Are you Team Lindsey or Team Fleetwood Mac? Who are u routing for in the lawsuit?

[David]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Who cares about reviews and whatnot?

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

What’s good and/or critically acclaimed isn’t the same as what sells. Regardless of the reason, Stevie’s solo music sell$, and Lindsey’s doesn’t.

Did you read my earlier comments? You appear not to have, so where do we take this exchange?

[Sugar Mouse]

Originally Posted by David

It is true, cowboy.

Yes, by an Olympic-length swimming pool. This is precisely what I am asserting.

Did you look through the Blue Letter Archives (for the third time)? I've given you large lists of critics, newspapers, and magazines. Take it away! I'll give you a start: the reviews of Law and Order in Stereo Review and Rolling Stone.

Again, my argument is not that Lindsey is a great songwriter (although I think he's pretty good) or that Stevie isn't a great songwriter (although I think she's pretty good). Lindsey as a solo dude has had the highest reputation in the rock press among the Fleetwood Macsters since 1981.
________________________________________________________________________________

Rolling Stone Album Review
August 30, 1984

Go Insane (4 out 5 stars)
Lindsey Buckingham
Elektra/Asylum

Lindsey Buckingham’s Tuneful Triumph:
Fleetwood Mac’s guitarist sounds like an Eighties version of Brian Wilson
by Christopher Connelly

When many California-based musicians were taking the punk-New Wave movement as a personal affront, Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac was taking it as a challenge. From 1979’s "Tusk" on, this songwriter, singer and guitarist has struggled to combine the wildest possibilities of new music with the folk-fostered melodies that have marked his most commercially fruitful efforts. "Go Insane" is a triumphant culmination of this effort - the richest, most fascinatingly tuneful album of the year.

Buckingham’s strongest influence has always been Brian Wilson, the out-there but studio-savvy Beach Boy with an impeccable pop ear. Yet while Wilson’s music speaks with an airy, wouldn’t it be nice optimism, Buckingham’s work reveals a slightly warped obsessiveness. He uses music the way Talking Heads’ David Byrne uses words: taking simple, even clichéd, constructions and tossing them together in unexpected combinations.

That potent, brainy mixture is further invigorated on "Go Insane" by a dollop of seething sexual passion. "I guess I had to prove I was someone hard to lose," Buckingham chants before kicking into the dazzling, "I Want You," perhaps his most nakedly emotional song to date. A gleeful keyboard hook explodes into an aural torrent: synthesizers, guitars and drums rage, as Buckingham furiously cries out his heart’s dichotomy: "I’m a bundle of joy, a pocketful of tears/Got enough of both to last all the years."

Lyrically, "Go Insane" limns a painful breakup: "Hey little girl, leave the little drug along," he pleads in "I Must Go," and similar strains of dark-etched longing appear throughout the record. But Buckingham’s words - although they are intriguingly unsettling - take a back seat to the parade of toe-tapping sound here. Even though he plays almost every instrument on the album, Buckingham avoids the cluttered, too-perfect sheen often associated with West Coast music. The rough edges are still there, and the overall sound has lightness that enhances the record’s emotional impact.

On that score, "Bang the Drum" is Go Insane’s finest achievement. Its ticktock, ethereally intoned verse drifts off into a gloriously cascading chorus and a bridge that’s thick with ear-pleasing harmonies, with a stinging guitar solo to boot. More of Buckingham’s axe work is on display in the uptempo "Loving Cup," which fuses the snaky lines of "Gold Dust Woman" with the spare, threatening whomp of "Tusk"’s undiscovered treasure, "Not That Funny."

Even the more commercially minded songs are infused with Buckingham’s newfound boldness. While his first solo album, "Law and Order," featured the mild-mannered "Trouble," "Go Insane" offers the Mark Lindsayish title song, all hard edges and pungent longing ("I call your name/She’s a lot like you"). Similarly, a whipcrack backbeat kicks "Slow Dancing" out of the living room and onto the dance floor where it belongs.

Admittedly, the found-sound antics of the two-part "Play in the Rain" (glasses of water being poured, heels clip-clopping across a sidewalk) pale after a couple of listenings, though Buckingham’s sitarlike fretboard runs add some excitement. But then there’s "D.W. Suite," a three-part valediction to the late Dennis Wilson in which Buckingham really pulls out the stops: Laurie Anderson-style vocal effects, a harp interlude, a synthesized Ed Sullivan introduction, a Beach Boys-type chorus and a Scottish flute march. "D.W. Suite" may be pop’s most elaborate farewell, but its flashy eclecticism is reined in throughout by Buckingham’s keen rock & roll sense.

Artistically, "Go Insane" is a breakthrough album not just for the thirty-six-year-old Buckingham, but conceivably for rock & roll as well, representing as it does the most successful combination yet of hummable Seventies slick rock and Eighties avant-edge. If Lindsey Buckingham really is following in the footsteps of his idol, then "Go Insane" is his "Pet Sounds": possibly his least commercial work, but also his most daring and savory.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Rolling Stone Album Review
November 26, 1981

Law and Order (4 out of 5 stars)
Lindsey Buckingham
Asylum

Lindsey Buckingham’s perfect silliness
by Jon Pareles

In his own way, Lindsey Buckingham is a rock-ribbed traditionalist, but the tradition he valiantly and self-consciously upholds on his first solo album, "Law and Order," isn’t hallowed and funky like rockabilly or Cajun music, Buckingham’s tradition is that of the bigtime Hollywood wacko - perfectly symbolized by Brian Wilson in his sandbox - who creates, amid decadence and craziness, pop songs that are drenched in sweetly accessible innocence. It’s the tradition of the copyright-royalties royalty whose fortunes have been made in three-minute bursts, a subculture as hermetic and all-American as the Mardi Gras Indians, albeit at the opposite end of the economic spectrum. At its best, it boasts its own wild-eyed naiveté. The idea of a grown man sitting in his basement singing "rah-ta-ta-ta" repeatedly into a microphone that costs more than my whole stereo - well, somehow, there’s a certain ironic charm.

Of course, Buckingham has earned his playtime. With a little help from group chemistry, he turned flat-footed, middleweight Fleetwood Mac into a sparkling ubiquity (even if you don’t own "Fleetwood Mac" or "Rumours," it’s guaranteed you know someone who does). An avowed Beach Boys fan, Buckingham probably coaxed his band mates into intricate harmonizing, and he definitely had a hand in giving Fleetwood Mac’s records that everything-is-beautiful California gloss. Based on the evidence of "Law and Order," however, Lindsey Buckingham’s biggest contribution to Fleetwood Mac has been his unabashed fondness for pop music at its most hokey and hooky - not just sculpting vocal harmonies but carefully designing each phrase to tickle some pleasure center, no matter what the lyrics happen to say. Pop must come to him almost by reflex. Interestingly, Buckingham also has a rock & roll urge that shows itself in screaming guitar solos (as on "Fleetwood Mac Live") and funny noises (all over "Tusk"). As Los Angeles archetypes go, Buckingham is definitely more Turtle than Eagle: at a certain point, he’s happy to let his silliness conquer his perfectionism. And once Rumours went over the top, the artist apparently decided he could trust his reflexes and use loose ends as embellishments.

So now that he’s proved himself a pro, Lindsey Buckingham can make like a happy amateur. Except for one drum-and-bass track and a background vocal here and there, Law and Order is a one-man disc. If Buckingham needs to extend his range or techniques, he utilizes obvious tape tricks, strictly on the up and up. The LP could be an extension of the star’s tunes on Tusk: basement tapes with a million-dollar mix, while Buckingham and coproducer Richard Dashut try to hold back the giggles. Like the best die-hard popsters, Buckingham writes songs that seem both effortless and encyclopedic. "Love from Here, Love from There" second-lines as if the twenty-four track machine were a New Orleans secret, and "Shadow of the West" brings the Drifting Cowboys to the edge of the Pacific. "That’s How We Do It in L.A." sports a jug-band swagger, complete with a drum-kit version of washboard percussion and a guitar that sounds like a kazoo.

Most of Buckingham’s hat tips go directly to the Beach Boys and the Beatles. "Bwana" uses the bass line from "I want to Hold Your Hand" (hence the title?) and keyboards related to "Surfin’ Safari." "Trouble," with its steady quarter-note rhythms, zither hook and air of wistful autism, is Brian Wilson to the core. Throughout the album, Buckingham’s vocal harmonies are inspired by the Beach Boys songbook - he seems to have all of their ranges in his voice - while some of the mixes, like the left and right drum fills in "Mary Lee Jones," echo the goofy stereo of early Beatles records.

Then again, the last thing Lindsey Buckingham needs to borrow is goofiness. Since Buckingham’s idea of drumming and Dashut’s sound are fervently unconventional, the homemade arrangements are eccentric from the bottom up: every cut has a pinch of skiffle. Above that, the artist builds airy vocal chorales and laceworks of guitar - pure confection - except that every so often a track runs wild and gets derailed. For most of "Mary Lee Jones," Buckingham sustains a single guitar note at the center of the harmony. Suddenly, this note blasts into fuzzed-out blues licks, like a Maserati pulling loose from a snowdrift. The singer sobs histrionically at the end of "I’ll Tell You Now" (after, incidentally, not telling us anything) and does his finest Frankenstein shtick in the middle of "Johnny Stew," which is "World Turning" on its side. Probably only Buckingham and Dashut know what else is buried in the mix.

These guys aren’t just farting around, though they don’t seem to mind if they do. Each slapstick overdub is a reminder that pop is a confection, that the innocence is phony - enjoy the hooks but don’t kid yourself. Buckingham has a much fun popping the bubble as he does filling it full of wind. On side one of "Law and Order," he acts like Nick Lowe or the Barry Manilow of "Copacabana," couching his skepticism in smiley vocals and lyrics that merely hint at mayhem. In "Bwana," he sings the line "We all have our demons" in falsetto, while "Mary Lee Jones" is about her miserable "final days" (suicide?), though you’d never guess it from the star’s one-man-Jordan-aires backups. Buckingham drops the mask a little more on side two, which opens with a Fifties torch-style rendition of Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s "September Song." With "Shadow of the West," he becomes absolutely direct. "Shadow of the West" lets you suspend all disbelief as cumulus-cloud harmonies float above the melody, only to clarify Buckingham’s message: "More and more, I feel less and less."

Still, Buckingham hardly wants us to feel sorry for him. The rest of the side is nasty comedy - are the background vocals in "That’s How We Do It in L.A." really saying, "****ed up"? - until the final number. "Satisfied Mind" addresses but can’t answer the question Buckingham expects us to ask: who cares about a rich man’s hobby? The old-timers who wrote the tune thought that a "satisfied mind" was better than any riches, and Buckingham proves he was once a folkie as he sings the song straight, with easy nasal harmonies. There it sits, the send-off on an LP of pop contrivances. But Lindsey Buckingham knows we don’t have to believe it for a second.

Ok ... Rolling Stone (one of the softest reviewers in the business) gave two of Lindsey's albums 4 out of 5 stars. That's a solid but unspectacular review. Again, my original point (which you seem to be ignoring) is simply that Lindsey has had a solid but not critically acclaimed solo career. If you look at the aggregate websites, that's what you find. Metacritic gives him a 76 for the albums they've reviewed which is solid but not great.

One of the best music critic aggregate websites is BestEverAlbums.com. That sight aggregate ranks Out of The Cradle as Lindsey's best album and puts it as the #6048 album of all-time based on critics' reviews. That's Lindsey's only solo album in the top 10,000.

Stevie, on the other hand, has Bella Donna (aggregate rank at #1653) and The Wild Heart (aggregate rank at #4164). So based on aggregate critics' reviews, Stevie has two albums far ahead of Lindsey's best solo work.

For comparison, they have Rumours ranked at #32 of all-time and Tusk at #565. In fact, they have seven Mac albums ranked ahead of any of the solo albums by Stevie or Lindsey.

Bottom line, neither of them have been solo critical darlings based on these numbers although I don't dispute that Lindsey has been the critical darling for the Mac albums.

[David]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Oh, for the love of…

HE JUST POSTED ACTUAL REVIEWS!!!

I'm just sort of laughing and shaking my head here. I think Sugar Mouse is done with this discussion.

[David]

Originally Posted by Sugar Mouse

Ok ... Rolling Stone (one of the softest reviewers in the business) gave two of Lindsey's albums 4 out of 5 stars. That's a solid but unspectacular review.

Huh?

Originally Posted by Sugar Mouse

Again, my original point (which you seem to be ignoring) is simply that Lindsey has had a solid but not critically acclaimed solo career.

I'm not ignoring your point. I'm telling you that your point is flat-out wrong. I don't know how much clearer I can be. I appear to be taxing your intellect.

Originally Posted by Sugar Mouse

One of the best music critic aggregate websites is BestEverAlbums.com. That sight aggregate ranks Out of The Cradle as Lindsey's best album and puts it as the #6048 album of all-time based on critics' reviews. That's Lindsey's only solo album in the top 10,000.

Stevie, on the other hand, has Bella Donna (aggregate rank at #1653) and The Wild Heart (aggregate rank at #4164). So based on aggregate critics' reviews, Stevie has two albums far ahead of Lindsey's best solo work.

For comparison, they have Rumours ranked at #32 of all-time and Tusk at #565. In fact, they have seven Mac albums ranked ahead of any of the solo albums by Stevie or Lindsey.

Bottom line, neither of them have been solo critical darlings based on these numbers although I don't dispute that Lindsey has been the critical darling for the Mac albums.

You're pulling my leg, right? I'm being punked for a reality TV show?

What the hell is this? Sociological data mining?

"This web site's purpose is to achieve a means of establishing the greatest music albums of all time by using legitimate critical sources and calculating a ranking based on the rank and number of times an album has appeared in a 'greatest album' chart and then ranking the albums according to their aggregate performance." (https://www.besteveralbums.com/)

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by David

Did you read my earlier comments? You appear not to have, so where do we take this exchange?

Yes, and I think we’re on the same page. My comment was really about the notion of reviews and critical acclaim shouldn’t matter to one’s enjoyment of the music. However, when discussing band politics, Lindsey has consistently gotten great reviews, Stevie less so, but Stevie has sold vastly more albums as a solo artist. That’s been the case since before I ever logged onto the internet.

[SteveMacD]

Sweet Jesus, I’m glad I started drinking before the game I knew my Bengals were going to lose before it even started.

[secondhandchain]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

Good luck with Sugar Mick hearing anything you say.

Sugar Mick and Goldust Stevie are a match made in heaven.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by secondhandchain

Sugar Mick and Goldust Stevie are a much made in heaven.

They should definitely consider some sort of partnership.

[secondhandchain]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

They should definitely consider some sort of partnership.

match i meant!

[DownOnRodeo]

Originally Posted by DownOnRodeo

To be honest, Sugar Mouse, I wouldn't even necessarily claim that Lindsey is an EXTRAORDINARY musician (ie instrumentalist), and nor would he. He is the first to note that he is a self-taught, untrained 'noodler,' and that, for example, electric guitar solos have never been his niche.

Lindsey is no Tommy Emmanuel, for example.

So even if we except(edit: accept) the Yale Dissertation that EXTRAORDINARY instrumentalists tend not to be GREAT songwriters, I don't believe that applies to Lindsey Buckingham anyway, who is an impressive and unique instrumentalist but sees himself first and foremost as a crafter of songs--ie the poetry of songwriting and all the rest of it.

And here we have it from the man himself (on Twitter last Thursday):

"I’ve never felt the need to gravitate to a certain instrument in order to write; it’s mostly mental work. On the other hand, the recording of a song usually requires a number of different guitars in order to create the range of textures and colors I’m looking for."

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by David

Huh?

I'm not ignoring your point. I'm telling you that your point is flat-out wrong. I don't know how much clearer I can be. I appear to be taxing your intellect.

You're pulling my leg, right? I'm being punked for a reality TV show?

What the hell is this? Sociological data mining?

"This web site's purpose is to achieve a means of establishing the greatest music albums of all time by using legitimate critical sources and calculating a ranking based on the rank and number of times an album has appeared in a 'greatest album' chart and then ranking the albums according to their aggregate performance." (https://www.besteveralbums.com/)

We live in an era where many do not bother with any critical examination of the sources they find on the internet, especially if these feeble internet sources support their agenda.

You have produced hard evidence from quality sources and have given information on where to find more. Anyone with discernment at this point knows which person is making an informed and well-supported argument.

For those who lack discernment or who are willfully choosing to remain ignorant, nothing more can be done.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by secondhandchain

match i meant!

I know, my friend.

[Sugar Mouse]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

We live in an era where many do not bother with any critical examination of the sources they find on the internet, especially if these feeble internet sources support their agenda.

You have produced hard evidence from quality sources and have given information on where to find more. Anyone with discernment at this point knows which person is making an informed and well-supported argument.

For those who lack discernment or who are willfully choosing to remain ignorant, nothing more can be done.

Hard evidence is two Rollling Stone reviews? Again, music review aggregate websites such as Metacritic and BestAlbumsEver.com clearly show that Lindsey has not been critically acclaimed as a solo artist although his work in Fleetwood Mac has obviously been very acclaimed.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by DownOnRodeo

If you spent less time watching Neil Finn lecture on why people other than him are not as good at songwriting, and more time listening to Lindsey Buckingham's solo catalog (which is not that extensive), you would have heard all of the latter's solo songs by now. And if after a few listens you still don't think many or any of them are "great," that's your prerogative. The one thing I'm not inclined to do is to attempt arguing my own views on the matter here on Lindsey's Rumours forum with Neil Finn as a constant reference point (explicit or implicit).

I encourage you to start a thread over on the Lindsey solo forum if you'd like to poll people's favorite tracks from his latter years.

Well he might if there was the remotest possibility of feeling welcome there.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Who cares about reviews and whatnot?

Rolling Stone gave one of the most amazing reviews I’ve ever seen for “Out Of The Cradle.” Then again, two years earlier, the very same Rolling Stone said that Billy Burnette and Rick Vito were the best thing to ever (EVER!!!) happen to Fleetwood Mac.

What’s good and/or critically acclaimed isn’t the same as what sells. Regardless of the reason, Stevie’s solo music sell$, and Lindsey’s doesn’t.

Agreed. Let's not forget what Rolling Stone said about Layla. And they hated Led Zeppelin.