The Album That Nearly Wore Itself Out

In 1976, Fleetwood Mac were deep into recording what would become one of the most successful albums in music history — Rumours.

The sessions went on for months. Songs were changed, overdubbed and played back again and again.

Then engineer Ken Caillat noticed something worrying.

The recordings seemed to be losing their sparkle. The drums sounded dull. The problem wasn't the musicians or the equipment.

The master tape itself was wearing out.

It had passed across the tape heads so many times that the magnetic coating was deteriorating and precious detail was disappearing from the recordings.

Fortunately, almost by accident, duplicate first-generation recordings of the original backing tracks had been made months earlier.

But there was a problem.

This was before modern computer synchronisation. To save the album, the engineers had to run the old and replacement 24-track tapes together and manually keep the machines in sync by ear, transferring months of overdubs onto the better recordings.
It was painstaking work — but it succeeded.
Rumours survived and went on to become one of the most celebrated albums ever recorded.
Sometimes we think of classic recordings as permanent things.
But this one came remarkably close to being physically worn away before the world had even heard it.

🎵 Question:
If you could have been present in the studio for the making of one great album, which album would you choose?