[Les]

Sodascouts:
"This is about what I think is genius and I'm the only one I have to please and everybody else can just go to hell!" It's so weird, though, because even as he did this he seemed to really want everybody to eat it up regardless, and seemed so crushed that his fans weren't "ready" for his genius. (By the way, comments like that have always made me feel like a loser, as I thought Rumours was better than Tusk). Ah, Lindsey, so fiercely defiant and so desperately needy at the same time!

I'm under the impression from the things he's said that it wasn't even so much the fan reaction to Tusk that upset him. Yes, I think it disappointed him and maybe hurt his feelings in some way, but I think he also expected some harsh reactions from a fanbase used to hearing something different. What I've always thought "crushed" him was actually his bandmates' relative rejection of the album after the fact. I suppose he felt like they had either lied to him during the making of it and really hadn't liked anything he did but wouldn't say so during the making, or he felt like they were distancing themselves from the album only because it didn't sell so well. Whether either one of those things is totally or partially true only they know. But that seemed to be something that colored everything from that point forward.

From then on, it seemed to leave him somewhat confounded. He could be alternately defiant about his ideas (because what can one cling to if not one's own instincts?) and confused about how to present his ideas to the band he didn't quite trust anymore.

I was just thinking that for all the times that "genius" is applied to him and for all the pomposity attributed to him for that tag, Lindsey's never referred to himself in those terms. In some ways, I think some motivations are attributed to him that he's never voiced himself.