Seeds We Sow -- First Impressions

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by Lee

Illumination has got to be the shortest song ever @ about 2 minutes Lee

Compare w/ Tusk:

The Ledge 2:02 vs. Never Make Me Cry 2:14 vs. Illumination 2:17

For further comparison, one of my fave albums of all time is Pink Flag by Wire. Here are the songs shorter than Illumination that album:

"Field Day for the Sundays" – 0:28
"Three Girl Rhumba" – 1:23
"Start to Move" – 1:13
"Brazil" – 0:41
"It's So Obvious" – 0:53
"Surgeon's Girl" – 1:17
"The Commercial" – 0:49
"Straight Line" – 0:44
"106 Beats That" – 1:12
"Mr. Suit" – 1:25
"Fragile" – 1:18
"Different to Me" – 0:43
"Champs" – 1:46
"Feeling Called Love" – 1:22
"1 2 X U" – 1:55

[bangdrum]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

Compare w/ Tusk:

The Ledge 2:02 vs. Never Make Me Cry 2:14 vs. Illumination 2:17

Don't forget That's Enough For Me - 1:48!

[Richard B]

Wow. I didn't even realize Illumination is so short! Feels longer.
This album is certainly one of his best. I don't know for sure, but I think Lindsey is in quite a reflective mood, both musically and lyrically, and it really shows in this album. Perhaps, it's just me. I've also been in a very reflective mood recently which really seems to be the connection for me to this album. I've only played it for (1) friend and apparently they've now gone a bit obsessive about it.

[The Chain]

I like it enough, but it's a littler tamer than I was hoping for. And I think he really dropped the ball by not including SWS Electric, Sleeping Around The Corner and by re-recording She Smiled Sweetly.. The GOS 2001 version was so perfect, the guitar, the vocal performance & harmonies, the strings. It really is a shame.

So I decided to tinker with the sequencing, and this is what I came up with. I really liked the way it flowed when I listened to it this way, but I only did it once so only time will tell if it holds up:

Seeds We Sow (Electric)
In Our Own Time
Illumination
Stars Are Crazy
Thats The Way Love Goes
When She Comes Down
Rock Away Blind
One Take
Gone Too Far
Sleeping Around The Corner
End Of Time
She Smiled Sweetly (GOS 2001 outtake)
Seeds We Sow (Acoustic)

[Nico]

That's a great little CD rework you did The Chain (though "Sleeping Around the Corner" just doesn't fit for me). It's been nearly two weeks and I still think this album is a masterpiece. I just love every single song. And SSS doesn't bother me in this version, though I did love the alternate, older version soooooo much. I think what impresses me still about this album is the flow. It has a cohesiveness that wasn't there for GOS for me. And the acoustic songs don't ever drag, like "Time Precious Time" and "Not Too Late" did. I just love it all. I admit that I ADORED his previous two albums (yes, UTS naysayers I still adore the album), but this one just seems so different. It's melancholy but uplifting, melodic, and just so shimmery and beautiful.

I made a copy for my mother and she actually played the whole album all the way through. She thinks he sounds sad on "End Of Time," but it is her favorite song.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by The Chain

I like it enough, but it's a littler tamer than I was hoping for. And I think he really dropped the ball by not including SWS Electric, Sleeping Around The Corner and by re-recording She Smiled Sweetly.. The GOS 2001 version was so perfect, the guitar, the vocal performance & harmonies, the strings. It really is a shame.

So I decided to tinker with the sequencing, and this is what I came up with. I really liked the way it flowed when I listened to it this way, but I only did it once so only time will tell if it holds up:

Seeds We Sow (Electric)
In Our Own Time
Illumination
Stars Are Crazy
Thats The Way Love Goes
When She Comes Down
Rock Away Blind
One Take
Gone Too Far
Sleeping Around The Corner
End Of Time
She Smiled Sweetly (GOS 2001 outtake)
Seeds We Sow (Acoustic)

You and I had some of the same thoughts, though I THINK I might prefer ending the album with Electric (though opening it that way will ensure you're hooked from the start). I will try your tracklist tonight while I work out. And I really like the sequencing that separates GTF and EOT with SATC. Side 2 needed some pep!

[BTFLCHLD]

just reading the insert, lindsey is sad

FAN
stars are crazy
in our own time
thats the way love goes
rock away blind
end of time
she smiled sweetly
seeds we sow

NOT SO MUCH
illumination
when she comes down
one take
gone too far

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by The Chain

Seeds We Sow (Electric)
In Our Own Time
Illumination
Stars Are Crazy
Thats The Way Love Goes
When She Comes Down
Rock Away Blind
One Take
Gone Too Far
Sleeping Around The Corner
End Of Time
She Smiled Sweetly (GOS 2001 outtake)
Seeds We Sow (Acoustic)

Def better than the real thing. However, I WOULD switch acoustic and electric, so electric closes. acoustic is anti-climactic (like the current paired down sss). plus the acoustic goes so nicely into "In our own time"

[elle]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

Def better than the real thing. However, I WOULD switch acoustic and electric, so electric closes. acoustic is anti-climactic (like the current paired down sss). plus the acoustic goes so nicely into "In our own time"

ha, i just used this exact same wording when talking to somebody about his closing encore (which is acoustic SWS) - it is anticlimactic ending, i'd rather he ends with something high octane so people are encouraged to get him back for another encore (can you tell i really really want another encore by the time tour makes it to the east coast?).

[wheart]

only played it twice so far but I'm really liking it. My expectations were not that high based on some of the reviews I've been reading but for me Lindsey has come through once again. There's something very comforting about his music to me in that he doesn't change a whole lot from record to record. A new Buckingham solo record feels like getting together with an old (sorry, mature) friend after some time apart and they haven't changed a bit.

This record is kinda a hybrid between his last two, not as produced as GOS and more low-fi than UTS. So far I'm loving That's the way Love Goes and Stars are Crazy (one of his best ever). I like Illumination but the chorus doesn't sound right. To my year, repeating the same line twice sounds awkard but that was probably his point. In a couple of the songs, the choruses sound a little weak, like they need more words or lines to fill up the song. This was probably his intent, as I don't think Lindsey leaves much to chance in his music but I think the phrasing/writing in a couple of the songs could stand some improvement.

[BlueGrass]

Throw in Sleeping Round the Corner and Seeds electric in place of One Take and the album improves a lot. And I agree with the OG She Smiled Sweetly being so much better!

[elle]

so, i got this weird email today from someplace called musictoday saying my CD has shipped... took me awhile to figure out that's about that SWS CD that i bought through ticketmaster some time in june. they are fast ... but at least they did ship it apparently.

[sparky]

I really wanna like Lindsey solo. I really do. I like Law and Order. And Go Insane is brilliant. I think that is a genius work.

The rest I consider recycled Tusk trash.

IMO post GI he stopped evolving as an artist. By that I mean Go Insane.

I wanted to like OOC. I really did. I listened to it twice. It went in a pile. The way it struck me was as if it was weakened Tusk out takes. With seven vocal filters and no punk spirit. You cannot substitute songwriting dynamics with production. The only thing that truly made his Tusk contributions unique and interesting were his stripped down arrangements and lack of real bridges.
And the crude percussion and muted guitar leads.

It was kind of revolutionary at the time. And in retrospect his songs from that era are surprisingly charming in how catchy some of them are.

But that gimmick has come and gone. The last good single Lindsey every wrote was Big Love. And it shows with the acoustic version. It is my maxim that if you cannot sing a song with one guitar or a simple piano line played by an amateur and sing the song that it is not a song. It is not a song. Period. It is by that rule that I denounce a great number of hit songs since about 1992. There is no song there. It is all production.

I could go on for days about this. No matter. But at this point, I feel that everything Lindsey writes and sings feels like it was spit out of a computer.

All the quotes from FM post 97 are laced with "cycles" and "organic." Really? What human being says that in EVERY INTERVIEW? Maybe a person who has been pre programmed by 500 dollar an hour Beverly Hills therapist. Now it is "big machine" or "little machine" in every single interview. Every single one. Does he have a slot in the back of his head that was installed pre Dance? And does a label rep install a chip in that slot telling him what to say? Is there a single word he will say in an interview or onstage that does not sound like it was written by a publicist or a therapist and fed to him?

It really seems as if his every reaction and utterance is pre scripted by a shrink. I don't remember that from 1984. It was not as easy then to track interviews. You had to haunt newsstands then and there was no archive that was immediate. Of course I did that for Stevie - I was a hardcore groupie of hers at that point. I went to the newsstands every week for 15 years to buy every magazine she did a spot in. It makes me wonder if he has some creepy Brian Wilson like guru who feeds him every thing he says to the media over the last fifteen years. There is no trace of a spontaneous reaction in him. Personally or musically. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, but since about 1994 Lindsey has sounded like a robot. Each record features this canned identical soul less response. And the songs feel the same to me. They feel medicated. Predictable. There is nothing about any of his interviews that veers off course. It makes me extremely uneasy. Of course Stevie is crazy. We know Stevie is crazy. She say unhinged stuff no matter what. He never does. I suspect he is medicated to the gills and psychiatrically controlled within an inch of his life.

His songs are on an auto repeat of frantic over done acoustic virtuosity followed by whispering. Then maybe a variation of first verse, then more frantic instrumental showing off, then a bit of a solo of some sort. Then he screeches something. Out of his vocal range. More insane guitar work. Slam or fade.

Who cares?

Post Go Insane his work to my ears is a bit of Earth some CG Wind and NO Water. And way to much Fire. It has no flow. It is out of balance. It makes my brain hurt. I love his early work. I really do. His Tusk production with all tracks was sublime. He lost it after GOS. I find everything he does since then to be jagged, forced, over whispered, or over guitar picked, over screamed beyond live range and lacking grace. It leaves me feeling cold and unmoved by his calculated manipulation. For all of that "Organic" therapist speak he has spewed post SYW, I find nothing he does on record to be organic at all. Too much wind. No earth. Dry fire and No Water whatsoever.

Massive artistic fail.

[sparky]

I'll just add this as an addendum.

There are a number of immediate sing along moments from IYD. I am not a Lindsey vs. Stevie guy. But AL, SL, and FWIW have great proven hooks. People want to sing along with those. And they do by the thousands at the shows I have seen. You wanna play Big Machine Lindsey? Or even Little Machine? Write a F--king hook already. Just one.

[jellyman10]

^^^ Well, my Tuesday morning just got a lot more interesting. Thank you, Sparky!

I wouldn't go as far as you do - I don't, for example, think he's medicated. But I do think LB gives off massive hints that he has been 'fixed' mentally. Nothing wrong with that, though. I'm all for people getting help. And I will say that I don't think his 'go insane' schtick is/was a pose. I think he is/was someone who did battle inner demons. And his current speil about 'karma' and 'choices' is more revealing than I think he realises.

How this all plays out musically is paradoxically both interesting and not-interesting. The interesting bit is how narrow he's become. Narrow but deep. He says this himself, when he talks about centering on the guitar and what it can do or what he can do with it. So I guess the pleasure for the listener is in how far along LB's mining of that seam you feel you want to go. Personally, I do find it repetitive in an eventually unpleasant way rather sooner than he does. And I hate - just cannot abide - what he does to his voice (and times ten when he does to Stevie's!). I swear, he actually wants to sound unhuman, and I don't want to be sung at by machines, so that's never gonna gel.

Interesting post. I like the long ones!

Loz