I finally get around to reviewing Out of the Cradle

[SortaSavageLike]

Hay guys, am I late?

I just posted this to Epinions and I thought I'd go trolling for people's thoughts.

There’s a certain irony in the fact that I’m reviewing this album at this time and place. Lindsey Buckingham’s new solo album Under The Skin is due for release in a couple days, and here I am, reviewing his last solo album, which came out 14 years ago. Just call me unfashionably late.

For those keeping score, Lindsey Buckingham left Fleetwood Mac in mid-1987 after an "interpersonal confrontation" whose true nature has never really been revealed. He spent the better part of the next five years painstakingly assembling Out of the Cradle in his basement recording studio, with a little help from Richard Dashut, co-producer of Rumours and Tusk. When it finally arrived in store shelves on June 25, 1992, it went down like a cast-iron dirigible, peaking at #128 on Billboard’s chart. By 1997, it had sold little more than 40,000 copies.

Sadly, there was absolutely no reason for the dismal failure of Out of the Cradle. While not a flawless masterpiece, a few of the songs within are absolutely brilliant and the album as a whole is far superior to the disposable boy band/pop princess junk that became so prevalent that decade. Lindsey Buckingham was, and still is, one of the most talented and underrated guitarists around. I’d place him up there with Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. Not because I’m a hopeless Fleetwood Mac fan, but because he’s just plain talented, and has spent the better part of 30 years tweaking the boundaries of "conventional" pop music despite the restrictions placed upon him.

The Songs
Out of the Cradle opens with Don’t Look Down, a likably off-kilter, strangely childlike pop song in which Lindsey repeatedly shouts Don’t look down! Downnnnn… Do NOT look down! Downnnnn… in an oddly hysterical manner. Wrong is the only song on the album that could be considered "angry," but even then it’s just too tongue-in-cheek to take seriously. Somewhat of a spoof of Tusk (if that’s really possible), Wrong is an attack on a sensationalistic book written by Mick Fleetwood that basically presented Lindsey as an abusive Ike Turner type. To hear him squeal Young Mr. Rock…Cock! is worth the price of admission alone.

Countdown is the first of several songs where he sings about his newfound freedom after leaving Fleetwood Mac, which is all the more ironic since his career went essentially nowhere without them. It’s an upbeat rock song that bears a more-than superficial resemblance to Go Your Own Way, and should have been promoted more as a single. All My Sorrows wasn’t written by Lindsey, though he’s "pretty sure" it’s a cover of a Kingston Trio song. It’s probably my least favorite on the album; the whole 60s "Brian Wilson-inspired sun drenched harmonies" vibe does little but make me sleepy.

Soul Drifter is another uplifting song (not being in Fleetwood Mac for a couple years is good for one’s psyche, eh?) in which he sings about his decision to leave the band. This Is the Time is a 5 1/2 minute rock opus loaded with distorted vocals, quirky lyrics, and unpredictably aggressive electric guitar solos. Lindsey is absolutely on fire here, and I love this song to death, but many seem to find it a little too eccentric.

You Do Or You Don’t finds Lindsey once again explaining his exit from Fleetwood Mac, singing that "living in exile just ain’t the way to go/it’s just another way of dying" and that "just like a little child, you've got to crawl away." Street of Dreams is a depressing acoustic song in which he describes visiting the grave of his father, who died in 1973, and asks him if he’ll ever stop "dreaming dreams." The end solo is devastating in it’s simple intensity.

Surrender The Rain begins with a spoken introduction in which Lindsey implores himself to "stop this obsession with revenge and fear." The lyrics have an odd bit of wordplay at the end, assuming you read the lyrics sheet: Surrender the rein/Surrender the reign/Surrender the rain. Besides that, I find the chorus of "Ooh…Ahh…Ooh..Ahh…" a little dull. Lindsey kicks things back up a notch with Doing What I Can, which is so good I almost forgot it’s a virtual remake of Big Love, sans the dated synths and bored screwing noises. The man is on fire here, spitting out lyrics with machine gun rapidity and wailing away on his guitar like it’s nobody’s business.

Turn It On is basically the antithesis of Street of Dreams. Someone has died (in this case, Lindsey’s brother, who died sometime during the album’s production), but it’s time to move on and come out of the experience stronger. Lindsey sings as if he’s preaching to a choir, and the sheer energy of his performance rises above the flagging vocal. This Nearly Was Mine is an acoustic version of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune. The last song, Say We'll Meet Again, co-written by Fritz (the band he was in with Stevie Nicks back in the 60s) bassist Robert Aguirre, is a pleasant excursion back into Brian Wilson land. A decent song, but I would have liked a more aggressive closer.

Conclusions
Rather bizarrely, Lindsey’s most accessible, clear-minded, and critically acclaimed solo album was his greatest flop. Even if it never caught fire, it still sold more copies than Fleetwood Mac’s disastrous "Look, another new lineup!" 1995 album Time. Oh, how the mighty fall and come back years later with a multi-platinum reunion album!

One of the more remarkable thing about Out of the Cradle is that with a few exceptions, it’s essentially a one-man show. The songs themselves might "just" be pop/rock songs, but they’re clever pop songs, produced, performed, and arranged by someone who sees popular music as an art form. More amazingly, the album is unusually upbeat, and sometimes downright inspirational. Except for the depressing Street of Dreams, you’d never think these songs came from one of America’s leading purveyors of pop angst for nearly 15 years.

I know some of Lindsey’s really hardcore fans will get on my case for not worshiping this album, but what matters in the end is that Out of the Cradle is a very good, frequently brilliant, but not perfect album. If you’re one of the millions of people who bought a copy of Rumours, it won’t hurt to give it a listen.

[littlewolf]

nice review!
i mostly agree with you
i myself only got out of the cradle about a month ago and was very pleasantly surprised.
i thought once released from control that band enviroment kept him,he would´ve gone quite mad with it,adding all sorts of odd bits,but for one or two little things,he made a fine pop/rock record.