Rumours

 I don't think so.

 One of the top 100 most over-hyped albums of all time.  This is a good album.  "Dreams" is a masterpiece.  I can remember being squeezed into a car full of older kids who wanted nothing to do with me, being driven by a parent I'd never met before on a rainy night in a part of town I'd never seen before, not understanding the current vibe at all... the parent tuning around the radio dial.  He skipped past this song and some kid in the back who seemed very mellow and adult asked to go back to it.  The parent obliged and the entire car full of people just shut up and listened.  Everyone tuning into that vibe is why I remember that moment at all.

 But that's not the whole album.  It has other good songs, but overall the album is just an imitation of the one that preceded it.  The one they dare to call the "White Album", which is nothing at all like the actual White Album but rather is Fleetwood Mac's eponymous offering from 1975.  It's the one with "Landslide" on it.  You'd think "Landslide", being so popular, must be on Rumours though, wouldn't you?  Same with "Rhiannon", but nope - White Album.

 The White Album really put the new Fleetwood Mac (Mac 2.0, now with Buckingham/Nicks) on the map.  It wasn't wildly successful right out of the gate, but it got there. 

For Rumours, I think a couple of things happened.  Because they had a new lineup and had completely abandoned their blues roots, in a very real sense it was a debut album - with a couple of bona fide hits, so the Mac had everyone's ear and people were eager to hear their follow-up.  

 It's so rare that a sophomore effort ever captures any of the magic of the debut.  There are a lot of legitimate reasons for that.  Of course you can only be new once but another thing many artists will tell you is that you have your whole life to write your first album and six months to write your second.

I think on Rumors, Fleetwood Mac just went to make another White Album (Fun Facts: both have 11 songs and clock in, total, within 3 minutes of each other.  The albums also sound very similar overall.  Even the covers of the two albums are a bit similar; a black and white photo of two people.  Okay, Rumours is off white) but it just so happens Rumours had a lot of great songs.  The ideas kept coming - at a time when they had everyone's attention.  Credit them for their preparedness at the opportunity.  That alone is worthy of recognition.  Almost all initially successful artists get that shot at a second opportunity.  Few, if any, do what The Mac did with it.  This album wins its spot on any list by acclamation.

 Nice, but listen to them side by side and I think you'll agree Rumours is just a turgid version of the White Album. More or less the same songs with most of the fun and youthful hunger stripped out of them.  You can just hear the cocaine and breakups.  None of that was ever a value-add for me.  I'll take the rather breezy, relaxed groove of "Over My Head" over any track on Rumours all day.  

Both good albums, but typically credited in the wrong order.