Showing posts with label Lindsey Buckingham Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lindsey Buckingham Review. Show all posts

Saturday, September 18, 2021

REVIEWS "LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM" May well make Fleetwood Mac think again.


Fleetwood Mac’s former guitarist goes his own way, but treads old ground

by Barry Divola
⭐⭐1/2

Sometimes the soap opera threatens to obscure the music. Case in point: Fleetwood Mac. The drugs, the affairs, the infighting, the walkouts and the reconciliations have become part of the band narrative, most recently in 2018 when, after increasing tensions in the group, Lindsey Buckingham was fired and replaced with Neil Finn and Mike Campbell for live shows. He’s taken his ball, gone home and made his first solo album in a decade.

Buckingham was always the weirdly shaped peg in the Mac machine while they helped create the ’70s US West Coast FM-rock universe. When he was given free rein on the band’s 1979 opus Tusk, the world discovered he was more enamoured with the left-field experimentation of Brian Wilson or Todd Rundgren: mercurial musicians and maverick producers with highly individual visions of how songs should sound.

This self-titled disc softly treads the same ground he has been covering for a while now – close-miked guitar played in his distinctive finger-picked style, lead vocals in his high, breathy register, layers of gossamer harmonies and beats that twitch and fidget. Case in point is first single I Don’t Mind, a sparkly wisp of a thing that rhymes willow with pillow and broken arrow with straight and narrow, while you’re left wondering how it might sound with Mick Fleetwood providing a big beat and Stevie Nicks cutting through with her white-winged dove vocals.

Remember, this is a man whose best-known solo hit, 1981’s Trouble, was a Vaseline-lensed soft-rock song he introduced with a repeated “two, a-three, a-four” count-in as if he was imitating Cookie Monster. Buckingham shoots for The Everly Brothers on the echo-laden Blind Love and constructs an aural Venn diagram where Paul Simon and Roy Orbison intersect on Time, but there’s a compressed and boxy aura around the production, while Swan Song threatens motion sickness with the strobe-like effect of fluttering Spanish guitars rubbing up against a beat with a case of the jitters.

The solo in On the Wrong Side proves he can still pull off the licks with ease, even if the song’s thin sound doesn’t match his virtuosity. Is it wrong to wish Buckingham would let it hang out again and build on the legacy of Go Your Own Way, a song that rocked and shimmered so majestically? Maybe that’s a place he no longer wishes to revisit, but these songs suggest yet another Mac reconciliation could be in order.

Lindsey Buckingham’s latest solo venture is a statement of intent

By Elizabeth Aubrey
September 16, 2016

Lindsey Buckingham – Lindsey Buckingham
⭐⭐⭐/5

It’s been a tumultuous few years for Lindsey Buckingham. After being fired from Fleetwood Mac in 2018, he had to undergo life-saving, open-heart surgery in 2019 and then the pandemic hit. Buckingham called it “a trifecta of events that were completely off the charts” – which is, perhaps, putting it mildly. Despite his troubles, Buckingham’s seventh studio album is far from a dour, downbeat affair. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Take early album track, “On The Wrong Side”. While it seems to address his acrimonious break-up with the band –“I’m outta pity,”he repeatedly croons – it’s an upbeat, stripped-back pop song which culminates in one of Buckingham’s signature, stomping electric guitar solos – and shows Fleetwood Mac just what they’re missing.

Drum machine led “Swan Song” is the album’s most inventive and surprising song, proving that the creator of “Tusk” has still got his knack for innovation and creating a daring pop hook.

While the weakest tracks here tend to veer into self-pity – the reflective, gentle and Searchers-like “Time” is a good example when Buckingham sings, “Some folks treat me mean”, these moments are usually short-lived. Buckingham is better when looking ahead, with purpose, as on the harmonious “Power Down”.

The self-title here feels like a statement of intent and with a strong solo offering like this, it may well make Fleetwood Mac think again.


Lindsey Buckingham’s latest album is a pop sensibility of precision
The ex-Fleetwood Mac star opines about his tumultuous relationship with former bandmates, but the music is poised and vibrant.

Ludovic Hunter-Tilney 
⭐⭐⭐/5

Fleetwood Mac haven’t released new music since 2013. They have become a behemoth of the nostalgia circuit, trading lucratively on past glories. But although the songs have dried up, the quarrels continue. 

The latest outbreak of arguing in their long and disputatious history has been triggered by the arrival of the new solo album from Lindsey Buckingham, who was fired from the Mac’s ranks in 2018. He is still bristling at being expelled from the band that he helped turn into superstars in the 1970s. His feelings of hurt are chiefly directed at his former creative foil and ex-romantic partner, Stevie Nicks.

“Has the queen lost her sight?” he sings in “Swan Song”, one of Lindsey Buckingham’s 10 tracks. The apparent jibe at Nicks’s poor eyesight since childhood is compounded by verses evoking bitterness at being cast into limbo while the band toured in 2018 and 2019, which was rumoured beforehand to be a farewell. “Is it right to keep me waiting in the shadow of our swan song?” he choruses. His breathy voice belies a needling tone of self-pity. 

Buckingham blames Nicks for kicking him out of Fleetwood Mac. In recent interviews, the 71-year-old has compared her to Donald Trump and speculated that she was jealous about his starting a family in his late 40s while she remained childless. Nicks riposted with a statement denying that she had him fired and repudiating the bitter suggestion of ill-feeling at his becoming a father. 

There is a toxic quality to Buckingham’s resentment — especially in light of allegations that he behaved abusively towards Nicks when they were a couple, as claimed in Stephen Davis’s 2017 biography of Nicks, Gold Dust Woman. But whatever the shortcomings of its maker, and despite a troubled gestation, Lindsey Buckingham is not itself a poisonous experience. 

Recorded in 2018, the album’s release was delayed by the fallout from Buckingham’s Fleetwood Mac ousting and then a heart attack in 2019. Lyrics about the ups and downs in a relationship have acquired an unfortunate significance after he and his wife Kristen Messner separated earlier this year. Yet Buckingham’s gifts as a songwriter and performer cut through the surrounding noise.


The music was recorded at his home studio in Los Angeles, with Buckingham playing all the instruments. It has been crafted with customary attention to detail and ear for melody, a pop sensibility of precision, concision and escapism. The result is a set of four-minute songs that try to find the sweet spot between simplicity and complexity, and often succeed in doing so. 

Opening track “Scream” is a nocturnal erotic reverie set to a thrumming guitar rhythm, pounding drums and chanted choruses, a pocket-sized version of arena rock, at once curtailed and expansive. “On the Wrong Side” is based on a contrast between a tightly metronomic beat and exuberant synths and guitar solos. Layers of vocalisations and instrumentation are arranged with an acute sense of space and action. 

Buckingham’s smoothly hoarse voice glides through these often fast-paced songs at a cruise-control tempo. Although the recordings were made before he sustained vocal damage during open-heart surgery in 2019, they betray the effects of time on his singing. Exertion is rationed. Lyrics are a mixture of cliché (“The future’s looking bright”) and cynicism (“Business and murder, they go hand in hand”). With the mawkish exception of “Dancing”, the music is poised and vibrant. It keeps afloat amid the wreckage of Buckingham’s Fleetwood Mac career. 

REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham is an upbeat, frequently delightful album 8/10


Lindsey Buckingham tips his hat to ’60s pop on solo album
By Sam Richards
8/10

After what nearly amounted to a Fleetwood Mac reunion album with 2017’s Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, the first solo album from Lindsey Buckingham in a decade sounds as if it could have been the second disc of the fine 2011 solo release Seeds We Sow.

That isn’t a bad thing at all; far from it. The new self-titled album is full of songs that meld pop hooks ranging from pleasant to glorious with instrumentation—layers of acoustic guitars, in particular—that give the songs a subtle edge while maintaining, even magnifying, their sweetness.

Where Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie seemed to be striving for the sound of the late 1970s and mid-1980s glory years of Fleetwood Mac, the new solo album turns back inward. Lindsey Buckingham, like most of Seeds We Sow, is a true solo effort, with the guitarist playing all the instruments and doing all the singing. And if there’s a lack of the immediacy of his classics like “Go Your Own Way,”  “Monday Morning” or “Big Love,” there’s a depth of musicality that hits just as fast, if not quite as hard.

REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham Fresh Songs with a Classic Mac Sound

Lindsey Buckingham album review: Fresh songs with a classic Mac sound
If we ever get bored of those greatest hits, this will be a handy addition to the canon



By David Smyth

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Over four decades since the release of their biggest album, the world seems hungrier than ever for the music of Fleetwood Mac. The turbulent band’s greatest hits collection, 50 Years – Don’t Stop, has been in the UK top 20 all year, while that giant album, Rumours, is at 22 today – its 905th week on the chart. Possible explanatory factors include the death of founding member Peter Green last year, and the band’s song Dreams appearing in a viral TikTok video, but more likely it’s just that these sounds of the Seventies don’t appear to lose any appeal across the generations. Queen, Elton John and the newly recording ABBA are also in the top 20 this week, so it can’t just be your mum playing them for the 905th time.

Fresh music is thinner on the ground, however. The closest we’ve come to a new Fleetwood Mac album since 2003 was a 2017 recording that featured four main members, but not Stevie Nicks, and ended up being called Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie. Nicks was also responsible for the ousting of Buckingham from the band before their last tour, across 2018 and 2019, in what was reportedly an “either he goes or I do” situation.

As Rumours proved, the friction between these former lovers often makes for the best music. However, there’s not much on his seventh solo album to suggest that Buckingham is still taking inspiration from that particular battle. I Don’t Mind, with lines such as: “Where there’s joy there must be sorrow/Never far apart,” is more likely about Kristen Messner, who filed for divorce from him after two decades of marriage this summer. In any case he sounds magnanimous in the song, which easily replicates his classic sound with its bright plucked acoustic melody and breathy female backing vocals.

As long as they’re not taking sides, Mac fans will find lots to love here, including the bucking guitar solo on the racing On the Wrong Side and the sweet, easygoing chorus of Santa Rosa. There’s not much evidence of ageing in the 71-year-old’s weightless voice. There are a few missteps – the restless electronic beats of Swan Song might be intended to keep up with modern times but in fact make it sound more dated, and the closing ballad, Dancing, is a dreary finale. But if there’s ever a chance that people tire of those greatest hits, this is an appealing minor addition to the canon. 

REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham bustles with defiant spirit while leaning heavily on deeply catchy songwriting

Fleetwood Mac visionary’s stellar return

The artist's first solo album in a decade sticks to the world-beating path he’s mastered, drawing on love and lost relationships along the way.


⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
By Rhys Buchanan

Recent world events have proved deeply frustrating for musicians of all levels – even those once central to one of the ​​best-selling groups of all time. The long dark tunnel stretches further back for Lindsey Buckingham though; after being fired from Fleetwood Mac in 2018, the visionary then faced life-saving emergency open-heart surgery in 2019 before the pandemic even hit.

He described the three life-changing punches as “a trifecta of events that were completely off the charts.” It’s no wonder then, that Buckingham finds himself picking through the rubble as well as seeking light on his seventh solo studio album ‘Lindsey Buckingham’. On his first solo studio effort post-Mac, he’s intent on staying grounded musically and emotionally.

The buoyant opener ‘Scream’ feels a fitting way to kick things off – the swift and sweet track gleefully casts those difficult and stormy days away. A sense of abandon cuts through the driving acoustic melody with innocent simplicity through the lyricism: “Lost in the language of your touch / Just like you’re wakin’ from the dream / Oh, I love you when you scream.”

One of the record’s most enchanting moments comes early on with ‘I Don’t Mind’. A figure who has been embroiled in drama and heartache throughout his career, it’s no secret that Buckingham can pen an impacting love song. The track floats with masterful melodies as the lyricism elegantly picks apart the struggles and compromise of a long-term relationship.

He’s just as effective when dealing with the more notable long-term relationship that came crashing to an acrimonious end. The rhythmic anthem of ‘On The Wrong Side’ deals with the feelings of his split with Fleetwood Mac: “I’m outta pity / I’m outta time / Another city, another crime / I’m on the wrong side”, he sings before cutting loose with a soaring emotionally charged guitar solo. There’s definitely some healing going on here.

Even the most casual Fleetwood Mac fans won’t have to look hard to uncover the band’s classic hallmarks, which are dotted all over the listen. ‘Swan Song’ packs the deep velvety guitar textures once heard during the ‘Tango In The Night’ era; elsewhere ‘Power Down’ showcases the effortless grandeur of the timeless finger-picking behind their biggest hits.

The album bustles with defiant spirit while leaning heavily on deeply catchy songwriting and production. And with Mick Fleetwood having reconciled with Buckingham back in March, it’s exactly the kind of triumphant return that could give his old band food for thought.

Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham chooses the light over the fight


REVIEW

BRAD WHEELER
September 16, 2021

Drake and Kanye West are feuding. Meanwhile, Stevie Nicks says: “Hold my shawl.”

In the days leading up to the release of ex-bandmate Lindsey Buckingham’s new self-titled album, the fractious former Fleetwood Mac couple were once again in discord. In 2018, the latter was booted off a Fleetwood Mac tour he wanted to postpone in order to accommodate a solo tour of his own.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Buckingham blamed his dismissal from the band on Nicks, his long-ago partner. “I think she wanted to shape the band in her own image, a more mellow thing – and if you look at the last tour, I think that’s true,” he said.

In response, Nicks released a statement to the magazine: “To be exceedingly clear, I did not have him fired. I did not ask for him to be fired; I did not demand he be fired.” If one reads between the lines, the suggestion is that Nicks had nothing to do with Buckingham’s dismissal.

Has anyone thought of bringing in the comparatively harmonic Oasis brothers Liam and Neil Gallagher to mediate the latest Fleetwood Mac he-said/she-said? Probably not. “Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom,” as a great song once put it.

Which brings us to the eponymous seventh solo studio album by singer-guitarist Buckingham. It’s an acoustic, melodically agreeable affair with contemplative lyrics and restrained production. It’s deeply El Segundo – one is compelled to move West, hire an agent and embrace the earthquakes. The fury of something like Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love just isn’t there.

Don’t be misled by the title of the opening song: Scream is a good scream, a gratified scream. “Nighttime’s the time I love so much, lost in the language of your touch,” Buckingham sings, his voice drenched in familiar reverb. It sounds like it could have been written for a Fleetwood Mac album – and maybe it was.

The verse of I Don’t Mind is a more whispery Nirvana, but the chorus is sweet and sun-drenched. Though the third track On the Wrong Side is more up-tempo, its mood is wistful. Pretty guitar solos wind down to their destinations, like a top-down coupe on a coastal highway. Being on the wrong side of 70 seems to be what the 71-year-old is contemplating:

Time is rolling down the road

Now goes right in a hearse

We were young and never old

Who can tell me which is worse?

There’s a retro vibe at work. Blind Love is dreamy pop from the Ricky Nelson era, and a haunting cover of the sixties folk song Time (originally recorded by the Pozo-Seco Singers) conjures a Roy Orbison-Brian Wilson duet.

There are moments of cocaine-fueled tangos. And Santa Rosa could be a breakup song. Still, there’s more gentle resignation than fight to the record. The word “compromise” even comes up. One might even say the album is mellow – the same adjective Buckingham used to describe Nicks’s vision of the modern-day Fleetwood Mac.

Seems like someone’s made a breakthrough here.