chock-full of potential singles, all lushly produced to create an almost faultless, glossy soft-rock sound. It’s sold 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the bestselling albums of all time, and everyone from family pop quartet The Corrs to Californian hardcore band NOFX have covered its songs. All of this is testament to its broad appeal.

But there’s more to it than that: right now the hippest bands around all want to sound like Fleetwood Mac. What started in the late-2000s with US folk-rock revivalists such as Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver has built up a head of steam. Last year saw the release of fine albums from trendy US acts such as Best Coast and Sharon Von Etten that bore the unmistakable influence of Fleetwood Mac’s classic Seventies period, as did work from blockbuster pop artists Mumford and Sons and Taylor Swift. Barely a cigarette paper, meanwhile, can separate the sound of Stevie Nicks’s songs from Rumours and those of the BBC's feted Sound Of 2013 poll winners, Haim.

Back with Second Hand News: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours

By Oliver Hancock

Oxford Student Online

"Whether milking a cash-cow or hoping to disseminate their work to a new, younger audience, there is a sense that such an album is coming at the right time. The musicianship of the songs forms an interesting juxtaposition to the works of many of today’s new breed of guitar bands (From The Vaccines to Palma Violets), and, despite the recordings having inevitably aged, the songs themselves remain just as potent as they did in the 1970s."

Continue to the full article

Mythique Fleetwood Mac

Le Parisien (France)

Fleetwood Mac est toujours vivant. Après quarante-cinq ans d’existence, le groupe repart en tournée cette année et en profite pour ressortir l’un de ses chefs-d’oeuvre. Sorti en 1977, « Rumours » fut un triomphe artistique et commercial. Vendu à près de 40 millions d’exemplaires, le disque est traversé par une pop californienne où le soleil se teintait souvent de clair-obscur, à travers les classiques inusables « Go Your Own Way » ou « Dreams ». Sa nouvelle édition luxueuse en 3 CD est complétée par un disque live, enregistré en 1977, et une série de versions inédites. Fleetwood Mac « Rumours, édition Deluxe », Warner, 19,99 €. Sortie demain.


Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' genudgivet i luksusudgave: Tidløs klasse
Af STEFFEN JUNGERSEN
BT

Året var 1977, og helvede var løs!

Hey #Canada WIN Fleetwood Mac Rumours Deluxe Box Set from

WIN DELUXE BOX SET
Vinyl 95.3FM

Vinyl 95.3FM is giving you an opportunity to win Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" Super Deluxe Box Set.

Vinyl VIPs have an exclusive opportunity to win this prize pack!

The Super Deluxe 4CD/1DVD/1LP Set comes in a beautiful, 12x12 box and includes the remastered version of the original album including B-side “Silver Springs”, a disc of previously unreleased live performances from the 1977 tour, newly compiled recording sessions, the DVD of the 1977 promo film “Rosebud” and the 1-LP vinyl of the original album. It also includes new liner notes by David Wild, plus a track-by-track “in their own words” where the band talks about each song. This is an ultimate, expanded edition of one of the greatest albums ever made!

Contest closes February 11th at 11am.

More details at Vinyl 95.3 FM

WIN TICKETS TO SEE FLEETWOOD MAC IN OTTAWA - APRIL 23rd

Folks in Arnprior, Ontario here's your chance to win Fleetwood Mac tickets to the Ottawa show April 23, 2013.  Simply visit the following retailers and fill out your FREE ballot... Easy!  Not sure when the draw date is but I'm sure the ArnpriorToday.ca or 107.7myFM will provide that info.

Some 35 years after their legendary "Rumours" album was released, Fleetwood Mac will roll into Scotiabank Place April 23rd, and YOU could be there with ArnpriorToday.ca and Arnprior's 107.7 myFM!  WINNING IS EASY - simply fill out your FREE ballot at one of these local businesses:

Tickets to see Fleetwood Mac in Ottawa available from Capital Tickets

McAllister Ford
5362 Madawaska Blvd.

PCS Computers
46 Madawaska St.

Northern Credit Union
211 Madawaska Blvd.

Sears Arnprior
Arnprior Shopping Centre

Reid Bros. Motor Sales
149 Madawaska Blvd.

Sports Zone
Arnprior Shopping Centre

RONA
236 Madawaska Blvd.

Mather Insurance & Real Estate
159 John St., Downtown Arnprior

Nick Smith Centre
77 James St., Arnprior

Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' Pitch-perfect pop before they went their own way ★★★★★

Album review: 
Fleetwood Mac, Rumours: Super Deluxe Remastered Version (Rhino)
ANDY GILL
Independent UK

It speaks volumes about the enduring quality of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours – here repackaged in an expanded heritage edition comprising, in its most lavish format, four CDs, one DVD and audiophile vinyl album – that not even the twin taints of appropriation as Top Gear theme and political anthem have managed to diminish its appeal. It remains one of pop's most impervious generational touchstones.

Rumours represents, along with The Eagles Greatest Hits, the high-water mark of America's Seventies rock-culture expansion, the quintessence of a counter-cultural mindset lured into coke-fuelled hedonism. Its very sound, with those winsome melodies, those West Coast harmonies, and that rhythm section lagging fractionally, imperceptibly behind the beat conjures a fantasy world of luxurious, liberal excess and Californication, captured with sleek perfection.

The album's story is well-known now, rock's premier case of strife bringing forth sweetness, as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham batted the tattered remnants of their relationship back and forth in song. She had only to refer to “thunder” in “Dreams”, for him to snipe back “You can roll like thunder” in “Go Your Own Way” – but both songs are equally sublime, as too are Christine McVie's attempts to cheer the troops up in songs like “Don't Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun”.

Heaven only knows how they managed to remain focused (and civil) enough to bring the project to such glorious fruition, a process here sketched out across two CDs of revealing demos and outtakes, the best of which may be Buckingham's exquisite “Brushes” – the original demo for “Never Going Back Again” – on which his delicate, lace-like threads of multi-tracked guitar intertwine with the crystalline sparkle of dulcimer or harp.

Hearing the band develop its definitive voice in these performances, one's interest is sharply piqued for the imminent reformation tour: it may not be as intriguing as Bowie's comeback, but there's a peculiar magic in operation here that deserves treasuring.

Download: Don't Stop; Go Your Own Way; Dreams; The Chain; You Make Loving Fun

Fleetwood Mac Rumours Reviews + Mick Fleetwood Interview

Photo by Sam Emerson

35 years of Rumours: Will a reissue add to Fleetwood Mac’s classic album?
By STUART BATHGATE

It’s 35 years since the release of Rumours, but will yet another version add anything to the classic, asks Stuart Bathgate, or are reissues just a cynical ploy by record companies to capitalise on our memories?

YOU bought the record. You’ve got the CD. Perhaps, in the early days of the Walkman, you also had it on tape. All in all, you might well reckon you’ve done your bit by Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album. Bought it, bought it again, bought it a third time and given at least two versions to the charity shop.

Ah, but you don’t have the expanded or the deluxe 35th anniversary edition, do you? And you want them, don’t you? Or at least, that’s what the band and their record company hope.

More than 40 million copies of Rumours, in its various guises, have been sold to date, and now the aim is to shift a few more when those two new versions are released on Monday. Which, incidentally, as you may have noticed, is almost a month after the 35th anniversary ended. They always did take their time getting projects finished, Fleetwood Mac, and this one has been no different.

Great article... Check out the rest at Scotsman.com

Fleetwood Mac: Rumour has it
The New Zealand Herald
By Scott Kara

"Fleetwood says the band is looking to return to New Zealand at the end of the year or early 2014"

Out of the pain of love turned sour came an album that has entranced the world for 35 years, writes Scott Kara

Mick Fleetwood was perhaps in the best position to see how rock 'n' roll's most famous soap opera unfolded during the writing and recording of Rumours.

He was, as he explains in his dapper and chatty drawl on the phone from his home on the island of Maui in Hawaii, the only one in the group not in a relationship with one of their bandmates.

Check out the full interview with Mick at The New Zealand Herald

This article is also a full page spread in the January 26th issue.

Rumours are true — the Mac are as good as ever
Day and Night - Ireland January 25, 2013
★★★★✩

With Fleetwood Mac set to embark on a major world tour this year, it’s little surprise that their best-selling album has been dusted down and repackaged for a new generation.

Released in 1977, Rumours has shifted in excess of 40 million copies to date and continues to resonate as perhaps the quintessential break-up album. 

Each of the five members who formed the band’s “classic line-up” in the mid-1970s was going through the wringer emotionally. John and Christine McVie’s eight-year marriage had hit the rocks. The much younger couple, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, had drifted apart to such an extent that they were barely talking. And Mick Fleetwood, who had founded a very, very different incarnation of the group 10 years earlier, was coming to terms with the fact that the mother of his two children had been having an affair with his best friend.

Listen to the songs anew all these years later and it’s remarkable just how candidly their travails are laid bare. There’s jealousy, bitterness, regret, pain and passion throughout.

And there are allusions to other preoccupations, too, not least Nicks’s well-documented issues with cocaine.

The evergreen quartet of Go Your Own Way, Dreams, Don’t Stop and The Chain demonstrate just how capable the quintet were at mining mass-appeal pop with a message.

And the success of these singles played a major role in the album’s phenomenal popularity.

Yet — as was the case with those other late-70s purveyors of break-up pop, Abba — Fleetwood Mac didn’t always keep a close watch on the quality control. A handful of tracks haven’t aged well and some feel slight, not least Oh Daddy — McVie's good natured ode to the band’s avuncular figure, Mick Fleetwood.

Even the additional material that comes with this three-disc anniversary edition, including early demos and alternate takes, cannot hide the fact that the album is far from perfect.

Buckingham put it well some time ago when he noted: “It was unnerving to see something that became a real phenomenon, when the music itself didn't necessarily warrant it.” 

KEY TRACKS Dreams (Take 2); Songbird (Demo)

Mick Fleetwood on his way to the UK... Fleetwood Mac & Rumours Promo Junket

Mick Fleetwood is on his way to the UK!  He was spotted yesterday at LAX in Los Angeles with his Manager Carl Stubner prepping to board a flight heading east.  More photos here.  MediaEye confirmed on Twitter he's headed that way:

Mick Fleetwood flies in from the US today to promote the re-release of Fleetwood Mac's chart-topping album Rumours. #music
— The Media Eye(@MediaEyeTweets) January 25, 2013

CHRISTINE MCVIE HEADED FOR HAWAII:
Mick told Planet Rock’s Darren Redick in an interview earlier this week that:

"I’m really looking forward to reconnecting with my sister, Christine McVie, and that’s sort of a lovely, nice thing to be doing. Getting her out of the English cold there for a few weeks... and me and Chris will be flying back [to Mick’s home in Hawaii] after my work in London”. 

Darren asked Mick if Christine would be with them for their shows in the UK and Mick went on to say,

"I would love that and I would welcome that as we all would and I truly hope that happens. And it might just be the case and I will take that to the fore and be reminded that a lot of people would love to see that happen. It would be an emotionally charged moment that would be lovely to have happen. And I know everyone in the band would welcome that. So you never know!”. 

Fleetwood Mac Pack Live Favorites Into 'Rumours' Reissue – Album Premiere via @rollingstone

Concert tracks recorded on 1977 tour come as bonus disc

Click to listen to Fleetwood Mac's '1977 "Rumours" World Tour Live'

On January 29th, Fleetwood Mac will reissue their 1977 classic Rumours in a new edition packed with tons of unreleased material from the studio and stage. Now you can get an exclusive first listen to the 12 unreleased live tracks that will be included with the new set. Recorded during the band's 1977 world tour at concerts in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Nashville and Columbia, South Carolina, the disc features Fleetwood Mac favorites like "Rhiannon" and "World Turning," as well as plenty of  Rumours highlights including a swooning rendition of "Dreams," a stomping version of "The Chain" that comes to a raucous conclusion, and the heartbreaking closer "Songbird." Fleetwood Mac will hit the road for their first tour since 2009, starting April 4th in Columbus, Ohio, with additional dates just announced.

Album Available now in Germany, New Zealand.  Available in the UK on Monday and North America Tuesday.

Rating: ★★★★★ It's still MACnificent! 35 years on, classic Fleetwood Mac album Rumours is back with a twist

FLEETWOOD MAC: Rumours 

(Rhino, Expanded and Deluxe editions)

By ADRIAN THRILLS
Daily Mail - UK

Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours wasn’t so much a rock record as a fully fledged soap opera.

Fuelled by drugs and  tangled romances, it chronicled the five members’ raw emotions with classic songs like Don’t Stop, Go Your Own Way and Dreams.

Keyboardist Christine McVie described the sessions as a ‘nightly cocktail party’ while drummer Mick Fleetwood said they were ‘crucifyingly difficult’. 

But the Anglo-Americans pressed on to finish ‘the most important album we ever made’.

On Monday — 35 years after its original release — Rumours is back.  The landmark album is being re-issued in two packages with bonus material, out-takes and live recordings to mark the band’s reunion tour (UK dates are expected to be in late September).

A three-CD version, selling at around £12, contains the original album, bonus tracks and the live material. For Mac maniacs, a ‘deluxe’ edition, close to £50, is  bolstered by further outtakes, a DVD and copy of Rumours on vinyl.

So how does it all stand up three-and-a-half decades on? Very well indeed. Echoes of the album’s radio-friendly hooks and harmonies can now be heard in modern bands like The Pierces and Haim.

The album has even been the focus of a TV episode of Glee, while an a cappella cover of Don’t Stop is currently heard on a Seat cars’ advert.

The main reason why Rumours continues to fascinate is the way it vividly documents the band’s twisted relationships. Mick was in the throes of a painful divorce from Jenny Boyd and would go on to have an affair with Mac singer Stevie Nicks.

Bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine had just broken up after eight years of marriage, while Stevie and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham were heading for the rocks following a five-year romance.

The band poured the trauma into their writing: Buckingham’s Go Your Own Way was a hurtful parting shot at Nicks, who responded with Dreams; Christine McVie aimed Don’t Stop at John to show him how she had moved on; he suggested the title Rumours because the group, without admitting it, were all writing songs about each other.

The songs pushed founder members Mick and John away from their roots in British blues to something that sounds contemporary even today.

The rollicking Don’t Stop remains a radio staple while The Chain is the BBC’s theme tune for its Formula 1 coverage.

Stevie once told me: ‘What I remember aren’t the bad nights when we weren’t speaking to one another but the night Dreams was written.

'I walked in and handed a rough cassette to Lindsey. He was mad with me at the time but he played it and looked up at me and smiled.

‘We knew what was going on was very sad. We were couples who couldn’t make it through the perils of fame but we still looked on each other with a lot of respect. It was a shame we had to break up but we got Go Your Own Way and Dreams out of it all. How upset can you be about that?’

The bonus material is strong — especially the songs left off the original album. Of the alternate versions of album tracks, the picks are an early incarnation of Dreams and a new version of I Don’t Want To Know. Less impressive are the jam sessions on the deluxe edition, while the live songs from 1977 don’t add anything.

But the real joys are to be found by listening again to the original, 39-minute album. It’s no wonder Fleetwood Mac were so keen to overcome the tribulations and finish a record with some of the catchiest, most intriguing songs of the Seventies.

Fleetwood Mac - A Look Back At Rumours

by Cameron Smith
Female First - UK

Fleetwood Mac’s landmark album ‘Rumours’ gets re-released next week, and we thought we’d look back at the album to figure out just why it’s so revered throughout the musical community, to the point that it even got its own episode of Glee dedicated to it.

Many albums have a difficult start in life, but Rumours might just be one of the most tumultuous productions ever to pull through the difficulty and pull out the other side. The production of the album was so filled with problems during production it’s a miracle that it even got made, let alone became the unifying factor that would keep the band together for years to come.

Fleetwood Mac was a band built on relationships, with not one, but two couples in the five person group. 1977 though saw both partnerships break down though, with bassist John McVie and keyboardist Christine McVie filing for divorce and vocalist Stevie Nicks leaving guitarist Lindsay Buckingham for the arms of drummer Mick Fleetwood.

Full Article at Femalefirst - UK


Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★

By Daniel Fideli
Whiplash.net

O ano de 2013 promete ser movimentado para os fãs do Fleetwood Mac. A banda que hoje é formada por Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham e Stevie Nicks sairá em turnê após quatro anos e relançará, em edições especiais, o clássico "Rumours", que em 4 de fevereiro do ano passado, completou 35 anos desde o lançamento em 1977.

Full Review [in Portuguese] at Whiplash.net

Fleetwood Mac Weekend! at 95.5 KLOS Listen To Win Tix to L.A. Show

Fleetwood Mac just announced their 3rd Los Angeles area show and KLOS in Los Angeles has your tickets before you can buy them! They'll tell you when to call 800-955-KLOS and score your tickets to Fleetwood Mac at the Staples Center on July 3rd!

Doesn't actually say during what period they are giving away tickets.. I guess they want you to listen from NOW through the wknd.

You’ll also get the remastered expanded edition CD of Rumours containing live cuts from the band’s 1977’s World Tour and studio bonus cuts!

Dutch tv show 'De Wereld Draait Door' discusses Fleetwood Mac and the upcoming reissue of Rumours

[translation] Fleetwood Mac, one of the most popular and successful bands in rock history, brings on January 25, 2013 the legendary album Rumours again in a remastered version. They will also be honoring the 35th anniversary of the album, an extended and deluxe version out. At the table on this topic: Manuela Kemp, Anne Soldier and Tjerk Lammers.
De Wereld Draait Door Thanks @KevinHulsman for pointing me towards this video.

Fleetwood Mac Expand Tour With 13 NEW Tour Dates

NEWLY ANNOUNCED - Fleetwood Mac Live 2013 Tour Dates:

Fleetwood Mac Live 2013 Adds 13 Additional Dates to Tour Due to Overwhelming Fan Reaction

RHINO RECORDS TO REISSUE LANDMARK RUMOURS ALBUM ON JANUARY 29TH

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on an overwhelming response to the recently announced Fleetwood Mac Live 2013 North American tour, which has already sold over 325,000 tickets, the band announced today that they will be adding 13 shows.  The newly announced leg of the tour includes second shows in Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, new stops in Cleveland, Wantagh, Charlotte, Des Moines, Spokane, Portland, Sacramento, Albany, as well as, Montreal, Canada. A complete itinerary follows this release.  Tickets for the second leg of the tour go on sale beginning February 1st at  Ticketmaster.com. 

Fleetwood Mac Live 2013 begins in Columbus, Ohio at the Nationwide Arena on April 4th with confirmed dates through July 6th in Sacramento, California at the Sleep Train Arena.

The multi-Grammy winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees last toured in 2009 with the sold out Unleashed Tour.  The current lineup includes Mick Fleetwood and John McVie – both original members since l967, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks who joined the band in l975.

In celebration of the 35th anniversary of the release of the iconic Rumours album and in conjunction with their Fleetwood Mac Live 2013 tour, Fleetwood Mac, one of rock's most enduring, beloved and successful bands will also be reissuing an expanded and deluxe version of Rumours on Rhino Records January 29th.  The expanded edition includes the original album, the b-side of "Silver Springs," a dozen unreleased live recordings from the group's l977 world tour and an entire disc filled with unreleased takes from the album's recording sessions. The deluxe edition will include all of the music from expanded edition, plus an additional disc of outtakes on DVD that feature "The Rosebud Film," a l977 documentary about the album, as well as the album on vinyl.  Digital versions will also be available.

6/14/13 - Chicago, IL Allstate Arena - on sale Feb 2nd
6/15/13 - Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena - on sale Feb 1st
6/18/13 - Montreal, QC Bell Center - on sale Feb 2nd
6/19/13 - Albany, NY Times Union Center Arena
6/21/13* - Boston, MA Comcast Center - on sale Feb 1st
6/22/13* - Wantagh, NY Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre - on sale Feb 1st
6/24/13 - Charlotte, NC Time Warner Cable Arena - on sale Feb 1st
6/26/13 - Des Moines, IA Wells Fargo Center - on sale Feb 2nd
6/29/13 - Spokane, WA Spokane Arena - on sale Feb 2nd
6/30/13 - Portland, OR Rose Garden Arena - on sale Feb 16th
7/3/13 - Los Angeles, CA Staples Center - on sale Feb 1st
7/5/13 - San Diego, CA Viejas Arena - on sale Feb 1st
7/6/13 - Sacramento, CA Sleep Train Arena - on sale Feb 1st

Livenation

Video: Fleetwood Mac prepares to go on tour again

Fleetwood Mac prepares to go on tour again

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- After a three-year break, Fleetwood Mac is hitting the road again for a major national tour. It also marks a milestone, the 35th anniversary of the release of "Rumours," one of the most successful albums of all time.

 Fleetwood Mac is preparing to go on a big arena tour, including stops in late May at Anaheim's Honda Center and the Hollywood Bowl.

"It makes you stay young. It makes you stay vibrant. We're in a wonderful, mysterious, crazy band. So we get to stay young because of this," said Stevie Nicks.

On the new tour, you will hear the songs that make up the foundation of the band, but it may have a different feel to it, according to Lindsey Buckingham.

"It's what you do around the edges, the colors that you use to sort of accent everything else that makes the set different," Buckingham said.

 A deluxe re-issue of "Rumours" comes out next week.

 George Pennacchio KABC

Get ready for Fleetwood Mac Friday tomorrow, celebrating the re-release of Rumours.

Get ready for Fleetwood Mac Friday tomorrow, The Sound in Australia is celebrating the re-release of Rumours and they'll be playing back-to-back tracks from the album PLUS un-released audio from the albums recording sessions and un-released live audio from their 1977 world tour and more. Starts at midnight! (Australian time) Listen Live Around The World at The Sound. AND enter the contest on their site to win a copy of the album.

Remember: If you are in North America, Australia can be anywhere from 16 to 19 hours ahead... consult google for the current time in Australia and count back from midnight depending on your location. 

UK: Win a Deluxe Edition of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' from @planetrockradio

All next week at Planet Rock in the UK are giving away daily copies of the Deluxe edition re-release of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours', one of which is SIGNED by Mick Feetwood himself!

Full details at Planet Rock.  Scroll down all the way to the bottom to enter.

Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' Expanded and Super Deluxe will be released January 28th in the UK


AMAZON
Pre-Order Rumours 3CD Expanded Edition
Pre-Order Rumours 4CD, DVD and vinyl Super Deluxe Edition

THE RUMOURS ARE TRUE!
FLEETWOOD MAC TO REISSUE LANDMARK ALBUM
Expanded And Deluxe Versions Of Fleetwood Mac’s Pop Masterpiece Include Unreleased Session Recordings And Live Performances   

LOS ANGELES – Fleetwood Mac, one of rock’s most enduring, beloved and successful bands, will circulate a fresh round of Rumours next year with expanded and deluxe versions of the album in celebration of it’s 35th anniversary. Rumours made the band one of the most iconic bands of the 1970s and garnered wide critical praise, earned the Grammy® for Album of the Year, and has now sold more than 40 million copies worldwide since its 1977 debut.

In  celebration of the release, the current lineup of the band, Mick  Fleetwood and John McVie, both original members since 1967, and Lindsey  Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who joined the band in 1975, will kick off  and their first U.S. tour since 2009 in April. The 34-date jaunt  features stops in Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Chicago and a  special appearance at the historic Hollywood Bowl in Los  Angeles. Tickets for the first run of shows are on sale now at LiveNation.com.

The expanded edition’s three CDs includes the original album and  the b-side “Silver Springs,” a dozen unreleased live recordings from the  group’s ’77 world tour, and an entire disc filled with unreleased takes  from the album’s recording sessions. The deluxe edition includes all of  the music from expanded version, plus an additional disc of outtakes a  DVD that features “The Rosebud Film,” a 1977 documentary about the  album, and the album on vinyl. RUMOURS will be available January 29 from  Rhino as the expanded edition ($24.98) and the deluxe edition ($99.98).  Digital versions will also be available.

Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded Rumours  against a backdrop personal turmoil, chronicling their raw emotions in  songs like “Go Your Own Way,” “Gold Dust Woman” and “Dreams,” the latter  becoming the band’s first number one smash.

The disc of 12 unreleased live recordings from the band’s 1977 Rumours tour  features performances from concerts in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Nashville  and Columbia, S.C. The songs include album tracks like “The Chain,” “Oh  Daddy” and “Songbird” as well as “World Turning” and “Rhiannon,” two  tracks from the group’s 1975 eponymous release.

Producers also have compiled a selection of  16 unreleased recordings from the album’s sessions including early takes  of “Go Your Own Way,” “I Don’t Want To Know” and the popular b-side “Silver Springs.” There are also several demo recordings, including one  for the outtake “Planets of the Universe,” plus an instrumental version  of “Never Going Back Again.”

The deluxe edition of Rumours features three additional pieces. First is an 18-track compilation of session outtakes originally released in the 2004 reissue of the album. Next is the original album on 140-gram vinyl. Finally, there is a DVD with “The Rosebud Film.” This 1977 documentary  by Michael Collins includes interviews, rehearsal footage and live  performances of: “World Turning,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” “Go  Your Own Way,” “You Make Loving Fun” and “I’m So Afraid.” 

RUMOURS: DELUXE EDITION
Track Listing

Lindsey Buckingham's Go Your Own Way and Stevie Nicks' Dreams were clearly telling both sides of the same story

Photo by Sam Emerson

At 35, Rumours is still one album you can believe in

Mention the year 1977 to lads of a particular musical bent and you're likely to be regaled with a torrent of memories about the excitement surrounding new releases by the Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Clash, seeing the latter in Trinity and watching our own Radiators from Space develop into the best Irish band of their generation.

All of that did take place, of course, as well as Bowie releasing the iconic single Heroes (UK chart placing No 24 and didn't feature in the US charts at all, so it's taken a while for the song's significance to become apparent) but in the wider world the album charts were dominated by the Eagles' Hotel California and Rumours by Fleetwood Mac.

Both of those records were inescapable for most of that year, with Rumours emerging in January and dominating the airwaves and in-store plays for 12 months or more. The story of Rumours and Fleetwood Mac in general is now the stuff of rock'n'roll legend. Although big sellers in their blues-rock incarnation in the mid-Sixties, by the early Seventies Fleetwood Mac were a busted flush, until bassist John McVie's notion of incorporating the Californian duo of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks opened the key to the golden door. An eponymous 1975 album cracked the million-mark Stateside but the band themselves were cracking up by the time they started work on the much-anticipated follow-up. McVie and his wife Christine were splitting up, as were Buckingham and Nicks and big bags of cocaine were sitting beside the recording console -- what could possibly go wrong?

Chaos

What eventually emerged from the madness and chaos was a record which seemed like glossy but slightly left-field west coast pop-rock on the outside but contained a bitter, fractious undertow.

Buckingham's Go Your Own Way and Nicks's Dreams were clearly telling both sides of the same story, while The Chain, despite providing the BBC's Formula 1 theme for decades, just sounded plain weird.

And what's more, 35 years later the album still sounds great.

The 35th anniversary edition of Rumours is released next Friday

- George Byrne
Herald.ie (Ireland)


NEUE MUSIK | MEHR FLEETWOOD MAC MIT JUBILÄUMSEDITION UND US-TOUR 2013
Inklusive aller Tracklisten

Jornal Do Commercio (Brazil)

Kingfm.net (Germany)


(Audio) RUMOURS VAN FLEETWOOD MAC
Rumours, de legendarische plaat van Fleetwood Mac, komt opnieuw in een geremasterde versie uit. Luc De Vos is fan.
'Rumours' was een wereldwijd succes. Er werden meer dan 40 miljoen exemplaren van verkocht. De plaat wordt beschreven als een 'ellendig mooie' plaat, of ook wel 'dé echtscheidingsplaat'. You can go your own way was het eerste singletje dat Luc De Vos kocht.
Radio1.be (Netherlands)


O Fleetwood Mac volta para celebrar 35 anos de Rumours
A banda começa em maio uma turnê de 35 shows nos EUA
Jornal Do Commercio (Brazil)

Fleetwood Mac 'The Road To Rumours' UK Acoustic Magazine February, 2013 Issue On Sale Now!

We Celebrate The 35th anniversary Of One Of Music's Most Iconic Albums

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is an album heard in the homes, cars and on the computers of more than 40 million people. To mark its 35th anniversary, this landmark album is being re-released with a package of demos and studio out-takes. Andy Hughes looks back at his own personal discovery of this iconic recording, and assesses its enduring appeal.

Acoustic Magazine February issue on sale in the UK as of January 17th.

Review: Fleetwood Mac 'Rumours' Super Deluxe Re-issue ★★★★/5

FLEETWOOD MAC 'RUMOURS' Re-issue
Bernard Zuel
SMH.com

"If you're already sold on the album, you may be wondering if it's worth getting the extras. Although it has some decent crunch at times and includes Rhiannon, Nicks's hit from Rumours' self-titled predecessor, I don't think much is to be gained from the live disc. For committed fans, there are more rewards in the rarities/demo material. The demo of The Chain has an eerie, foreboding element to it that suggests it could have been a completely different song; likewise an early version of Silver Springs is lower, less optimistic and intriguing. And for those who doubted at the time, Nicks's compelling and stark Planets of the Universe - a demo not released until 2004 - will convince you there was a lot more than scarves and witchy stuff going on there."

Much more to this review at SMH.com

Reviews: Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (35th Anniversary Edition)

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours 
(35th Anniversary Edition)

Reviewed by: Scott McLennan
Rip It Up

Infamously recorded amid a blur of incestuous bandmate rooting and powder caches to rival Guy Fawkes’ stash, Rumours’ remarkable tracks outshine the tumultuous tales of their creation even 35 years on.

Rumours sits firmly in the top 10 selling albums of all time for good reason. Despite its familiarity, each track remains as magnificent as a full moon setting over a lake. Many of the tunes have been reimagined, recontextualised or granted new life by entertainers as diverse as Hole (post-Kurt), Bill Clinton (post-election victory) and Eva Cassidy (post-mortem) over the last three decades, but none can recreate the divergent conflagrations that rage on the original.

Whether fuelled by the wisdom of Christine McVie, the ethereal gossamer whirls of Stevie Nicks or the vengeful snarl of Lindsey Buckingham, the power of The Chain, Go Your Own Way and Songbird remain staggering. Although the live disc here offers little in the way of divergence to pique the senses (save a hint of the then-forthcoming Tusk and a few flat vocals from Nicks on Don’t Stop), the lost tracks deliver raw insight.

A pivotal counterpoint to the punk forces brewing on the other side of the Atlantic, Rumours remains a multi-faceted snapshot of the ‘70s – equal parts dreamy Hollywood Boulevard flair and crumbling Sunset Boulevard tragedy.

Rating: 4.5/5

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours - Super Deluxe Edition (LP 2013)

Reviewed by: Jason Strange
The AU Review

Before I talk about the record, I have to ask this question. This iconic album has been re released a number of times. Digitally remastered, bonus tracks, demo tracks, live tracks, everything possible. So what more can they squeeze out with a "Super Deluxe Edition" that we haven't heard already? And is this just another example of a record label milking a cash cow dry?

But let's focus on the actual album itself. Rumours is by far one of the most talked about records in Fleetwood Mac's career. We know about the internal turmoil going through the band during the time of the writing and recording of this album. The love affairs, the fights, the massive drug addictions and of course the talented musicians that were lost in the haze of their personal lives. We know that when Rumours was released, it was one of those landmark albums that is still highly regarded today some 35 years after its release. All of those combustible elements internally led to a great record. And isn't that always the case. Adversity leads to the best music.

Rumours is centred around two massive singles. 'Don't Stop' and 'Go Your Own Way'. While the bands chief lyricists, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham worked independently on the lyrics for the songs not realising that they all shared a common theme of love gone wrong and moving on. It's the tracks that didn't receive the initial radio air play (which wasn't many as half the album were released as singles in the end) that are the most telling on that period of time. A song like 'Second Hand News' which relates to finding out second hand that a loved one is messing around or 'I Don't Want To Know' where you can hear the pain that the band members were feeling internally come out through the music. The band only wrote one song together on the album, the track 'The Chain', which I find to be the weakest of the tracks as it lacks the deep seeded emotion hidden in the other tracks. Nonetheless, the reason why this album worked so well was behind the seriousness of the themes, the music was glorious examples of pop inspired folk with upbeat major chords and a real positive flow in the music alone. A complete juxpostion to the lyrical content.

So how have they milked this one compared to the other re issues? A live set from the Rumours tour in 1978 plus out takes, demos and instrumentals from the recording session. Sadly nothing you couldn't have tracked down before or if not, you wouldn't have wanted to. The live set is of great quality and listening to it I got a touch of a feeling that if the reunion lasts and comes down to Australia, it will be truly amazing. The demos from the original recordings were nothing special and only hardcore fans might get something out of it but its just a marketing ploy to make you pay another $30 for an album you may already have. I'd save the money and just relistening to the Rumours album next month when this is released.

Rating - original album 8.5/10
Rating - live album 7/10
Rating - demos 4/10

Both the 3CD and Super Deluxe editions are available for pre-order via Amazon or iTune.