Veteran music writer and editor Alan Light’s latest book, “Don’t Stop: Why We (Still) Love Fleetwood Mac‘s ‘Rumours,'” is out today on Atria Books.

Since its release in 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” has carved out a remarkable place in the pop music pantheon. Created in a cauldron of intraband romantic turmoil as multiple relationships in the band crashed and burned, and fueled by voracious drug intake, the album was an immediate, spectacular success. Certified 21 times platinum, it’s the seventh best-selling record in U.S. history (worldwide, it has sold more than 40 million copies).

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But nearly 50 years later, the album has achieved something that none of its peers can claim: “Rumours” is the single classic-rock album that continues to attract young listeners. It is the only record from rock’s Greatest Generation that doesn’t sound old to successive generations — somehow, after all this time, it doesn’t play like a “classic,” but like present-day pop.

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In 2023, “Rumours” was the most streamed album of the 20th century on Spotify (the platform didn’t release that statistic for 2024). The songs “Go Your Own Way” and “The Chain” have more than a billion plays each on Spotify, with its younger listener base........

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