Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugar Mouse
I was responding to folks on this forum saying that Lindsey was the talent of Fleetwood Mac and that's preposterous. By any standard, Lindsey Buckingham's solo career has been a near bust. He's had a few isolated good songs but that's about it. Listening to his Anthology reinforced that in my mind. Lindsey's talent is as a producer and arranger and guitarist but not as a songwriter. That's why his solo career never went anywhere despite being the "leader" of one of the biggest bands in the world. He's reliant on other songwriters to bring him the songs. That's why he was so much more successful in Fleetwood Mac ... because he had Christine and Stevie to write the songs and he would arrange and produce them until they sparkled. That's his gift. However, for folks on this forum to say that Lindsey was the talent of the band is so far from the truth it's pathetic. He was the production talent but Christine and Stevie were the songwriting talents. They needed each other. And that's why Stevie had a much more successful solo career than Lindsey. It's easier to find a producer once you have the great songs. It's much more difficult to write the songs if you're a great producer/arranger like Lindsey. That's why Stevie has sold about 11 million albums in her solo career and Lindsey nowhere close to that.
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Stevie has sold more albums than Lindsey frankly because there is a very large number of people out there who think twirling, frequent shawl changing, ad lib screaming, talking nonstop in between songs, or meaningless evocation of words in songs like "angel" (Angel, Sleeping Angel, Desert Angel, etc.), "child", "gypsy,", "dreams," is music. Well it is not. In a way watching her is riveting performance art, and she does know how to put on a persona, but that's it--a persona, a very hollow, insubstantial one at that. Whereas to appreciate Lindsey one has to actually know something about music, and not many people nowadays have the musical training, or the taste, to do so.
Even for an alleged masterpiece [sic] like Bella Donna, one has to disconnect oneself from reality and enter her very strange mental universe--even then she was solipsistic and self-absorbed. The songs have reference only to her feelings, and nothing else. The world does not need to exist in her songs. Dreams indeed.