Unpopular Lindsey opinions/theories
 

Probably a bad thread for the middle of a tour, but I figure that forum activity is a good thing.
Following on from the similar threads for Stevie and Christine, here is one for Lindsey. (The Stevie thread yielded fascinating theories about the provenance of I Don't Want To Know, so who knows what insights we might end up getting.)

Opinion:
The album covers for Gift Of Screws and Seeds We Sow are absolutely dreadful. I figure that he was deliberately aiming for a more indie sensibility, but really? That awful red font on a pale gray background...
Thankfully a different approach was taken for the Anthology!
The covers for Under The Skin and Out Of The Cradle are superb.

The Seeds We Sow cover doesn't bother me, but I definitely agree with you on the Gift of Screws picture. He looks like a homeless person or something! He has a devilish smile on the Out of the Cradle cover.

I was a senior in high school when GOS came out, would listen to it a lot when I was an aide to my favorite teacher during her planning period.. she asked me if he took the cover photo while he was on the toilet :lol:

I've always been put off by the way Lindsey has commented of how it took two guitarists to "replace" him after he left Fleetwood Mac. I understand there being acrimony regardless of who came in after him but it always felt like an unnecessary shot at Billy and Rick who've always been humble and complimentary about Lindsey and their time in the band performing his songs. Of course neither of them are the production wizard Lindsey is and Billy isn't a virtuoso on guitar. However Rick is an amazing guitarist in his own right and does things that Lindsey either hasn't, can't or doesn't do. In fact, I don't recall Lindsey ever playing slide guitar.

I always thought that was tacky. I mean, how many musicians did it take for him to replace Fleetwood Mac in 1993?

He played slide on the studio version of “Monday Morning.”

ETA: He also did it live early on

https://youtu.be/bj5eG19fjg0
https://youtu.be/P-_Q-in1H3g

On the Gift of Srews cover he looks like a convicted criminal. Maybe that's the look he was aiming for... I don't know. It wasn't a good look though. The typography is so-so. With a different image it might be good.
The Out of the Cradle cover was brilliant for an all round brilliant album.

this is interesting...
 

IDWK is among 4 or 5 Stevie FM songs that i love. if this theory is correct, it would make much more sense why i love this one.

i've heard this song listed among 500 best classic songs of all times, it would be funny if it's Lindsey's - or more probable, a LB/SN co-write - but he doesn't get credited.

then again, my working theory is that many songs credited solely to SN as written somewhere in between 1972 and 1977 are actually LB co-writes and he never bothered to ask for a credit.

like DownOnRodeo says, that might be interesting question to ask Lindsey at m&gs and see what he says.

heh that's not unpopular opinion at all, most LB fans agree. :lol:

i don't think i've heard that comment from him. most others and articles are the ones that say that over and over, but not sure he says that, except when he's specifically ask something like "what do you think, you must be flattered that it took 2 guitarists" etc etc.

:thumbsup: another very popular opinion. complete agreement from me.

no, he's said it. if i were motivated i'd look up the interviews for you, but I'm too busy arranging fake infomercials for LB to do it right now. :lol: :laugh:

The LP version of “I know I’m not Wrong” is far superior to the remastered version.

I prefer Lindsey's music when he's not doing all the production tricks. He loves that so much, and he takes so much pride in it, that I almost feel guilty saying that... and I also know it's not very "avant garde" of me... but give me Lindsey on a guitar singing naturally over sped-up guitar effects-laden distorted voice Lindsey any day.

At least, he should never, ever, ever upon ever, be allowed to touch the "pan audio" control again. Lol.

I prefer the version of "I Am Waiting" on the Gift Of Screws bootleg to the quieter/sped-up one on Under The Skin.

Did he play slide when they did "Monday Morning" in 2009?

I am not a fan of the sterility of the live tones, particularly on his solo tours, that he derives from the Turner Guitars.

He doesn't use the Turners much in the studio. The warmth and versatility of his '63 hyrbrid strat and the various other strats and teles he uses in the studio would bring a much greater variety of sounds and yes variability to his live sets.

I don't want to know the reasons why
Love keeps right on walking on down the line
I don't want to stand between you and love
Honey, I just want you to feel fine

Tell me those are not Lindsey lines...It fits so well with his lyrical and melodic sense in this era such as Monday Morning and Second Hand News

other than the "take a listen to your spirit/it's crying out loud" which sounds distinctly like a Stevie line, I agree so much of this sounds like him.

I'm betting it's one of the (many) cowrites.

Ok somebody needs to ask him at his M&G or on twitter. Did you write "I don't wanna know"

It’s disturbing how much sense this would make. Could this explain the absence of IDWTK from any setlist for the last 40+ years??

No Christine vocal (it's essentially a Buckingham-Nicks song).

Is there any other Fleetwood Mac studio recording where Stevie and Lindsey sing but Christine does not (excluding songs from when she was not in the band)?

yup. that's why her most prolific period was in the 70s when he was co-writing with her.

yup, my thought exactly.

It WAS a Buckingham Nicks song.

https://youtu.be/-ZPqpsK6JM4

I’m So Afraid (I think)
When I See You Again

Sign me up on this one, at least in principle. He's been tampering with the warmth of the natural voice too much for several years in the studio. I love the clarity he used to get on instruments back when he really was a superb engineer—from 1976 through about 1984. But in recent years, I think his ear has let him down. Already by 1979, some critics were pointing out that some tracks had an opaque, willowy echo on them, like strands of weeds in a burbling brook. That approach has become Lindsey's hallmark now, unfortunately for me. I no longer hear distinct tracks and their complementary qualities when I listen to something like When She Comes Down or Murrow. I hear wisps of reverb shoot through my ear like air through a seashell. The musical structure gets impaired; bars melt into one another so that you're not even sure of the passage of musical time.

In 1983 or so, when he bought himself the Fairlight CMI, instead of using it for subtle coloring (which I wish he had), he sampled the hell out of everything and painstakingly (and self-consciously) crafted a rather grunty, clubfooted monster out of bits of sonic tissue. That's how we got the Go Insane album and even the Tango in the Night album. (Play in the Rain is so over-the-top as an objet trouvé and "found sounds" that I honestly think sometimes he meant it as a self-referential joke.) Lindsey turned a lot of his studio music into "art" music, or into an Eighties and Nineties version of prog, and its turned out to be less interesting on repeat than the Never Going Back Again or It Was I style of production.

Go back to the rough takes and early dubs of I Know I'm Not Wrong on the Tusk deluxe. Those jump out of the speaker at you—they're so playful and soulful. What ever happened to that Lindsey?

Also, about the I Don't Want to Know stuff that we're all talking about, don't forget that the Penguin ran a bunch of Q&As years ago, and one or two of them were with people from the Buckingham Nicks band, like Hoppy Hodges. They talk a little bit about that song and several others that got recorded for later Fleetwood albums. Don't forget to read them (or reread them if you're an old timer here).

^This.

Enough of the breathy, whispery, or grunty vocals.

I get that he's trying to make a whole album with just a single human voice sound like more voices and more textures to keep it from being monotonous, but there is a line and he has crossed it too often.

Also, what's wrong with a straightforward song that doesn't try and be too clever? Gift of Screws is such a fun song that just rocks. I know he draws inspiration from Brian Wilson, but when he goes back to his John Stewart influences it's great and even his love of the Stones.

If we heard a mix of his influences on each album it'd be great; however some albums he's just stayed in one style and after like the 4th whispered song it's wearying.

His music is at it's least appealing (for me) when he tries too hard to be too 'cerebral' or 'clever' with it -- "Look what I did there! Wasn't that smart?" Often his stuff can be too cold, too 'manufactured', like a home done in a sleek, modernist, industrial style-- all concrete and metal. It cries out for a nice rug or a soft throw or something. Music needs to hook you emotionally, it needs some warmth, and his best songs are a combination of cleverness and authentic emotion-- GYOW, NGBA, SHN, most of OOTC, a lot on GoS.

It pains me to write this...

But I've been thinking about exactly this same thing after listening to his anthology. His production style is very, very harsh; where he tends to use electric sounds without any processing to leave the ragged saw waves (whether it be analog or digital).

There are so many hard edges on everything that it really puts the vocals in a weird place. And I think he realized that, too, which is when he starting doing this strange whisper / reverb / delay thing with his voice. I miss his voice. He sounds fantastic live, still to do this day. His demos from each era really show how more balanced the songs could have been, sonically. Though still for me Tusk is the pinnacle balance of the warmth of the 70s and Lindsey's genius production techniques at the time.

So then let's compare Go Insane and OOTC with Tango... Both GI and OOTC to me are still too harsh to deliver the message and intent behind his songs. Tango to me has become my favorite Lindsey album as of lately just because it's become more contemporary. The blend of his production and the warmth of the Mac sound are wonderfully balanced.

His live guitar tone is OK. I hated it during the Dance era. It was so twangy and had no balls to it, though his playing was superb. Nowadays it sounds pretty good.

Though to me, that "atomic bomb" sound he got out of his Tuner on the Tusk Tour with that fuzz thing is the most signature Lindsey sound I've heard yet. Still even to this day (nah, I'm not that old...) it inspires me as a musician.

Lastly, can we talk about how good Buck/McVie was?? The production is MUCH more balanced between Lindsey's signature techniques and someone else smoothing them out. That's when Lindsey's at his best.

Thanks for starting this thread, has been fun to read.

I guess I am the dissenter here in that I love his tricky production and complexity. I like my music complex and unusual. It is artistic and creative and inspires repeated listens to catch new sounds. If only it is not his voice or his songs, sorry. He made miracles out of some of Chris and Stevie's songs. Stevie is a complete idiot not to work with him as producer. SYW was her best ever solo album by far, nine jewels of songs with intoxicating production. Unlike her often anodyne or WTF production on solo albums.

After reading some of the Stevie Nicks "unpopular opinions" thread, it makes perfect sense to me that in order to satisfy Stevie in the wake of cutting "Silver Springs" from Rumours, they agreed to give her writing credit on the song that replaced it ("I Don't Want To Know").

I LOVE LOVE LOVE his studio wizardry. One of the reasons I became a fan. I do wish he would not do those whisper vocals as much.

agree with all of this; but there are times when he takes the wizardry too far, like it's more about showing off the wizardry rather than in service of the song. :shrug:

Evidently by 1977 he had abandoned the slide on "Monday Morning" (and probably overall):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpB2knD5UNc

I think there are too many layers of backing vocals on the Buckingham/McVie album, and not enough use of Christine's voice on Lindsey's songs. I wish that the choruses on every song on that whole album consisted of one clear Lindsey voice and one clear Christine voice singing lovely harmonies together.

YES!!! this exactly... ever since SAY YOU WILL (Or maybe even as far back as EVERYWHERE) Linds stoped making backing vocals for the Mac sound like the THREE DISTINCT vocalists, and instead went for that homogenized multiple- Lindsey-vocal sound. I dont like it. I love how on Tusk, Rumours, and Mirage you can obviously pick out who sang what. It felt organic and beautiful. Now --- esp on Bucky McVie -- you cant descern anyone in the backing vocals It's a like a wash of autotuned, effected martians.

The whispering on "Say Goodbye" really stands out in a negative light when you compare it to live performances. True of many other songs as well (like "Shut Us Down"). It's like he's using his "inside voice."

Unpopular Opinion?
 

I think the Go Insane album is awful. I can't believe he put so many songs from it on the new anthology.

Sounds like someone is playing slide on "Stephanie" from Buckingham Nicks (it's almost a pedal steel sound that comes in at the end of the song). It's either Lindsey or Waddy Wachtel, who seems to be playing slide at the end of "Lola My Love"). There's also slide at the end of the single mix of "Crying In The Night," but that again sounds like Waddy.

"Stephanie" is three instruments (acoustic guitar, keyboard, electric guitar) and sounds more like a Lindsey solo project.

Does anyone know?