I can understand why even ardent Fleetwood Mac fans find it difficult to say they genuinely like this ninth album, the fourth and last to feature Bob Welch — and the first recorded as a quartet, since Bob Weston got the boot after boinking Jenny Boyd. She was Mick’s wife at the time, after all.
Just when I thought I was back on track with my deep dive into Christine McVie’s lengthy discography we got smacked twice with miserable attention-diverting news: first Jeff Beck departed, then David Crosby.
So, again … where were we?
Ah, yes: late ‘73, in full fracturing transition.
Figured it out, right? After days of needless deliberation over this week’s #superfriendssunday theme — select an album turning 50 in 2023 — it occurred to me the simplest solution would be to spotlight Penguin, the first of two Fleetwood Mac LPs from ‘73, seen here with an equally flightless metronome and a Funko Pop of Chilly Willy.
Pardon the holidays hiatus for my deep dive into the discography of the late great Christine McVie.
So … where’d we leave off?
That’s right: the dawn of ‘72.
It’s February ‘71, Fleetwood Mac are touring the southwest US, and co-founding guitarist Jeremy Spencer has gone out for a magazine. He will not return — to the band at all, but initially not even to anywhere he could be located. Eventually it’s discovered that he’s joined the SoCal Christian cult the Children of God, now known as the Family.
So … obviously I’m not getting through this chronological Christine McVie deep-dive quickly enough to spend Sunday pontificating about an album that really requires no further pontification anyway: Rumours.
This weekend’s #superfriendssunday is a top-track round, the album in question is Rumours as a salute to the late great Christine McVie — and as I’ve been sinking deeper into her music since she passed away two weeks ago, and I’d been planning on posting about important milestones from throughout her career, I’ve decided to step up the pace in the hopes of reaching that ‘77 monolith by Sunday.
