This past week, Alex and I developed an obsession with obtaining the album Rumours. For several reasons:
1. We both separately read the same Reddit thread, which was about albums you can listen to without skipping a single track. In addition to Graceland (I mean, duh), Rumours was at the top of the list. We realized we'd both never listened to it, despite knowing about half the songs for one reason or another.
2. One of my coworkers was raving about a Fleetwood Mac concert she'd gone to a couple years ago, and how Lindsey Buckingham was the sole reason for her wanting to learn guitar.
3. Fleetwood Mac also popped up in our trivia night (which we won, btw) and in a recent SNL skit in which Paul Rudd and Vanessa Bayer impulsively dance every time "I Don't Want To Know" comes on.
How coincidental! After all this in less than a week, we decided we needed to own Rumours. And yes, I know it's very easily done on YouTube or iTunes, but something about listening to an album for a first time on vinyl makes it so much more enjoyable. We're not music snobs, I swear, it's just that we happen to own a record player and live down the street from several record stores, so why not make the effort to listen to these albums in their original form?
Friday night we stopped at Amoeba and Rasputin, but neither had it on vinyl (weird, right?). We searched the new arrivals, the bargain sections, the new sections, and even the bins underneath where all the duplicates/hidden gems go. The next morning we went to Recycled Records and also had no luck, although Alex did get a Vangelis and a Donald Fagen album. After a short break of discouragement, we ventured into the Lower Haight to try out Groove Merchant (really cool place, but alas, still couldn't find it) and Rooky Ricardo's, where we finally had success. It was a fun adventure in record-hunting, and also just made it that much more rewarding to finally put the needle on the record.
And in case you also haven't heard the album, it's great. "Second Hand News" and "I Don't Want to Know" make me want to dance every time I hear them. "Never Going Back Again" is my new favorite song to play on guitar. "You Make Loving Fun" is secretly my favorite. I read that Rumours was meant to be "no filler," meaning every song could hold its own as a single. They definitely pulled it off.
Lesson learned: there are still so many classic albums out there that have gone unheard, by us and by plenty of other people. Our new goal is to unearth some of them, make good use of our record player, and share some of the results (via this blog). It's also probably going to come in handy for trivia!
[Another lesson learned: if there's a classic album from the 60s or 70s that you're looking for, you will almost certainly find it at your parents' house, which we discovered when we went to the Genco house today. We now have 2 copies of Rumours.]
A relevant clip to end this post:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK9kzCnunWo?rel=0]