This is why I say you're intellectually dishonest, deflective, and prone to using dialectical non sequiturs. You demonstrate those qualities in every statement you make here.
Can you provide any more info about the methodology of these sites? How do you aggregate criticism and extrapolate a numerical score? I looked over one of the sites as thoroughly as I could, and was unable to find any info on the sources—the names of critics or the names of publications, although I did see some year-end charts based on Rolling Stone? Do I have that right?
My view is that we can glean an idea of Buckingham's critical reputation by directly reading the important critics from the start of his solo career to the present. Is there something about that approach that you consider indeterminate or not useful for describing the guy's reputation—especially in relation to the solo work of his bandmates? As far as I can see, these sites you linked to are all data mining sites: They sift through a huge number of commercial and noncommercial data and compile databases, extrapolating numerical scores based on statistics or averages or some other formula that users of the site can then use to make purchases. These sites have nothing to do with professional criticism or music journalism. They're marketing sites, and I have a feeling, from what I was able to read, that they mine from visitors to the site and from site account holders. You pay your money, and you get to create your own 'chart.'
You keep using these subjectively shifting weasel words like "solid" and "quality" without giving me a comparison gauge. What do you mean when you say he's had a "solid solo career"? And how am I misrepresenting the quality of the music? I'm not talking about the music per se at all; I'm talking about its reputation among music writers. Telling me that Lindsey has had a "solid solo career" doesn't address my point—repeating it for the umpteenth time here: Critics have always loved him.
(sigh) Yes, I read all the links. See what I mean about not engaging me honestly? "Lindsey's solo work is generally solid, but not excellent"? Are you kidding, man? Do I need to pick through quote by quote and hand it to you on a platter?
- "This fourth solo album is a small masterpiece of tightly balanced musical contrasts"
- "This is another gripping postcard from the edge of paradise"
- "The result is a kind of intensely modern folk music, candidly personal, seemingly direct songs that flirt with soul-baring and then retreat into an enveloping cocoon of sound"
- "Under the Skin is only Buckingham's fourth solo release in three decades, a distinctive and compelling record that (supporting his self-image as neglected genius) really is one of the overlooked gems of 2006"
- "Go Insane is a triumphant culmination of this effort—the richest, most fascinatingly tuneful album of the year"
- "Go Insane is a singular mix of Seventies sheen and Eighties edge, enormously inventive in every respect, from the dazzling I Want You and the melodiously cascading Bang the Drum to the furiously eclectic D.W. Suite"
Christ, dude, this kind of adulatory language is all over the landscape since 1981 for Lindsey's solo albums and gigs. Lindsey being a critics' pet isn't a new idea. It's been commonly accepted for decades. Can't you do your own leg work? Data mining? Seriously?
Now you're just being a dick—deliberately obtuse. Unless you're the kind of guy who would read Swift's
Modest Proposal as a book of recipes.
I'll let you carry on with this topic with others. I'm not enjoying the contrarian perversity, and that's all you keep giving me. You remind me more than ever of a guy named Jonathan Todd. I don't know whether you've heard of him, but your online persona is exactly like his was—he made vacuous arguments and used non sequiturs, willfull misunderstandings, perverse assumptions about words (highly individual, shall we say?), and backtracking, moving the goal posts up and back until his opponent didn't know what game was being played. Do you know him?