On this day in 1977, Fleetwood Mac released one of the bestselling albums of all time with Rumours

The album began with the bands intention to make a pop album to expand on the commercial success of their previous album. Prior to the recording of the album, keyboard player and vocalist Christine McVie and bass guitarist John McVie divorced after 8 years of marriage and stopped speaking to one another about any matters other than music. Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and vocalist Stevie Nicks were also engaged in an on/off relationship that led them to fight often. These issues, coupled with the bands excessive drug use reportedly made recording tense.

Rumours is often considered Fleetwood Mac’s best album and it immediately found commercial and critic success upon its release. It stayed at the top of the Billboard 200 for 31 consecutive weeks and re-entered the charts once in 2011 and again recently in 2020 after a viral video on the platform TikTok showed a man skateboarding while listening to the song Dreams from the album. Currently it has sold over 40 million copies.

Critics also enjoyed the album, with a nearly unanimous positive reaction from the music press. In a retrospective review, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said of the album “Each tune, each phrase regains its raw immediate emotional power  – which is why Rumours touched a nerve upon its 1977 release, and has since transcended its era to be one of the greatest, most compelling pop albums of all time”.