[Edit to post: I started writing this over an hour ago, when the thread was only 2 pages long, I see now that it's 3, so this is in reply to all thoughts and posts posted in the first 2 pages. Also, I want to make it clear that everything written below is MY OPINION
- I enjoy and appreciate reading the opinions of all Ledgies, and love discussing and arguing points regarding FM and LB...it's the reason why I signed up to The Ledge in the first place.]
Ok, before deaththreats start roaming around the place I just wanna get my say in on this aswell...
On the subject of Billy Burnette and Rick Vito, I haven't heard anything even near enough of their music to have a fair opinion on them as guitarists, so I won't try to compare them to LB in any way.
However, Lindsey Buckingham
is somebody I can say a few things about.
In my humble opinion, and as a member of that strange breed of humans known as "guitarists"......
There's nothing that ChiliD or Madformac have written that I would massively disagree with, regarding the similarity factor in Lindsey's songs and guitar solos etc etc.
[[[I too have noticed many
many similarities in many of the guitar riffs and solos he puts in, in both studio and live songs, and also many
general musical similarities in many of his songs. ChiliD made a pretty good list of these songs in a thread here on the LB forum not so long ago, but even then I remember that despite the large number of named songs, it wasn't complete...there were
still some missing that I had noticed.]]]
BUT
Ok, so to a more musical (or musically minded) fan, LB's work on many occasions lacks originality....but....is that so bad (in fact, is it even a problem on any level), if it still sounds great...?? Which, IMO....it always does. I'll give an example.....I really like the original version of Big Love, in fact I'm probably one of the few people who likes it more than the live version, and you don't exactly have to be Mozart to notice the similarity between it and Doing What I Can from OOTC...but...I ALSO LOVE Doing What I Can......and I hate breaking songs down to its individual parts for analysis (because with
any song I firmly believe the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts, as Lindsey would say!), but yes, musically, if I analysed
why I like it, it would be for the same reasons as Big Love. However, I
don't sit down and go "[3CPO Voice with R2D2 squeaking in the background]Hmm....yes...that guitar solo at the end gets 8 out of 10....the vocals aren't that great so they get 5 out of 10...but the bass and drums are killer...they get 9 out of 10....therefore....conclusion I give this song 8 out of 10....therefore by logic that means I like it!"..........!!!!
What I'm trying to say is....if I hear something and I like it, then I like it. I don't try to figure out if it's
worthy and
original enough for me to like it. Yes, as a guitarist, I can clearly see that I'm So Afraid, Frozen Love, Tango In The Night and Murrow all share very similar (in many ways) guitar solos.....but.....just look at these four songs that I've just named.....these are (again, IMO, as with obviously everything I've written seeing as it has my screenname next to it!!)
BRILLIANT songs.....it's songs like these which have caused me to sign up for boards like The Ledge and wait in massive frustration as to when I'm going to get something new from this incredibly talented man:
Instead of looking at it negatively, and saying that 30 years ago Lindsey came up with a bunch of really good ideas and has simply continued using them and thought of nothing new since then by using ever-improving technology to "cover his tracks", I would say 30 years ago Lindsey came up with a bunch of really good ideas which would become one of the single most easily identifiable sounds in rock history - the sound of the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac - that, to me, immediately makes him a musical genius. He then managed to maintain this sound for 30 years using ever-improving technology, which again is incredible- just because he's using technology, does not make him any less of a musical genius - if you give the world's best Cray computer to a baboon there's pretty much nothing the baboon is gonna do with it - it takes
a lot to be able to
use technology to immaculately keep your signature sound like that. Listen to Gold Dust Woman from the Rumours LP....it
sounds like it's from the 70s.....all mysterious........then listen to Gold Dust Woman from the Dance CD, and it sounds
totally modern (i.e. the average Dance-viewer I'm pretty sure did not tune in and say "Oh what is this 70s crap???") and yet it's managed to perfectly keep that 70s mysterious "druggy" sound about it - and how has he done that.....? If you want to break it down musically: using the same two chords but with lots of reverb and about a 440ms delay. If you want it simply, I would say: incredible talent.
Lindsey has managed to
perfectly preserve his sound and musical atmosphere for 30 years - a sound and feeling which has accumulated millions of fans. Yes, as a guitarist I can sit down and try to figure which scales and riffs and licks he's repeated where (and it's not too challenging if you choose to do that with Lindsey's songs but so what??), or just as somebody who isn't deaf I can notice the similarites (however obvious or subtle) between many of his songs......OR........I can sit down, relax and listen to music at its absolute finest: instead of getting to Doing What I Can and shouting "Oh come on!! Who're you trying to fool Lindsey!! Aggghhh!!!!
"...........I
DO think "Yea!!! This song absolutely ROCKS!!!!!" When I listen to "I'm So Afraid" I
don't think "AAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!...this solo....it's Frozen Love all over again!!!
"......instead I pick up my guitar, plug it in and play the solo, and each and every time
feel the absolutely
awesome power of one his greatest songs.
I don't think I'm being naive....I'm just a
really big fan of the emotions and sense of the sound which he has kept through the years. Pure and simple. If the stuff he did in '73 was his only original work (which, by the way, I do not believe for even one second to be true), then I love it, and I'll have it every year till the day I die and if he makes more music using that same structure, chords, scales, riffs, licks, and most importantly, sound, then I'll have that too....a million times over. If it takes him 150 years "cocooned" in his studio to give me "Frozen Love Part 25" then I will happily (although impatiently!!
) wait for him.
