The players: It’s a well-known rock story, but here’s the gist of it. During the recording of the landmark 1977 album Rumours, everyone in Fleetwood Mac was going through a painful romantic breakup. Members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were breaking up with each other, members Christine McVie and John McVie were about to divorce, and drummer Mick Fleetwood was in the process of divorcing his wife (who was not a member of the band).

"Second Hand News"
By Buckingham, About Nicks
Essentially, it's an "oh well, we're done, and what can I do?" kind of thing. Buckingham is at peace with the breakup. For now.

“Dreams”
By Nicks, About Buckingham
Nicks later called this a “philosophical,” thoughtful, and reflective take on the end of her relationship with Buckingham.

“Never Going Back Again”
By Buckingham, About another woman but really about Nicks
Buckingham says it was about a one-night-stand with a groupie…whom he hooked up with immediately after his tumultuous breakup with Nicks. He’s “never going back again” to that random girl, see, but really it’s more like, “OH STEVIE WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?”

“Don't Stop”
By Christine McVie, About John McVie
A joyful song explicitly about hope, it’s actually about trying to pick yourself up and look toward the future with hope after a messy divorce.

“Go Your Own Way”
By Buckingham, About Nicks
Something of a response to “Dreams,” it’s more angry and bluntly matter-of-fact than pensive. “Loving you isn’t the right thing to do”? Harsh.

“Songbird”
By Christine McVie, About John McVie
The meaning: love is a beautiful thing, even if it ends, and ends tragically

“The Chain”
By All Five, About All Five
Because everyone was breaking up with everyone else, they all wrote this song about breaking up with each other, and about each other. That sounds like a pleasant day in the recording studio.

“You Make Loving Fun”
By Christine McVie, About another man but really about John McVie
As the McVies were beginning to split apart, Christine McVie began an affair with the band’s touring light technician. The song is about him, he who makes loving fun. John McVie, what with the divorce and all, presumably made loving not fun.

"I Don't Want to Know"
By Nicks, About Buckingham
Gah, get a room.

“Oh Daddy”
By Christine McVie, About everyone else
It’s a thank you note/letter of fondness to Mick Fleetwood (nicknamed “Daddy”) for being the glue that kept the band together during the rocky Rumours time.

“Gold Dust Woman”
By Nicks, About Nicks
Despite the occasional witchy dalliance to put Buckingham in his place, most all Stevie Nicks songs are about Stevie Nicks.

So it's technically not a "sophomore slump," but stakes was high for Fleetwood Mac after the self-titled 1975 album (the first since allowing Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham into the band) and Rumours, the 1977 classic which sold 14 million copies.

But all the songs on Rumours are about the band’s myriad couples painfully and bitterly splitting up. And yet the band itself didn’t break up, probably because Rumours sold 14 million copies. Maybe they weren’t talking to each other much, or maybe they knew it would be too hard to top a staggeringly popular classic, but the next Fleetwood Mac album after Rumours was Tusk, a two-album set of Lindsey Buckingham-engineered self indulgence. The 20-song track list pretty much alternates between a palatable ballad with a kicky bass line written and sung by Christine McVie or Stevie Nicks, and an angry, murky, overproduced Buckingham track that tries and fails to evoke Buckingham’s idol, Brian Wilson (including the use of kazoos and ukuleles). Nicks can write a killer song and sing the hell out of it; Buckingham is a marvelous, very underrated guitarist. His songwriting? Meh.

Though “Tusk” and “Sara” were both top 10 hits, probably because they were about Stevie Nicks' cold demeanor and a Stevie Nicks private emotional crisis, respectively, both solid Fleetwood Mac song topics, the album itself was a massive flop. Tusk sold a “only” a million copies. Mick Fleetwood has claimed its because a single radio station played the whole thing pre-release and millions of people taped it. A more likely scenario: It cost twice as much as a single LP and also it was terrible. 

Fun bonus facty factoid fact: When I was about 17, I thought it was a pretty funny put-on to tell people that my dad was amongst the USC Trojan Marching Band that played on "Tusk." When I was about 18, I realized that everyone hates Tusk and telling this lie made me look like both a jackass and a moron.