Mick and Stevie RULE!!!

[face of glass]

Ok, I finally found the time to write something to this. Not that anyone cares about this right now but what the heck.

Necessary disclaimers first; this is what I think of commercialism in music.

The word “commercial” was used during the ‘50s and ‘60s but eventually came into heavy use in the ‘70s school of rock criticism, most likely because of the onslaught of bubblegum pop. In USA this meant Dave Marsh, Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus, etc. Those guys basically derided anything that was on the charts, unless it fit their conception of “authenticity”. Yet they failed to explain why they thought that The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, etc, were authentic even though those were the biggest selling artists of the ‘60s. Consequently I believe it had something to do with the disintegration of the hippie culture which led into the rock music scene breaking into several subcultures. Very few people were willing to give all of these divergent styles a proper chance. At least those three guys mentioned above didn’t.

I’ve never thought being commercial is a bad thing. It can be a very good thing. But that’s only if you try to steer away from banalities and try to do something else every once in a while. Experiment with sounds or be sincere, those are the usual two routes (and some manage to follow both of them). But do not lose the listener in the middle of all of this.

In addition, I don’t think the commercial value of something, whether it can be measured that something is more commercial than something else or not, can be measured through charts or radio play. There’s always luck/fortune/alignment of stars/”time bomb of human incompetence” that might interfere with any particular piece of work, no matter how appealing (or appalling, if you’re speaking of the charts of today ).

Accessibility, as CarneVaca put it, is a more comfortable word to be used with Lindsey (and Stevie) but I certainly would sometimes associate the two with each other, except that “commercialism” seems to have a negative slant to it, thanks to those neo-Marxist critics.

The best artists for me aren’t necessarily the ones who innovate; they’re the ones who make these innovations appealing so that the achievements do not come off as totally alienating.

I think Lindsey Buckingham is one of the best in straddling the fence between the artistic and the audience-pleasing/commercial/mainstream/accessible. He has tracks that are closer to the former, he has tracks that are closer to the latter but he also has, as Johnny Stew said, several that are right in the middle of the two extremes.

Now I’ve never thought that Lindsey has specifically needed someone to kick him in the head so that he could keep the balance between the extremes, not even with his solo albums. I do think he needs a pair of outside ears for the recordings, just like he stated that smoking pot can make you hear a piece of work from a totally different angle. We all know Richard Dashut provided just that for Lindsey (the outside ears, not the drugs. Not always!). But that’s all. And Stevie hasn’t been in that role, unless we’re discussing the double album matter.

Ok. That’s done. I’ll try to answer some individual comments here and then make my grand pretentious statement after them.

First of all I believe that Lindsey had all the rights to push for a double album. The man hadn’t seen his latest music released for ten years except for a few separate songs here and there; “On The Wrong Side”, “Bleed To Love Her” and “My Little Demon”. And this was due to Warners’ disinterest in the solo artist Lindsey Buckingham. They obviously haven’t been interested in him other than as a part of Fleetwood Mac for a long time. That’s why I can understand Lindsey being so insistent on the double cd; it was obviously a very emotional and important thing to him. They could have put out the 23 songs and thus it would have been even closer to “Lindsey Buckingham solo/Stevie Nicks produced by Lindsey Buckingham”, it wouldn’t have changed a thing in the overall shape of the album.

I do realize that because of the “marketplace reality” it was a naive idea in the end but that’s what I think Lindsey is like; he doesn’t mind the business side too much in these things, he just wants as much music out as possible. In that way he can definitely be a hippie relic.

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Again, if LB really wanted to be the maverick he clearly wants to be and often whines (bless his heart I love him but he sure can whine ) about, he would have been one. But something in him won't let him. Personally, I think he learned his lesson with the brilliant but commerical flop OOTC - he has said that record and tour lost him a personal fortune.

I’ve never believed he’s tried to follow the path of total inaccessibility. It isn’t his thing. He loves the Beach Boys and he loves the Clash. Many see the former as commercial and the latter as more credible. I think the two bands have been experimental and commercial throughout their career, most often combining the two (listen to Pet Sounds, Smile, Love You, London Calling or Sandinista!). That’s the area Lindsey is coming from.

The Beach Boys and The Clash operated within traditional song structures. So does Lindsey. He reuses the same chord progressions and he has never felt the need to abandon them. If he wanted to do that he wouldn’t necessarily be on a major label, I agree with that.

Within Fleetwood Mac, as Les pointed out, he is the maverick. Will be debated further below.

I also find weird that you’re speaking of OOTC in that paragraph of yours. If anything, that album is seen by many as his most mainstream work up to that point. There is more “traditional-sounding” material than usual on that album because SN and CM aren’t there to give Buckingham’s left-field impulses the proper balance and he needed to provide it himself. It’s hard to see how he would have learnt his lesson from its failure when he operated within the same principle with GOS.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
If he wasn't at all concerned with being commercially viable, and with selling albums, then he'd be off on some tiny indie label somewhere.

If you’re speaking of labels that release underground music, I believe no one there would even be interested in him because of his association with Fleetwood Mac.

He hasn't taken any radical left-turns like Bowie has…

I don’t think David Bowie has been taking any radical left-turns during his career, even though he may be known as “the chameleon”.

Bowie, even during his “most cutting-edge” period of 1970-80, was essentially a populist/popularizer; after that he has interpreted the values of the mainstream for his own use (Let’s Dance = Chic, Outside = Nine Inch Nails, Earthling = Goldie). Everything he has done can be traced to an earlier innovation. The Man Who Sold The World follows the pattern of Led Zeppelin et al., Hunky Dory fits into the early ‘70s singer-songwriter mould, Ziggy Stardust jumps on the glam bandwagon as inspired by Marc Bolan, Young Americans is an attempt at white boy soul, Station To Station is an attempt at white boy funk and even his most “experimental” work, namely Low and Heroes, lean on the innovations that Brian Eno had introduced with No Pussyfooting in 1973 and heavily worked on after that.
He was never without significant help from musicians. Ziggy wouldn’t have existed without Mick Ronson, Station To Station needed a great band, Low and Heroes had Brian Eno’s contributions all over them. et cetera, et cetera.
His changes haven’t been surprising to me anyway. Even when he switched from glam to soul he made a transitional album in between (Diamond Dogs) that had elements of both. Likewise I think that the hits of Low and Heroes, “Sound And Vision” and “Beauty And The Beast” are both derivative of the material on Station To Station.

I may put Bowie in the same eccentric bag of musicians as Lindsey but DB’s never had the gall to make his albums truly diverse. There’s the Bowieish way of writing songs that never really changes, and neither do his vocals. He may be diverse when his career is viewed as a whole but inside one particular album he is not. For me it takes guts to have true diversity; that’s far braver than following the changing of the sound ideals.

I also think that with Tusk Lindsey was far braver than Bowie has ever been. Bowie was considered “an artist” from the outset, he never appealed just to the largest masses, he always received great critical acclaim during his golden period.
Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t considered “an artist” before Tusk, he was considered a mainstream hit merchant. So when that change came it surprised many. He didn’t have to change his way of writing songs, he just changed the way he recorded and arranged them. That was enough. The atmospheres of Tusk were largely unrelated to the ones Fleetwood Mac had been having before.

…and he hasn't turned his back on major labels like many other artists have.

He could do it if he was truly disappointed in the Warner Brothers. It doesn’t seem like he is though, or maybe he is but he doesn’t still have any problems with working inside the machinery. Will be discussed in the second post.

Right now I’ll just say that even The Clash, despite their rebellious anti-music industry image, were on CBS for their most experimental albums. Even those guys were interested in selling some records.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
You make some compromises... you give the record company a few of the kinds of songs they want, and then you can fill the rest of the album with the songs you want (and is it really that difficult to give the record company two or three radio-friendly songs, when that still leaves you with room for nine or ten of the songs you'd prefer?).

Warner Brothers may have seen Gift Of Screws as unappealing but it is also interesting as of how they never released it even though there were at least five appealing songs that could have appeared as singles. “Bleed To Love Her”, “Deep Dense”, “Down On Rodeo”, “Steal Your Heart Away” and “Twist Of Fate” should not be too inaccessible to anyone. I daresay they’re the closest to the stereotypical image of FM that the public has, without appearing as banal or totally non-intrusive (except for “SYHA”, and that’s just me talkin’). It just goes to show that the label was far more interested in a Fleetwood Mac album.

Originally posted by strandinthewind
IMO, ISA fits squarely with the late 60's and early to mid 70's guitar crunching bands like Led Zeppelin, Foghat, Black Sabbath, etc. Although these bands all had their own distinct sounds, they all had these long guitar oriented songs similar to ISA.

I’m not completely going to deny that. But even then Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath didn’t have any chart hits in that vein, even Sabbath’s “Paranoid” appears to me as a compromise between the heavy guitar tone and the major-mode, bubblegum-pop melody. They were mainly album bands. Granted, they did build their legacy out of songs like that but that material certainly wasn’t hit-single oriented.

For me “I’m So Afraid” doesn’t just take something from Zeppelin and Sabbath, it builds a bridge between them and the oncoming punk/new wave generation. There’s none of Ozzy Osbourne’s self-conscious pseudo-satanistic swagger or Robert Plant’s unintentional over-the-top cock-rockish self-preening (self-self-self, that’s what I’m all about too). There’s an inherent depression at the heart of “ISA”, wrapping around oneself totally. It’s depression turned inwards, a person who is willing to see himself dead rather than just toying with the imagery of death (like Ozzy/Geezer Butler did).
The music side of “I’m So Afraid” is very relative to post-punkers like Joy Division. Mick and John play things there that Peter Hook and Stephen Morris would play later on (but more amateurishly, of course). And I think the only person who has even wanted to get close to Lindsey’s obsessive weaving on the fretboard is Bernard Sumner in Joy Division’s “Shadowplay”.

(Sure, the lyrics are less subtle than whatever Ian Curtis would sing but they ain’t any less sincere or heartfelt to me).

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Thus, the term commercial. I do not for minute think it takes away from the merit of the music. But, LB seemingly does in that HE uses the term commercial in a seemingly negative way.

IMO, he uses it in relation to the band and himself sometimes being willing to play along with the public perception of FM’s music. The soft-rock sound, that is.

Originally posted by sodascouts
…(those Clash-types). (My thoughts on Lindsey's misguided need for the approval of these types is a whole 'nother issue!)

I don’t believe his willingness to be approved by those types is misguided. If you and your friends don’t appreciate The Clash then it’s your problem. Lindsey isn’t any less deserving of your attention than he is of other people with different tastes in music and different lifestyles.

There is nothing wrong with either of those despite the perjorative labelling of the latter as "selling out" or compromising oneself by SO MANY people - even some of his staunchest defenders, who seem embarrassed to admit to liking anything on Rumours better than anything on Tusk.

I will never belittle the music of Rumours but I will always spit on its sales which were totally ridiculous and unhealthy when compared to any other Fleetwood Mac album. I just don’t think that LB’s work outside of Rumours is a hair worse than those three songs that are considered his apex. It’s an over-simplified and far too popular a conception that needs to be shattered.

Originally posted by cliffdweller
He usually ends up caving in the end on most issues (because he realizes, if it's a band effort there must be compromise) so he's not quite the rebel he makes himself out to be after all.

This isn’t accurate for me. Do you think there are not compromises between the experimental and the commercial on his solo albums? He doesn’t need the rest of the band to be able to compromise on most matters. He’s a questioner, I’m sure he questions himself, some of his thoughts and his approach to music more than other people question them.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
…look at 'Behind The Mask' and 'Time.'
Granted, I know you have no love lost for either of those albums, but neither of them sound exactly like the kind of music that was selling the most albums in 1990 and 1995.

BTM and Time are the closest this band has ever gotten to the soft-rock image that they have in the minds of the many.
There is very little unusual or intrusive on these albums overall. You can make a case for “In The Back Of My Mind” or “These Strange Times” but otherwise there is none of Buckingham’s eclectic diversity and musical schizophrenia.
Even though I think the albums are good my belief is that they wouldn’t change anyone’s perception of FM when listened to as a neophyte. They wouldn’t pull in any of the underground elitist crowd even if those were suddenly given a chance to listen to the albums in fair conditions and they wouldn’t really pull in any of the rootsier crowd either, despite the presence of two such members, because of the compromises involved.

I’ve listened to some of Billy Burnette’s solo albums. The only album of those I truly like, the only one that can’t be used as inoffensive background filler is his self-titled one from 1980. That one kicks my butt and makes me appreciate him as a musician but his other stuff, even within Fleetwood Mac, doesn’t. I understand he isn’t the [only] one responsible of the experiments in “ITBOMM” anyway. Yes, I fail to hear the subtlety in his songwriting. But I don’t call him a no-good, lousy hack because of that, like some have done. And contrary to some people’s opinions, I do think he got to do what he wanted in the band.

Rick Vito gets run over by a steam-roller in terms of his own songs even though he made compromises and didn’t push his blues-oriented material on the album. He wrote two sophisticated pop songs, “Got No Home” and “Intuition”, that didn’t get on BTM because they obviously weren’t what FM wanted which is simply ridiculous when they wanted “Stand On The Rock”, an overblown, tasteless nod to the ‘80s.

That’s how those records turned out to be because there was no one to kick the members’ rear ends and to tell them that they do not need to make the records totally bound to the common conception of FM since 1975. Rick Vito could have led the band into a very blues-bound direction but there was no will to go there; the band wanted to cling on to the public perceptions that had been strengthened by TITN. Look out below.

Originally posted by strandinthewind
I mean there really was no change other than the addition of La Nicks' vocals in the production of the final product from the original GOS stuff.

Which is another case of Warners being interested in Lindsey Buckingham material only if it is done within the context of FM. Stevie doesn’t add a thing to those songs for me and I think that’s because Lindsey didn’t have her in mind when he first formulated them.

…with the possible exception of the lyric change in Peacekeeper, which he said he did not mind.

Someone pointed out on the Legboard that the line “break their will” is actually far crueler than “only kill”. “Only kill” suggests a fast, honourable death. “Break their will” suggests long torture, both mental and physical. It’s another case of LB laughing secretly into his sleeve after supposedly following the company demands.

Originally posted by cliffdweller

I also realize that Lindsey has never been in any way shape or form an avante garde artist and I don't mean to hold him up to those standards nor would I want him to be that. Fleetwood Mac is a mainstream pop/rock group, something Lindsey knew when he joined and actually helped to maintain throughout the years, albeit somewhat grudgingly.

Lindsey Buckingham has done much more than has been expected of him.

The man was pidgeonholed with the success of Rumours and was expected by everyone to follow the formula. He didn’t, and in that way, shape and form he is an avantgarde artist. He was the only man in America in the whole genre of classic/soft/hippie rock who reacted to punk rock genuinely. And that makes him avantgarde in that context, even though he was working inside the traditional song structures and rarely resorted to pure dissonance.

So when I say he "sold out" with Mirage and Tango, I don't mean he sold out as an avante garde or maverick artist. However, I do believe in his mind, he sold out some of the principles of the kind of music he wanted to make (he's admitted to that). And in the end, it was his decision to stay in the band. Noone was forcing him to remain tethered to Fleetwood Mac, it was always his choice if he wanted to stay or leave.

I daresay that I’ve never found Mirage quite the sellout that it seems to be for many Mac fans, in spite of Lindsey’s own statements of it.

Yes, Lindsey has more “generic” material there, material that’s more directly related to the ‘50s and early ‘60s than anything he’s ever done.

So what? Law And Order has obvious nods to the past too. How different is it to put that ‘40s approach to “Bwana”, make “Love From Here Love From There” sound like those old 78s, or cover “It Was I”, “September Song” and “A Satisfied Mind” when compared to doing an early Beatles pastiche (“Can’t Go Back”), writing ‘50s ballads in “Book Of Love” or “Oh Diane” or pulling out your old three chords for “Eyes Of The World”? There is no difference in my opinion. In spite of all of the hints at past his production still makes the songs totally skewed, perverted and mutilated when compared to their origins. “Holiday Road” and “Dancing Across The USA”, released in the following year, come from the same area. It isn’t something he necessarily resented doing. It’s a road he chose to follow himself for a while. He could have been forced to put the clear “Go Your Own Way” production to “Eyes Of The World” but he didn’t do it. He undermined its potential with the “cheaper” production (and its true rocker potential came out only live).

In the end, most of them are tributes to the past but there’s such a unique take to them that there’s not much, if any, nostalgia involved.

Not to mention that the two hit singles of the album, the public side of the band’s music, “Hold Me” and “Gypsy”, have HUGE Buckingham involvement.

As for Tango: I know some Lindsey fans claim that it’s closer to Tusk II than anything the band has put out. I do not agree with that really. You can make a case for his own songs but for the rest, no way. There are far less Buckingham quirks on “Isn’t It Midnight”, “Everywhere”, “Little Lies” and “Seven Wonders” than usual. They’re the ones that correspond to the soft-rock image the most and lay the ground for following up to that on BTM. There’s been reportage of the businessmen and lawyers interfering with the band decisions at this point and I believe some of them were carefully following the sessions; the outer forces obviously wanted this album to be Rumours II.

That is the main reason (IMO) for Lindsey’s departure, not just his psychological problems or his unwillingness to tour. He spoke of the band getting more generic in that point and I don’t believe he was just speaking of BTM and Time (I may agree with his criticism but I still like both albums).

Now I finally move on to my second post and my main points.