Lindsey albums ranked worst to best

[FuzzyPlum]

Ultimate Classic Rock
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/lind...albums-ranked/


Lindsey Buckingham's contributions to Fleetwood Mac were often the quirkiest, frankly confrontational and most interesting. As his influence became ascendant, 1979's Tusk emerged as a double-album outpouring of musical guile and pure gumption.

Of course, Tusk "only" sold two million after 1977's more mainstream Rumours went 20-plus times platinum. This would play out in his solo career. For proof, go back to the two times Buckingham released solo albums the same year as his erstwhile Buckingham-Nicks duo partner Stevie Nicks – with far different results.

His 1981 solo debut Law and Order went to No. 32, while Bella Donna earned Nicks chart-topping four-times platinum accolades. His 2011 album Seeds We Sow stalled just outside the Top 40 while Nicks' In Your Dreams soared to No. 6.

As Buckingham's solo career unfolded in fits and starts, it became clear why: His albums still share so many of the same qualities as Tusk. He could be as musical and hook-tastic as any progenitor of California pop, yet often chose not to. He was dazzling, but also a little confrontational.

He could also go dark. On more than one occasion (1987's Tango in the Night, 2003's Say You Will), those absences were simply the result of Fleetwood Mac albums cannibalizing Buckingham's ongoing solo work. He ended up issuing music that included every classic-era member of Fleetwood Mac but Nicks under the far-less-lucrative banner of Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie in 2017 – even though Say You Will had been released with every classic-era member of Fleetwood Mac except McVie.

Just as mercurial in life, Buckingham quit once and then was fired a year later. Still, every element of his brilliant contributions to the band's classic era albums (which also include 1975's Fleetwood Mac and 1982's Mirage) can be found in these solo grooves. Here's a look back at Lindsey Buckingham's albums, ranked worst to best:


No. 9. 'Go Insane' (1984)
A triumph of modern production in its era, Go Insane can come off as gimmicky today – the work of a too-smart studio nerd trying out new things on his off day. Dig deeper, however, and a rich vein of sadness runs just below the album's sky-bright veneer. Buckingham uses that weird juxtaposition to create a remarkable, album-length sense of emotional tension. The title track couldn't quite crack the Top 20, while the album finished at No. 45 before departing to local record-store cutout bins. But Go Insane is worth another listen, if only for the closing "D.W. Suite," a darkly ambitious meditation on his recently deceased friend Dennis Wilson.

No. 8. 'Under the Skin (2006)
Buckingham went 14 years between solo albums, focusing first on Fleetwood Mac's late-'90s reunion and then helping to construct their 2003 album Say You Will. He returned with a low-key, mostly acoustic album that only rarely – as with the soaring "Down on Rodeo," which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie – rose above a whisper. Lean in, and a sadness over thwarted dreams permeates almost everything. It makes sense. After all, there was a reason for this long hiatus: He once again cannibalized a solo project in order to complete Fleetwood Mac's album instead.

No. 7. 'Lindsey Buckingham' (2021)
Unfortunately, Buckingham's focus on finishing and touring behind this album ended his long band-turning tenure in Fleetwood Mac. Also unfortunately, those same plans were then derailed by the pandemic. By the time Lindsey Buckingham finally arrived, he had barely gotten past a potentially career-ending throat problem. So, this LP felt important before its first-ever spin. Lindsey Buckingham lives up to that, echoing the frisky risk-taking of 1979's Tusk for a new age. "On the Wrong Side" seems to address his abrupt exit from Fleetwood Mac, but "I Don't Mind" is the highlight of the LP. He reanimates the quirky pitch experiments from 1987's "Big Love," but with a smitten softness more reminiscent of 1982's "Book of Love."

No. 6. 'Law and Order' (1981)
This album also mirrored the broad musical complexity of Fleetwood Mac's most recent double album Tusk. But it took things a bit further, as Buckingham blended pre-war songs into his signature style, like-minded originals and a batch of '50s- and '60s-inspired rock and pop. Perhaps only Buckingham, with his patented sense of wild-hair studio modernity, could hold all of that together. He also scored an early Top 10 solo Billboard single with "Trouble," which included a brief loop of Mick Fleetwood's drumming. Even then, a rugged sense of individuality remained: All additional fills and cymbal crashes were completed by Buckingham, who elsewhere ended up handling almost all of the album's instrumentation.

No. 5. 'Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie' (2017)
Much is typically made of the link (musical and otherwise) between Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Yet Fleetwood Mac recordings prominently featuring Buckingham and Christine McVie – "World Turning," "Don't Stop," "Think About Me," "Hold Me" and a trio of co-written songs from Tango in the Night, including "Mystified" – have provided plenty of musical sparks since their careers first intersected in the mid-'70s. Same here, on a flinty album that should have been released under the Fleetwood Mac banner. Buckingham's songs tend to be the best of the lot, but it's fascinating how this collaboration brings out so much darkness in McVie.

No. 4. 'Seeds We Sow' (2011)
You were somehow expecting Lindsey Buckingham, the old rebel, to soften into middle-aged acceptance? This wasn't that record, which steadfastly refused to trade true emotion for easy sentiment. Seeds We Sow is as hard-eyed as it is musically ambitious – and that makes perfect sense. In a move that belied the era, Buckingham's best-known classic-era music never settled for cheap thrills, quick answers — or something so obvious and easy as nihilism. Seeds We Sow showed that it still didn't.

No. 3. 'Gift of Screws' (2008)
A long-gestating project, Gift of Screws began life in the '90s, fed a few songs into Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will and then finally emerged later in the same decade as a reworked solo album. It happened only because Buckingham finally asked for space to complete and release Under the Skin and Gift of Screws. They became quite complimentary, as the first album's acoustic stillness set the stage for this project's plugged-in vibe. Buckingham isn't in search of catharsis here – though "The Right Place to Fade" seems to directly reference the madness of Fleetwood Mac – so much as his most familiar persona: the oddball rock guy. Nevertheless, Gift of Screws remains delightfully accessible and emerged as the first Buckingham solo album to crack the Top 50 since 1984's Go Insane.

No. 2. 'Buckingham Nicks' (1973)
This fledgling duo moved to Los Angeles boasting a newly signed deal with Polydor. But the resulting self-titled debut went nowhere, leaving a desperate Stevie Nicks to take a waitress job to pay the rent. She said she was mere weeks away from returning to Phoenix when Mick Fleetwood made a fateful call. Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, and then Buckingham Nicks – despite its template-forging mix of soaring California pop-rock ("Crying in the Night," "Without a Leg to Stand On"), edgy asides ("Don't Let Me Down Again," "Long Distance Winner"), picker's showcases ("Stephanie") and weird musical side roads ("Frozen Love") – promptly went out of print. They'd later return to "Crystal" for the first LP with Fleetwood Mac. The band was transformed.

No. 1. 'Out of the Cradle' (1992)
For some reason, Lindsey Buckingham's initial solo project after a very public initial breakup with Fleetwood Mac didn't do much on the album charts, and produced no Hot 100 singles. Maybe fans had grown tired of his experimentalism outside of the main group. Maybe they were still angry about his departure. But, as it would time and again, that split led directly to the broad creative rebirth heard on Out of the Cradle. For the first time, Buckingham let himself inhabit the entire musical space he'd already created as the pop-genius sonic architect of Fleetwood Mac's platinum era. He held nothing back here, either in terms of the songs their projects usually pilfered away or the emotions he'd been keeping in check. Sure, it's the album he should have made from the first. But Out of the Cradle was worth the wait.


Read More: Lindsey Buckingham Albums Ranked Worst to Best | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/lind...edium=referral

[Villavic]

Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum

No. 1. 'Out of the Cradle' (1992)
For some reason, Lindsey Buckingham's initial solo project after a very public initial breakup with Fleetwood Mac didn't do much on the album charts, and produced no Hot 100 singles.

I'm not as much a fan of the members solo works as I am of the band. But OOTC is the only album I enjoy to listen entirely often. So I coincide it's his best album.

We have commented lot of times why it wasn't so succesful. I guess the times and sound had changed, it could have done better years before.

[sleepless child]

I love Under the Skin. My favorite of his work

[HomerMcvie]

Law and Order will always be my favorite. Because it's freaky af.

[Tusky]

Self titled should be higher! ?It's up there...

[FuzzyPlum]

Originally Posted by Tusky

Self titled should be higher! ?It's up there...

Yes, I think Lindsey Buckingham is a strong and consistent album of work. I’d also rank it higher. Maybe even top 3, objectively.

[WalkAThinLine.]

With the exception of "Blind Love" and "Dancing", Lindsey's self-titled album is amongst his best work. I also really enjoy his album Seeds We Sow. At the time, it was dismissed as "just another Lindsey Buckingham album", but given how rare his releases are, I'm glad that we received it.

[Nathan]

I enjoy the self-titled album quite a bit too.

I'm surprised Law and Order was not higher.

[WalkAThinLine.]

Originally Posted by Nathan

I enjoy the self-titled album quite a bit too.

I'm surprised Law and Order was not higher.

For me, Law and Order lacks the warmth found on Mirage, which demonstrates how crucial Ken Caillat was in realizing his ideas. The presence of Richard Dashut on Law and ordermay have slightly helped, but perhaps a it could have been beneficial if Lindsey had a producer who was willing to push back on some of his ideas. Based on interviews I've read both from Richard and other individuals in Fleetwood Mac's inner circle, Richard largely served as the mediator of the group and was terrific at defusing tension within the band. He also proved to be a very capable audio engineer who was attuned to achieving the vision of the artists he was working with.

Ken mentioned in both of his Making of books that Richard was largely in Lindsey's camp in terms of creative decision making. The experimental nature from Tusk was largely retained for Law and Order, but the campier direction that they took with the latter album yielded some mixed results. Maybe with the exception of "Bwana", none of the songs on the album possessed the same focus as "Trouble", which demonstrated his pop sensibilities that he infused popular songs within Fleetwood Mac's discography such as "Dreams" and "Think About Me". The same magic found in these aforementioned songs is conspicuously absent on most of Law and Order, with the end product being a collection of partially baked songs.

[DownOnRodeo]

Originally Posted by sleepless child

I love Under the Skin. My favorite of his work

One of my favorites too, not least because of the pretty cover and the inclusion of (polite cough) Down On Rodeo.

I tried to do my own personal ranking but failed. Too hard to order some of them. But I wouldn't include Buck McVie and Buckingham Nicks, because by that measure you may as well include other FM albums like Tusk, Tango, and SYW that were essentially Lindsey solo projects developed into group projects.

[cbBen]

adapted from this prior post of mine, with sone revisions to the commentary (but not to the ranking order) and with Buckingham Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie added: https://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showt...sa#post1281208

1. Buckingham Nicks: Nothing else remotely close.

2. Out Of The Cradle: Fantastic songwriting, but marred by use of drum machine that at times is ill-fitting with the flow of the material. With real drums throughout the album could have been a full-fledged masterpiece.

3. Under The Skin: My kind of album. "Show You How" should have hung around.

4. Gift Of Screws: "Wait For You" should have gone on SYW, or at least on Solo Anthology.

5. Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie: Somewhat uneven, but largely redeemed by its highlights. The McVie songs are weaker.

6. Seeds We Sow

7. Lindsey Buckingham: "Santa Rosa" the highlight by a country mile. A weakness is how unnatural Lindsey makes his voice sound at times – with effects, by speeding it up, or both.

8. Law And Order: The best songs–"Trouble" and "Shadow Of the West"–are great. The remainder is a bit goofy. Not really my kind of album.

9. Go Insane: "Slow Dancing" and arguably the title track are standouts – though the live acoustic "Go Insane" illustrates how poorly Lindsey arranged this material. The remainder IMO is awful.

[sands of time]

Originally Posted by cbBen

2. Out Of The Cradle: Fantastic songwriting, but marred by poor use of drum machine (often out of time) that I chalk up either to Lindsey later improving at the craft, his abandoning it in favor of real percussion, or the technology improving.

Can you give some examples of the drums being out of time?

[cbBen]

Originally Posted by sands of time

Can you give some examples of the drums being out of time?

It's more ill-fitting with the flow of the song (and lacking in swing). I'll revise above.

It's the songs with drums/percussion that Alex Acuna doesn't play on (except "Say We'll Meet Again" which, with just a hint of percussion, works):

"Soul Drifter"
"Turn It On"
"Doing What I Can"
"Wrong"

The album could have been a full-fledged masterpiece with a real drummer throughout.

[WalkAThinLine.]

The drum programming on "This is the Time" is a bit flimsy on the choruses and could have heavily benefited from live drumming, as evidenced by the audio we have from his Out of the Cradle Tour. The live version of "This is the Time" is a considerable improvement over the studio version, and the acoustic drums and percussion on the former are heavily responsible for this.

[cbBen]

Originally Posted by WalkAThinLine.

The drum programming on "This is the Time" is a bit flimsy on the choruses and could have heavily benefited from live drumming, as evidenced by the audio we have from his Out of the Cradle Tour. The live version of "This is the Time" is a considerable improvement over the studio version, and the acoustic drums and percussion on the former are heavily responsible for this.

Yes, thank you. I should have included that song too.

Maybe Lindsey's self-perceived artistic success without an outside drummer on his first two solo albums gave him a misguided sense of not needing one here.

Or maybe it came down to budget.