 This video is brought to you by CuriosityStream. Follow the link in the description to get 26% off an annual subscription to CuriosityStream and full access to Nebula where you can watch my videos early and ad-free. Oh, and if you liked this video, maybe think about subscribing? If you ever find yourself flipping through an old record collection from the 70s looking for gems, odds are that you're going to find a copy of Fleetwood Mac's Rumors. Based in 1977 at the height of analog sound, rumors would go on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time with nearly 28 million confirmed sales today. Now obviously the infectious hooks, lush production, and raw emotion of the songs had a lot to do with this, but you've gotta think at least some of those sales were helped by a perfect album cover. A cover that somehow managed to be mysterious, mythical, and irreverent all at once. Welcome to cover stories. The cover of Rumors is a clear visual successor to the artwork of Fleetwood Mac's 1975 self-titled album. Not to be confused with their other self-titled album released seven years earlier. Both photographs were taken by Herb Worthington, who first worked with the band for the cover of 1974's Heroes Are Hard to Find. But while that artwork is twisted and strange, the artworks for Fleetwood Mac and Rumors have a sort of classy minimalism to them. Both tread along the surreal line with distinctive outfits against the backdrop of a void, and both exude a mystical energy. On Fleetwood Mac, a crystal ball hovers in the air like some sort of strange illusion. That ball makes another appearance in the artwork for Rumors, where Stevie Nicks gazes into it dressed in witchy black robes. These robes are representative of Rhiannon, Nicks' mystical character that made her debut in the song of the same name, on Fleetwood Mac. For Nicks, Rhiannon was a representation of the wildness and freedom of music. And in the cover shoot for Rumors, we can see Nicks trying to channel that energy through a number of different poses. For many people, this photo was their visual introduction to Stevie Nicks. While she and Lindsay Buckingham had joined the band on the previous album, the cover of that album featured only John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. And of course, Mick Fleetwood would reappear on Rumors, as the comic counterpoint to Nicks' ethereal mysticism. The most notable aspect of Mick Fleetwood's appearance on Rumors is, of course, the wooden balls dangling over his crotch. Fleetwood stole these balls from a chain flush toilet in a bar years before, and it started fastening them to his drum kit as a sort of good luck charm. Their presence on the cover of the album almost seems to undercut its mystical air. But they're also a reminder of one of the key facts of Rumors. It's an album rife with sexuality. The drama that went on during the recording of Rumors is well documented to this point. The two couples in the band, John and Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, were both going through messy breakups in real time, while Fleetwood was dealing with his own divorce too. All of this messiness played out across the confessional songs on the album. The album depicts the careful dance of managing feelings and egos while trying to stay together as a band. In a way, the cover seems to be displaying that dance, with Nicks' figure entwined around Fleetwood's. And that image would prove to be prophetic in ways even the band members themselves couldn't predict. In March 1977, as Rumors was taking over the charts, Fleetwood maxed down with the legendary Annie Leibovitz for an iconic Rolling Stone cover shoot. Literalizing the album's themes, the cover shoot showed Fleetwood maxed in bed with each other. During that shoot, Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood spent a lot of time talking to each other and snuggling up. That planted the seed for a brief relationship between the two that would flourish over the next year. And so the dance of Fleetwood maxed drama continued. The predictive nature of the album artwork seems fitting to me, because Worthington's photo exudes arcane energy. It's like a tarot card, relying on vague pieces of symbolic imagery to depict the unmatched mood of the album. The result is an artwork that was instantly iconic in its day, and one that'll no doubt remain a staple of record store shelves for decades to come. Hey everybody, I want to thank you all for watching this episode of Cover Stories. Cover Stories has been a really fun experiment for me in creating a series with a bit of continuity. But it's not the only series that I've got. Thanks to the kind folks at CuriosityStream and Nebula, I've been able to develop a number of original series including Led Zeppelin's Epics and the Dark Side of the Moon project. And as I'm speaking right now, I've also got another Nebula original series in the works. I can't tell you about it just yet, but the news should come soon, and I'm pretty sure you're gonna like it. If you want to be the first to see that series when it comes out, the best way to do so is by signing up to CuriosityStream. If you follow the link in the description, you'll get 26% off of CuriosityStream, as well as full access to Nebula. That means you can be the first to see all of my videos, but it also means you'll get access to thousands of documentaries on all sorts of topics. One that I've been really hype about is Contemporary Color, a documentary following David Burns 2015 Ode to Color Guards. It's a really cool peek behind the scenes of a performance that I didn't even really know existed until I watched the documentary. So if you want to get started today, make sure to use the link in the description. That'll get you the best deal possible on CuriosityStream, full access to Nebula, and it'll really do a lot to help support my channel. So thank you all so much for watching.