Lindsey AUS Article

[face of glass]

I ain’t gonna say amen on this yet.

Originally posted by CarneVaca
The foundation of Go Your Own Way is that crazy beat and the power chords underneath the acoustic. The acoustic is icing, or to stay with the metaphor, the siding.

Since I’ve been gradually becoming one of the biggest nit-pickers at the Ledge, I might as well add that I remember you last year speaking of “GYOW” losing something important when it was played live without an acoustic. Sure, I could remember wrong. But I don’t think those early versions where they tried to play it without one really worked.

Originally posted by trackaghost
Take it how you like, and I know I'll be berated as being a "feminist" or whatever, because I'm annoyed with that, but whatever, I'm just calling it how I see it. Obviously Lindsey needs to listen to artists like PJ Harvey or Bjork.

I still don’t think he was denigrating women in there. He was mainly speaking of how the ladies in the Rumours line-up initially failed to follow the zeitgeist along with most of the American mainstream.

Even Lindsey speaks at Les’ site of his friendship to Laurie Anderson, probably the most experimental woman in rock during the ‘80s. So I certainly don’t believe that he thinks “women can’t be experimental”. He still quotes "O Superman" for the "Peacekeeper" speech, after all.

Originally posted by trackaghost
I can definitely see why Lindsey might equate "femaleness" as he so eloquently puts it, with commercial, "poppy" appeal.

If he actually does think that way then it should be stated that he always has something to keep the balance between the commercially appealing and the experimental on his albums.

For every “Soul Drifter”, “Countdown” or “You Do Or You Don’t” you find on OOTC you also have the forced, brute qualities of “This Is The Time”, the murky depression of “Street Of Dreams” and the esoteric, glorious washes of “Surrender The Rain”.

For every “Steal Your Heart Away”, “Bleed To Love Her” and “Deep Dense” there is on GOS you also find “Murrow”, “Red Rover”, “Someone’s Gotta Change Your Mind” and “Come”.

Also, even though “Don’t Look Down”, “Wrong”, “Go Insane” and others may have been attempts at a hit single, they never sounded non-intrusive or banal. There was never an idiotic, simplistic hook repeated for forty times in a row. If some people were looking for inoffensive musical wallpaper from Lindsey they didn’t find it. “Don’t Look Down” has such unusual harmonies in the chorus that it’s bound to intrude your mind. The sonic chaos that “Wrong” indulges into isn’t for everyone either. Neither is the off-kilter quality of "Go Insane".

He knows he can’t change his way of writing songs but instead of repeating the same progressions in same atmospheres he changes his arrangements and approaches. I get a totally different feel from “Big Love”, “Doing What I Can” and “Miranda” even though they could be described similar in songwriting.

Originally posted by trackaghost
It made me laugh in that Virgin interview when Lindsey said his solo work was never meant to be as commercial as his stuff with Fleetwood Mac, because there's lots of poppy stuff on all his solo albums in particular Out Of The Cradle. It's very easy after the event to say "well, that wasn't meant for a mass audience" when it didn't do well.

I’m not going to deny that he doesn’t sometimes try to intentionally produce something that could be appealing to the record buyers. He’s never been completely esoteric in expression. Here’s a man who values The Clash as much as The Beach Boys (and both have their share of commercial as well as artistically “deep-reaching” stuff).

Are Lindsey’s solo albums intended for a mass audience? I’d like to say that some aspects of them are and some are not. Again, I ruminated on the reasons above but yes, I believe that he knew he wasn’t going to be as successful as FM. Rumours is commonly regarded as their peak; the only FM album to own if you want to own one and then you can ignore the rest. He didn’t hope for those sales to repeat themselves. He knew he wasn’t going to sell like Stevie did. In the public eye Stevie and Chris were responsible for most of Fleetwood Mac’s hits; of course most failed to see Lindsey’s contributions to them.

So no. Lindsey didn’t want his solos to sell 25 million copies worldwide. Success on a smaller scale, like the 5 million of the White Album, would most likely have been enough for him.

Lindsey was the first in the FM camp to react to punk rock. He reacted to it while the form still had its initial freshness. The hard-hitting quality that punk had, its usage of mainly electric, powerful timbres influenced the mainstream. Stevie’s and Christine’s solo albums were affected by this too but that was already at a point when the mainstream had “interpreted” the ideals of punk and new wave for its own purposes so that it would not lose listeners. The Wild Heart, Christine McVie, Rock A Little and The Other Side Of The Mirror have no acoustically dominated passages in them. They didn’t choose that approach themselves, they changed because there was no choice.

I know Johnny Stew, for instance, thinks that RAL is experimental. I don’t, unless it’s viewed against Stevie’s other solo albums. So much of the aspects of RAL are dictated by the mainstream that it certainly doesn’t sound atypical of its time. Go Insane is far more atypical to me. It’s right there besides Mister Heartbreak and Hounds Of Love in classic ‘80s studio experimentation, at least in my collection of music.

So if someone is going to look up on Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie as musical adventurers then I certainly won’t follow suit, as much as I love them. I look up to Buckingham for that and at the same time I thank him for not going over the top or totally inaccessible with his experiments.

Yeah, yeah. Major digression. Like in a vintage Nicks demo.

[CarneVaca]

I might as well add that I remember you last year speaking of “GYOW” losing something important when it was played live without an acoustic. Sure, I could remember wrong.

Your recollection is accurate. But does it prove that the acoustic guitar is the foundation of the song? Not by a long stretch. If you rip the siding off the house, does the house still stand? Yes. Does the house lose something? Yes.

[dissention]

Originally posted by face of glass
Since I’ve been gradually becoming one of the biggest nit-pickers at the Ledge,

Ah, the shoe's on the other foot.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by face of glass
I know Johnny Stew, for instance, thinks that RAL is experimental. I don’t, unless it’s viewed against Stevie’s other solo albums. So much of the aspects of RAL are dictated by the mainstream that it certainly doesn’t sound atypical of its time. Go Insane is far more atypical to me. It’s right there besides Mister Heartbreak and Hounds Of Love in classic ‘80s studio experimentation, at least in my collection of music.

So if someone is going to look up on Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie as musical adventurers then I certainly won’t follow suit, as much as I love them. I look up to Buckingham for that and at the same time I thank him for not going over the top or totally inaccessible with his experiments.

To be fair, I never said 'Rock A Little' was "experimental," only that it's quite different from the sound of 'Bella Donna' four years before it, and it just baffles me sometimes that Stevie gets chided for doing something different, when Lindsey is lauded for it.

Stevie isn't particularly musically adventurous... that's Lindsey's niche... but she's not exactly stuck in one sound either.
Each of her albums sounds rather different from whichever one directly preceeded it, but that seems to be more of a point of derision rather than praise.
Now, I can't say that each sound was the right choice, or that each approach was successful, but hey, she tried, and you'd think that would count for something in these discussions.

She could have very easily copied the sound of 'Bella Donna,' but she didn't. Granted, she didn't exactly take a left-turn, but she certainly moved on.

As far as 'RAL' sounding like other albums of the time, I still insist it doesn't really.
Certainly there are aspects of the "80s sound" in the sensibilities of 'RAL's production... drum overdubs, synthesizers, etc.... but pull out any mainstream Top 40 pop album from 1984/85/86, and find me songs that sound like "I Can't Wait" or "Sister Honey," for example.

No, I don't think it was experimental, per se, but I don't think Stevie and her producers looked at the latest Madonna and Wham singles and said, "Ok, let's cop this sound."

There's an edginess to 'Rock A Little,' that can't be found in other Top 40 fare from that timeframe, even if they share some of the same types of instrumentation.

For me, 'Rock A Little' is a natural progression from 'The Wild Heart,' rather than a reaction to the then-current sound.

And I know it's not a popular opinion (and I have to qualify this statement by saying that I love 'Go Insane,' so this isn't a criticism), but if most people listened to 'Go Insane' between 'The Wild Heart' and 'Rock A Little' (since it was released in the year between the two), I bet they'd cite 'Go Insane' as the most dated sounding of the three.

So, as with most of our conversations, this is a matter of preference and perception.

[dissention]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
To be fair, I never said 'Rock A Little' was "experimental," only that it's quite different from the sound of 'Bella Donna' four years before it, and it just baffles me sometimes that Stevie gets chided for doing something different, when Lindsey is lauded for it.

I think the difference between what Stevie did and what Lindsey did is that Stevie *always* formulated the sounds of her albums from what was currently popular in mainstream pop rock. You listen to RAL and you realize that she didn't use that sound to make a conscious departure from earlier stuff, she did it because it was the "in" sound. On the other side of the spectrum, Lindsey, for the most part, did the complete opposite and just did some crazy, funky ****.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
Stevie isn't particularly musically adventurous... that's Lindsey's niche... but she's not exactly stuck in one sound either.

No, the sound on her albums is dictated by what's currently popular most of the time.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
As far as 'RAL' sounding like other albums of the time, I still insist it doesn't really.
Certainly there are aspects of the "80s sound" in the sensibilities of 'RAL's production... drum overdubs, synthesizers, etc.... but pull out any mainstream Top 40 pop album from 1984/85/86, and find me songs that sound like "I Can't Wait" or "Sister Honey," for example.

Hogwash. That whole album was so modeled after the eighties sound that it hurts to listen to. Of course you aren't going to be able to say that Sister Honey or The nightmare sounds like another song because they were still unique, but the basic 80s music components were inhabiting the album and then some.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
There's an edginess to 'Rock A Little,' that can't be found in other Top 40 fare from that timeframe, even if they share some of the same types of instrumentation..

RAL was edgy? Now I can die and say that I've heard it all. I think that most people who grew up listening to 80s musci would laugh at that statement and then tell you how un-edgy that album was in restrospect. At that time frame, it was the hair bands that were edgy, not blonde singers who sang about letting down their hair and taking off capes.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
For me, 'Rock A Little' is a natural progression from 'The Wild Heart,' rather than a reaction to the then-current sound.

I beg to differ. TWH had a lot of synth and keyboards, but RAL just took it to the extreme. It was *almost* a 180 degree turn from TWH, lyrics-wise and music-wise.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
And I know it's not a popular opinion (and I have to qualify this statement by saying that I love 'Go Insane,' so this isn't a criticism), but if most people listened to 'Go Insane' between 'The Wild Heart' and 'Rock A Little' (since it was released in the year between the two), I bet they'd cite 'Go Insane' as the most dated sounding of the three.

I absolutely agree. But put those two albums next to each other and compare the originality put into making each one, and Go Insane wins by a landslide (no pun intended!).

[jbrownsjr]

I agree with J Stew here. If I heard Go Insane on the radio and did not buy the rest of the album, my perception of LB's album would be, "Wow, that sounds just like FM."

Even though he did other songs that were experimental (Dennis' Suite, I Want You etc.) the perception because of his hits (Trouble, Go Insane, Slow Dancing) were that of a soft rock format.

I remember trying to convince so many people what a great guitarist he was (and is) and they would say, yeah but he's soft rock! I would get so frustrated, cos I knew better, but I see why they would perceive that!

The thing that bugs me about LB is that it's always someone else's fault for his perceived musical failures. He blamed Mick and FM for a while. He blamed Stevie for a long time. And now he says they are so much more ballsy cos CMcVie is gone. Same stuff, same chord progressions, slightly different arrangements, just more songs. But I love the music and the band and that's what matters.

He should enjoy his career because he is a huge success as a musician IMHO, and the people that he surrounded himself with was his own choice.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by dissention
The sound on her albums is dictated by what's currently popular most of the time.

Again, does 'Rock A Little' sound anything like "Like A Virgin," "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," or Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You"... which were massive hits in the two years Stevie was recording her album?

And can you honestly say that the sound of 'The Other Side Of The Mirror' is what was popular in 1989, and that the sound of 'Street Angel' is what was popular in 1994?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Stevie was trying to be "experimental," and I'm also not saying that she was entirely oblivious to what was popular.... but, I also don't believe that she deliberately set out to copy a particular style.
After all, what album released in the mid to late-80s didn't have a synthesizer or programmed drum pattern? Certainly not 'Go Insane.'

To my ears, there's no mistaking that the sound of a Stevie Nicks album is unlike the sound of anything else on the radio at any given time.

Originally posted by dissention
RAL was edgy? Now I can die and say that I've heard it all. I think that most people who grew up listening to 80s musci would laugh at that statement and then tell you how un-edgy that album was in restrospect. At that time frame, it was the hair bands that were edgy, not blonde singers who sang about letting down their hair and taking off capes.

When 'Rock A Little' was released, hair-bands were still about two years away from becoming what would be considered "mainstream," so they really have no place in this discussion. Besides, Stevie wasn't heavy metal, so it doesn't make sense to compare her album to a completely different genre of music.

And when I referred to "edginess," I was referring to the sound of the album, not the subject-matter of Stevie's lyrics, which is never going to sound edgy... especially not to folks who prefer listening to Dokken and Judas Priest.

I feel the album sounds "edgy" because it does not sound like any other Top 20 pop-rock album from 1985/1986.

Originally posted by dissention
I absolutely agree (about 'Go Insane' sounding dated). But put ('Rock A Little' and 'Go Insane') next to each other and compare the originality put into making each one, and Go Insane wins by a landslide (no pun intended!).

With 'Go Insane' Lindsey is really only taking things he had already been doing, and expanding upon them.
He had already been tinkering with VSOs (his altered voice on the "come on and," parts of "Hold Me," for example, and various sounds on 'Tusk' and 'Law And Order'), and he didn't invent the idea of channel-panning vocals.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the album wasn't brilliantly produced (listen to it with your headphones on, and your mouth will drop), but many of the things folks cite as being wholly original, really aren't... Lindsey was just taking already established techniques (though not necessarily widely-used ones) and running with them.
And it's all wrapped up with sythesizers, keyboards, and drum-machines... which were very much a part of what was popular at the time.

But... if it's been lost in my comments, the crux of what I'm trying to say here, is that both Lindsey AND Stevie recorded albums that, while not being totally apart from sounds that were popular at the time, were also quite different when compared to what their peers were doing.

Lindsey just happened to take things a couple steps further with his project (as he tends to do).

[sodascouts]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the album wasn't brilliantly produced (listen to it with your headphones on, and your mouth will drop), but many of the things folks cite as being wholly original, really aren't... Lindsey was just taking already established techniques (though not necessarily widely-used ones) and running with them.
And it's all wrapped up with sythesizers, keyboards, and drum-machines... which were very much a part of what was popular at the time.

I'll refrain from commenting on RAL, lol, and just say that I developed a new appreciation for Go Insane when I listened to it with a decent speaker system- 5 speaker surround makes me finally understand what people were talking about when they called it a "sonic experience." My crappy speakers had kept me from hearing all the nuances. It's a shame.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by CarneVaca
Your recollection is accurate. But does it prove that the acoustic guitar is the foundation of the song? Not by a long stretch. If you rip the siding off the house, does the house still stand? Yes. Does the house lose something? Yes.

I could claim that it’s one of those Buckingham sonic paintings where the missing of one element will cause the house to fall apart. But nah, that would be stretching it too far. Even by my standards.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
To be fair, I never said 'Rock A Little' was "experimental," only that it's quite different from the sound of 'Bella Donna' four years before it, and it just baffles me sometimes that Stevie gets chided for doing something different, when Lindsey is lauded for it.

That’s probably because Bella Donna sold eight million copies and is still cited as her best and most accessible work. I definitely agree with “most accessible” because it’s more devoid of her “self-indulgences” and “over the top drama game” than her other work (not counting Street Angel). Most of the album sounds appealing to the uninitiated because you can approach it without knowing anything of Stevie Nicks beforehand and still find it a good piece of work. And those who were converted by RAL or later albums already had the strong Chiffonhead (or Nickshead, as I prefer it) qualities in them. That includes you too Johnny.

Also, because Lindsey hasn’t sold as much as Stevie he doesn’t necessarily have the same “fan package” as SN does. So he can do what he wants.

Each of her albums sounds rather different from whichever one directly preceeded it, but that seems to be more of a point of derision rather than praise.
Now, I can't say that each sound was the right choice, or that each approach was successful, but hey, she tried, and you'd think that would count for something in these discussions.

I don’t think they sound all that different but once again I will try to demonstrate that below.
I believe she didn’t consciously try to change her sound, she just went with the flow of the times and the charts. That’s far easier than trying to follow the call of the psyche without strong reservations.

She could have very easily copied the sound of 'Bella Donna,' but she didn't. Granted, she didn't exactly take a left-turn, but she certainly moved on.

The title track and “I Sing For The Things” sound like a continuation of the “Gate And Garden” vibe to me. Same old “wrap-around-my-teddybear-oh-I-wanna-be-cosy-and-warm” supposedly intimate approach, again just given the contemporary treatment. “No Spoken Word” is the equal of “If Anyone Falls” on this album. “Imperial Hotel” sounds like a Heartbreakers reject. “Some Become Strangers” and “If I Were You” I believe even you wouldn’t use as examples of a unique sound to the times. “The Nightmare” is more of the same, only through the Nicksian drone effect (and what exactly did Chris Nicks contribute to this one? *Sees Dissention waving the war-axe and ducks*) “HAEWAFY” is the typical, mainstream-drenched piano ballad (albeit a good one).

but pull out any mainstream Top 40 pop album from 1984/85/86, and find me songs that sound like…"Sister Honey," for example.

Production-wise it sounds like a mid-‘80s Prince song to me.

"I Can't Wait"

I can see your “edginess” argument with this one Johnny. There’s something truly dangerous in the way it starts when Stevie comes in and starts singing. That’s the queen of rock for me, and the last time we ever truly heard that disturbing, possessed voice of hers on a studio recording (I know some like to make a case for “FFG”, “EFO” and “RTTG”, but none of those have this disturbance). All she needed was one take and BANG! “Talk To Me” has a powerhouse vocal too but not of the same quality.

But I still don’t think it’s that unique. If you’re looking up to it as an example of how synthesizers and ‘80s production values can sound dangerous then it isn’t the only one. A similar kind of unbalanced synthesizer effect is achieved at the end of Yes’ “Owner Of A Lonely Heart”. Again, the backing track of “I Can’t Wait” for me has an atmosphere similar to Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax”, that of an imminent peril. (Trivia question, what or who connects “OOALH”, FGTH and “Docklands” to each other?) Those bursts of Fairlight just make it stronger for me (again, I know there is no Fairlight in “I Can’t Wait” but those could have been done with it too). Granted, they don’t exactly sound similar but the atmosphere links them together.

Sure, I can’t imagine Stevie necessarily listening to the ones I mentioned. But Rick Nowels most likely did. It was his backing track after all.

(Note: If Trackaghost or someone else will now come and say that I’m a blind fool for linking Stevie together with “a dated, controversial gay band devoid of talent” then I will ignore those comments. So I like “I Can’t Wait” as much as “Relax”. Whatcha gonna do about it? They’re both of equal depth for me. )

I mourn the current state of the pop singles where you could easily produce the sounds of “Relax” and “I Can’t Wait” with the cheapest equipment yet no one actually has the guts to make commercially successful songs sound that daring again.

There's an edginess to 'Rock A Little,' that can't be found in other Top 40 fare from that timeframe, even if they share some of the same types of instrumentation.

If you’re speaking of Stevie’s vocals I understand that. “I Can’t Wait” and the vocal of “Talk To Me” qualify, as do the intimacy of “Rock A Little” and “I Sing For The Things”. But other than that, I can’t agree.

For me, 'Rock A Little' is a natural progression from 'The Wild Heart,' rather than a reaction to the then-current sound.

Once again this “natural progression” is something that was required from Stevie so that she could still sell records. If she had tried to clone Bella Donna even in the mid-‘80s she would have been laughed at.
It’s a step further into the “electricity” alright. The Wild Heart, as much as I love it, is essentially a confused attempt to copy Bella Donna while trying to take in some of the values that new wave had brought about. They weren’t sure which style would dominate the decade so they didn’t exactly give in to either of them. With RAL they were sure though.

And I know it's not a popular opinion (and I have to qualify this statement by saying that I love 'Go Insane,' so this isn't a criticism), but if most people listened to 'Go Insane' between 'The Wild Heart' and 'Rock A Little' (since it was released in the year between the two), I bet they'd cite 'Go Insane' as the most dated sounding of the three.

Possibly. But then again Lindsey totally threw himself into that sound, making his guitars sound like keyboards and vice versa. It could be called over-the-top because he couldn’t foresee the returning of the ‘60s and ‘70s values by the beginning of the ‘90s back into the mainstream. I still don’t believe any album at the time sounded like it though, even Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush who I compared it to didn’t sound like that. And once again it was maybe a bit too early for it to come out. When KB’s Hounds Of Love came out the following year, it was a huge hit even though it wasn’t necessarily a progression from The Dreaming (which even many critics failed to understand at the time) that had come out three years earlier.

With Stevie’s albums I can find easy comparisons, if not always to other people’s work then to her own.

So, as with most of our conversations, this is a matter of preference and perception.

And once again I’ll sign that with my own blood.

Originally posted by [email protected]
Even though he did other songs that were experimental (Dennis' Suite, I Want You etc.) the perception because of his hits (Trouble, Go Insane, Slow Dancing) were that of a soft rock format.

I’m interested in knowing how “Go Insane” and “Slow Dancing” fit the soft-rock format. Of course if you see the Beach Boys, Talking Heads and Kate Bush (who I think influenced the tracks, but once again indirectly) as soft-rock then fine.

“Trouble” as soft-rock? Ok, maybe it does give that impression. But then again many have accused Burt Bacharach’s ‘60s productions of being “muzak”. That’s another false image that bugs me. Bacharach has soared in appreciation since then, many of his productions and writings are seen as classic, emotionally devastating popular music. That’s what they are for me and that’s what Lindsey’s work is for me. “Trouble” is one of the best examples of that. I’m not going to claim it has a great lyric or that it’s a great song. But arrangement-wise it’s not a hair worse than anything Brian Wilson or Bacharach pulled off during their golden era. It’s a work of inherent subtlety, of high craftmanship and skill. It’s easy to take a bunch of generic power chords and shout in blind rage. It’s easy to take any new musical toy and let it make any noise imaginable. It’s easy to do a hookless confessional serious drone like “Welcome To The Room… Sara”. But it’s difficult to do something like “Trouble”. It’s difficult to create a musical piece that is thoroughly memorable and appealing, subtle and thought-provoking. And it is the precursor of “Gypsy”, at least to these ears.

For me something like “Warm Ways” is the epitome of soft-rock. It’s also something that sounds more fitting of the Welch era line-up. (No insults intended, I like the song.)

Originally posted by [email protected]
The thing that bugs me about LB is that it's always someone else's fault for his perceived musical failures. He blamed Mick and FM for a while. He blamed Stevie for a long time.

He should enjoy his career because he is a huge success as a musician IMHO, and the people that he surrounded himself with was his own choice.

Do you think he even wanted to leave FM before they started making Rumours? He obviously had no problem at that point. But the gigantic sales eventually became a problem for him. He knew they had reached their peak in the format they were working in. So what do you do after that? You either go down quality-wise or you go sideways, you start taking different approaches. Which is what he did. He shook a lot of audience off his back with Tusk. Yet no underground elitists, no punk followers and “trendy” youngsters seemed to be interested in his work. That was because of his association with FM, because of his association with selling out and writing music for Americans leading a middle-of-the-road life. There is no other reason to that. If the elitists would have picked up on his work then he would have had another audience.

I do realize that he might have been embittered by Stevie’s success. But I do believe he had a right to feel that way. Stevie didn’t overshadow only LB, she also overshadowed Chris and the other players of FM. “The powerful frontperson syndrome” in full effect.

From your earlier post:

Someone made the point that if it weren't for SNicks he might be as obsure as Bob Welch, that's arguably true.

And if it wasn’t for Lindsey Buckingham then Stevie Nicks would have been a more amateurish version of Joni Mitchell. She might have managed a successful album or two during the singer-songwriter era but that’s about it. The woman rose to prominence as a performer because Buckingham was there besides her. It was he who reacted to Stevie’s vocal intensity during “Rhiannon” with his guitar, thus providing the perfect background. It was he who arranged the piano demo of “Rhiannon” as a rocker. That image, along with the one in “Dreams”, is something Stevie still leans on. The success of her solo career was already built on familiar building blocks, she operated within the borders that she had defined with Buckingham by her side.

So when a lot of people just focused on Stevie and ignored LB’s and FM’s contributions to her work, then it must have bothered Lindsey. And it bothers me too.

I can identify with your experience, some people can tell me the same things about FM and LB too. It’s the same old “commercial sell-out crap” argument that even in these days can lift up its ugly head. In the future we won’t have to hear much of those, though.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
And can you honestly say that the sound of 'The Other Side Of The Mirror' is what was popular in 1989, and that the sound of 'Street Angel' is what was popular in 1994?

TOSOTM sounds like contemporary Tina Turner work to me. And Street Angel may not have sold much but it focused once again on the classic ‘60s-‘70s treatments because the mainstream was once again following that pattern. I remember that you posted something about Out Of The Cradle, Street Angel and Time being flops because in the early ‘90s it was uncool to like anything about FM, in any way or form.

I also don't believe that she deliberately set out to copy a particular style.
After all, what album released in the mid to late-80s didn't have a synthesizer or programmed drum pattern? Certainly not 'Go Insane.'

It’s also about which sides of the technology available one is willing to examine. I certainly don’t believe that Stevie and her helpers were exploring everything available to them. Lindsey was and yet he still doesn’t come off like he’s doing random studio experimentation.

To my ears, there's no mistaking that the sound of a Stevie Nicks album is unlike the sound of anything else on the radio at any given time.

And to my mind that’s because you’re a fan of hers and you always relate to the voice and the lyrics first. I adore her too but sometimes I just think that I wouldn’t give a damn about a lot of her work if someone else was singing it.

When 'Rock A Little' was released, hair-bands were still about two years away from becoming what would be considered "mainstream," so they really have no place in this discussion.

I agree with them not relating to this discussion but then again I’m nitpicking again when I say that Van Halen, who were the fathers of all hair-bands, were at the peak of their popularity with the release of their 1984 album not too long before the release of RAL.

With 'Go Insane' Lindsey is really only taking things he had already been doing, and expanding upon them.
He had already been tinkering with VSOs (his altered voice on the "come on and," parts of "Hold Me," for example, and various sounds on 'Tusk' and 'Law And Order'), and he didn't invent the idea of channel-panning vocals.

Yeah, that’s the same point that [email protected] made. “Same stuff, same chord progressions, slightly different arrangements, just more songs.” Well I guess at least you, Johnny, know already that I think there hasn’t really been anything genuinely new in rock and roll since the whole punk/new wave “turnaround”. It was the final spit of anger that even furthered the fractured musical scene after the original hippie counterculture had ceased to exist. Nothing new has really been invented since then and definitely nothing genuinely new has been brought to the mainstream. It’s the same stuff all over again, although more contemporary and post-modern. You won’t get as many classic songs from our times as you will get from the ‘60s and the ‘70s when the chord progressions of the popular music combined with the possibilities that electric instruments offered still seemed limitless. You ran out of ideas in that area eventually. It is within tone colour variations and rhythmic subtleties where you can still make your work seem at least somewhat fresh. That’s why I think Lindsey Buckingham is in a very good position right now. He doesn’t need to change his way of writing songs, he can change the way he arranges and records them. He can make the lines in his sonic painting bolder or vaguer. There’s no way “Murrow” would have the disturbing bite it has now if he had tried it during the making of OOTC. And there’s no way “Red Rover” would have its unique atmospheric uplift until now. When the times get tougher the going gets tougher. He reflects on that but he never chooses to follow a certain pattern. It’s still like watching a child at play, a child who can still find new things from his limitations.

A coda then. The following is a modified part of another essay of mine at the BuckinghamNicks.net board. It’s another of my manifestations on why I prefer Buckingham to Nicks:

I love FM because of the personalities they had in every track; Stevie’s tracks always had Lindsey’s large stamp on them (ok, a bit less on TITN I guess). But every time Chris added her voice or John added a bass part or Mick added his drums it became something else, it was a Fleetwood Mac song. It wasn’t just Stevie’s personality in there, it was the whole group and that made it stronger. A “group collaborative” makes the music fuller, although I don’t think it necessarily makes it better.

When she went solo it changed. It was her personality alone that was being expressed in there, and not in the instruments but mainly the vocals. Again, it doesn’t bother me that much during Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, those have good quality band work, but for the albums done after that it does. I still care for RAL, TOSOTM, SA and TISL and I think they all have good qualities but the group statement that FM had and even BD and TWH had to some extent, was gone. It’s a bunch of session musicians on her albums these days and I don’t feel those guys add their own musical personalities in there. For me it is a drawback. It’s Stevie’s personality filtered through some treatments that are very bound to the mainstream. I certainly don’t believe the producers are leaving their independent stamps on them; their motivation is to work with someone who’s a legend and get a living or whatever. For them it’s business as usual, it’s nothing born out of personal need.

With Lindsey it’s different. Here’s a man after all, who doesn’t feel the need to release albums in regular intervals; I believe he’s making music because he has this inner need to do it. It’s the same with Stevie but not with her solo producers. I feel that Lindsey’s guitars and arrangements express as much in Stevie’s songs as Stevie does vocally. He is so much in control of his studio work that every sound he puts in there expresses his personality only. There is no need for outer filters (and possible corruptions of his intentions).

Ok, I didn’t exactly mind Burt Bacharach’s or Brian Wilson’s complete control on their studio work. Their arrangements had their individual stamps on them all over the place. When Dionne Warwick sang a Bacharach song it wasn’t just her powerful vocal abilities, it was also Burt’s persona.

But I don’t get that on Stevie Nicks albums. With RAL the group contributions started to rapidly lessen. During TOSOTM it’s just a bunch of session musicians playing their routine parts. Tony Levin is one of my favourite bass players and his performance on the album still leaves me cold, unlike his classic work on the ‘80s King Crimson albums, for instance. I could say the same for “I Miss You”, where I feel Lindsey is totally neutralized. Again, I think Rupert Hine dominates TOSOTM far too much and his dominance isn’t the one I happen to thoroughly like.

Street Angel and TISL have been struggling between the group approach and the random studio musicians approach. Street Angel may have more of a band in it but the songs are nowhere near Bella Donna or TWH quality, except for “Blue Denim”. And TISL sounds like its once again bowing to the TOSOTM approach.

Of course I don’t believe Stevie is a puppet on a string during the recording process. I believe she at least approved of all of these at the time and I believe she didn’t have to be persuaded to accept most of it. But this material still has Stevie’s personality coming to us through a filter of sorts, unlike her demos (which she seems to be unwilling to release). I love the woman, I don’t love the filter. Fine, she may have approved of all of this. But I certainly won’t start calling her the queen of rock because of all of this. Neither is she the greatest musical feminist of our times. For that you need to look for Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Bjork or someone else. Every sound on their records reeks of them. They may use other players but it’s still their personality that comes through everything in there, every sound of it. It doesn’t happen with Stevie’s solo work.

If someone here thinks I’m just a blind Lindsey-follower, let it be said that I love Stevie almost as much. Her solo work just lacks the thing that FM albums have, while with Lindsey the feeling isn’t that strong. None of this is meant as a denigration of Nicks or a way to convert any Nickshead. This is just how I feel, even though it does come off as cold-blooded rationalization.

Dear lord. It’s the “WISYA appreciation thread”. “Again and again, over and over…"

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by face of glass
I still don’t believe any album at the time sounded like ('Go Insane') though, even Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush who I compared it to didn’t sound like that.

With Stevie’s albums I can find easy comparisons, if not always to other people’s work then to her own.

I love FM because of the personalities they had in every track; Stevie’s tracks always had Lindsey’s large stamp on them (ok, a bit less on TITN I guess). But every time Chris added her voice or John added a bass part or Mick added his drums it became something else, it was a Fleetwood Mac song. It wasn’t just Stevie’s personality in there, it was the whole group and that made it stronger. A “group collaborative” makes the music fuller, although I don’t think it necessarily makes it better.

When she went solo it changed. It was her personality alone that was being expressed in there, and not in the instruments but mainly the vocals. Again, it doesn’t bother me that much during Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, those have good quality band work, but for the albums done after that it does. I still care for RAL, TOSOTM, SA and TISL and I think they all have good qualities but the group statement that FM had and even BD and TWH had to some extent, was gone. It’s a bunch of session musicians on her albums these days and I don’t feel those guys add their own musical personalities in there. For me it is a drawback. It’s Stevie’s personality filtered through some treatments that are very bound to the mainstream. I certainly don’t believe the producers are leaving their independent stamps on them; their motivation is to work with someone who’s a legend and get a living or whatever. For them it’s business as usual, it’s nothing born out of personal need.

With Lindsey it’s different. Here’s a man after all, who doesn’t feel the need to release albums in regular intervals; I believe he’s making music because he has this inner need to do it. It’s the same with Stevie but not with her solo producers. I feel that Lindsey’s guitars and arrangements express as much in Stevie’s songs as Stevie does vocally. He is so much in control of his studio work that every sound he puts in there expresses his personality only. There is no need for outer filters (and possible corruptions of his intentions).

It goes back to what I was trying to say before (though may not have made clear)... I don't think Stevie was oblivious to the "sound" of the '80s, when it came time to record her albums... but I don't think Lindsey was either.

When I listen to 'Go Insane,' I hear a lot of the influence of Devo, Thomas Dolby and The Cars (the latter most likely because Roy Thomas Baker oversaw the production of 'Go Insane').

Like I said before... Lindsey didn't invent anything with 'Go Insane'... he just took certain things and explored them further.

When it comes to Lindsey and Stevie, it's their personalities that truly shape the sound of their albums, no matter what else is going on in the background.
Just as you feel a Stevie song would lose its appeal if someone else sang it (and I'm not disagreeing), I feel something like "Loving Cup," or "I Want You," or "I Must Go," would lose its appeal if Lindsey's quirky production wasn't propelling the track.

And sure, many of Stevie's songs have a direct predecessor, but that doesn't mean she's run out of things to say... Lindsey "repeats" himself too, after all.
We've talked about leit-motif before, and as I've said, I completely love it when you can listen to an artist's body of work and find the connective thread that goes thru it all.

You feel that Stevie's Fleetwood Mac songs are better because the rest of the band is adding their personality to the overall sound... and that's cool because it's your opinion.
I consider myself a MAJOR Fleetwood Mac fan, but when it comes to Stevie, I tend to gravitate more towards her solo work, because I feel that's when her personality comes out the most. It's her album, so it should be her personality that drives the sound.

I don't buy a Stevie Nicks album to hear a Waddy Wachtel guitar solo, or to hear Benmont Tench playing keyboards. I buy it because of Stevie Nicks... not the producer or the session-musicians.

I've never said or believed that there's anything particularly innovative about the production of Stevie's albums, and some people definitely feel they're far too mainstream.
Perhaps they are... but, at the same time, Stevie possesses such a unique voice, both lyrically and literally, that the production (in my humble opinion) should always be secondary.

It would be a great disservice to Stevie if her producers put their personality onto the tracks in some major way.

Lindsey may seem to have the leg up, because he can get his music across without any filters... but, on the flip-side of the coin, LB can sometimes get too preoccupied with chasing that elusive sound, and the heart of the song can sometimes get lost in the translation (or buried so deeply, that it takes the most devoted of fans to find it... just as you feel it takes the most devoted of fans to appreciate Stevie's demos).

Both approaches have their pros and their cons... again, it's all about what appeals most to those of us who care enough to listen.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by trackaghost
I started to read this but then what's the point. You seem determined to pit Lindsey and Stevie against one another.

Just read what I have to say next even if you don’t want to read any of my posts ever again.

I don’t want to pit them against each other. I wrote about that at the tail end of last year; it’s apples and oranges we’re talking about here. Lindsey is the art-rocker, the occasionally analytical self-conscious sonic painter. Stevie is the sincere confessionalist. It’s like comparing progressive rock to blues. It’s like comparing European musical values to American ones. It isn’t to say that Lindsey’s more devoid of feelings than Stevie and it isn’t to say that Stevie’s less intellectual than Lindsey. That’s oversimplifying the case.

The other thing that bothers me is that you always say "you're only saying that because you are a fan" but obviously a lot of your opinions and feelings about Lindsey's work is due to the fact you are a diehard Lindsey fan too! You need to be a fan to appreciate certain elements of his work.

Yeah, I always say that. But it’s because Lindsey has the skills to change the songs into appealing products for the mankind (without the overt banalities and the questioning approach) while Stevie doesn’t; her demos would be closer to the final work if she had them. I believe she doesn’t have the understanding of music on the larger scale, the necessary skills to bring a track to its completion. That’s why there’s the likeliness of the misinterpretation of her intentions in the studio.

I know you don't rate Stevie's solo work as highly as her stuff with Fleetwood Mac, but I do. I have an emotional connection to it, and I love it.

You know I love the woman. I love 50% of the songs she’s done during her solo career. With the rest I have mixed feelings; I like some of them and some just leave me cold.

Sure, it might have looked like I tried to rip RAL to shreds there but truth be told, I really like that album. I don’t care for “Imperial Hotel” or “Some Become Strangers” but the rest I can totally live with and I’m really glad half of those songs exist. “HAEWAFY” has never failed to put a tear into my eye and “I Can’t Wait” sends shivers down my spine.

So, why do I write this stuff? I still feel Lindsey is too underrated in the area of his main contributions; the arrangements. Too many people have been focusing on Stevie throughout the years. It bothers me to read reports of the Dance tour where some women in the audience yelled “Stevie, Stevie!” throughout “Big Love” when she wasn’t even on stage. Again, I think Lindsey should be mentioned in the same breath with Anderson/Ulvaeus, Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach when we start to speak of the greatest producers of our times. I think that’s how huge his contribution to the Rumours line-up has been. But obviously we all just have to wait for that to happen.

Also, I wouldn’t write any of this if I felt that I was completely satisfied with everything Stevie has released. I’m not. Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, fine. But the rest? Too mainstream for me. Too safe, too conscious attempts to retain the biggest audience possible. It’s not the “other side of Stevie Nicks” for me, it’s the same side presented through more compromises than on FM albums.

Stevie was one of your very first musical loves, Sharon. You never lost your love for her but you also started to gravitate towards the alternative acts, the cool indie names. FM and Stevie have never been cool to the people who regularly listened to the hip names. You said it yourself too; if you hadn’t become a fan of hers in such an early age, you probably would have never later found her the way you did when you were younger. Ask yourself, would you care for Stevie’s solo albums if it was someone else singing the songs? Would you care for them if they had lyrics done in a different style? Were they typical of the other music you listened to at the time? I know you think she’s closer to Patti Smith than Pat Benatar but that I think is because of her voice, not because of the music she’s chose to put out.

I was not raised to listen to Stevie Nicks and the Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac. I found them during my later years. I’m not even supposed to like them if I wanted to follow the usual underground conventions that I followed for many years. I hate it when I hear stuff like “Stevie Nicks ruined FM, she sold them out”. I’m not exactly clear in my opinions on this matter. A part of me laughs at most of the clothes she’s worn and at her dramatic gestures. A part of me identifies with what she sings and wants to follow her anywhere. Sometimes I want to rip her to shreds because of the huge shadow she cast on the members of FM. Sometimes I just ignore all that.

It ain’t easy when I have this anal retentive attitude towards my posts too. But if I truly wanted to pit Lindsey and Stevie against each other then I’d resort to personal remarks, stuff about Stevie’s weight and persona (vs. stuff about Lindsey’s quirkiness and dominative side). I hate those remarks as much as most of us do. It has nothing to do with music, the persons who post that stuff are either mean and playing Devil’s advocate or just prefer LB or SN significantly over the other. It’s worthless and a waste of everyone’s time.

I know you think of me as some kind of bitter old fool. That I’m too cold and it seems like I don’t enjoy music like others do. Well I think I do love it as much as others. I can analyse it but I can also enjoy it totally without any rationalization whatsoever. I’ve accepted the fact that you do not wish to exchange PM’s with me anymore because of all of this but I still would have appreciated you telling me that directly instead of keeping completely silent. Or is that too frank for you Brits?

You should probably avoid my reply to Johnny Stew too.

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
It goes back to what I was trying to say before (though may not have made clear)... I don't think Stevie was oblivious to the "sound" of the '80s, when it came time to record her albums... but I don't think Lindsey was either.

You made it clear enough. I wasn’t trying to make a case of Lindsey being totally unique and living inside a cave and coming to save the world with his idiosyncrasy every once in a while.

When I listen to 'Go Insane,' I hear a lot of the influence of Devo, Thomas Dolby and The Cars (the latter most likely because Roy Thomas Baker oversaw the production of 'Go Insane').

Like I said before... Lindsey didn't invent anything with 'Go Insane'... he just took certain things and explored them further.

Of course there are influences, after all the whole new technology had swallowed the mainstream with it by 1984. Then again I don’t believe Stevie has really explored anything further during her solo career but of course you feel differently. I’m interested in knowing how you hear Devo in there, though.

However it isn’t really about that. Buckingham is akin to the classic British pop eccentrics like Roy Wood, Brian Eno and David Bowie in that he’s not afraid of taking influences from many things around him and then adapting those to his own sound. Or creating a bizarre pastiche, like he did with some of Law And Order. These guys were completely conscious of what was happening at the time yet they never came off as mimicking something in particular. They just went nuts into all directions and came up with totally sincere, unique artistic portraits. That’s far more than just adapting to the sounds that were popular at the time.

Like I said, Stevie has none of that in her solo albums. Adopting other approaches and influences on the wider scale has never been her thing.

Just as you feel a Stevie song would lose its appeal if someone else sang it (and I'm not disagreeing), I feel something like "Loving Cup," or "I Want You," or "I Must Go," would lose its appeal if Lindsey's quirky production wasn't propelling the track.

I’ve never made a case of him being a great songwriter. I’ve recognized Chris’ superiority in this area and I think Stevie is equal to him. And I agree with you on these songs.

And sure, many of Stevie's songs have a direct predecessor, but that doesn't mean she's run out of things to say... Lindsey "repeats" himself too, after all.
We've talked about leit-motif before, and as I've said, I completely love it when you can listen to an artist's body of work and find the connective thread that goes thru it all.

Like I said before, I don’t care how much he reuses the same chords (after all, he’s admitted he only knows a few keys) and I don’t care if he recycles an idea of his very obviously every now and then. He always puts his old ideas into new atmospheres. “Big Love”, “Doing What I Can” and “Miranda” have different feels to me. The continuation of the same theme, with its energy pumped to the max the second time and into suicidal chaos the third time. That’s why I don’t mind Lindsey recycling himself. With Stevie I mind though. It all sounds like it’s made of the same wood with the same two or three atmospheres all over the place. She doesn’t have the same grasp of the large scale structure as Lindsey does. Discussed in more detail below.

I consider myself a MAJOR Fleetwood Mac fan, but when it comes to Stevie, I tend to gravitate more towards her solo work, because I feel that's when her personality comes out the most. It's her album, so it should be her personality that drives the sound.

It certainly doesn’t sound to me like it’s her personality throughout in there. Many of those instrumental parts sound routine and non-intrusive. Sure, they don’t always take anything away from the main star that is Nicks. But they also prevent her from exposing certain sides of her, those that only come out when she is with Buckingham/Fleetwood Mac. As I’ve stated before, I don’t feel her solo albums give us anything really different from what we’ve had with Fleetwood Mac.

I get her personality unfiltered in her demos. Now that’s where she can be at her most sincere. But I feel a lot of the backing on the final versions can be truly nondescript. Static, safe, maybe even uncommitted. A bunch of guys drafted in to play a particular part and then made sure they never step outside the well-defined borders. After all by this point the majority of the public has a good conception of what a Nickssong should be. Surely you can’t shatter their illusions?

Ok. The main point is here that for most Nicksheads Stevie’s intimate performances and lyrics are enough. She’s sincere and heartfelt in every song of hers. Surely that should be enough? For me it gets tiresome. Same old seriousness in music (not in interviews, I know), same old chord progressions and same old, almost stream of consciousness lyrics. It isn’t songwriting to me anymore. It’s blues. If you, Johnny, feel that Lindsey can impress you aurally but sometimes he just doesn’t move you enough, then for me Stevie could potentially move me enough but it just doesn’t happen because of the thorough uniformity in her music. I always get her sincere, I always get her confessional. At that point I start to think: “ok, show me you’re talented and make your music sound different. Don’t pretend it’s that subtle, give me some obvious differences in atmosphere. Show me you’re not that one-sided in your music. Make me laugh, make me giddy.” But she just doesn’t give me that.

Couple that with the fact that I hear very little true emotion in the backing tracks of Stevie’s studio albums these days and it can get truly irritating. I don’t listen to the performance as much as you do Johnny. I want to hear emotion in music too. Hence the 50-50 credit between Buckingham and Nicks on Stevie’s FM songs.

…at the same time, Stevie possesses such a unique voice, both lyrically and literally, that the production (in my humble opinion) should always be secondary.

When I’m unable to see the subtlety in her writing I start to look for variation in music. I don’t get that. That’s why Stevie’s solo albums are always secondary to the real thing for me.

It would be a great disservice to Stevie if her producers put their personality onto the tracks in some major way.

With the various people going in and out the studio door during the making of TISL I’m not surprised that it doesn’t have any particular stamp on it at all. If this is the way her studio albums will be in the future then it isn’t the best possible direction.

Lindsey may seem to have the leg up, because he can get his music across without any filters... but, on the flip-side of the coin, LB can sometimes get too preoccupied with chasing that elusive sound, and the heart of the song can sometimes get lost in the translation (or buried so deeply, that it takes the most devoted of fans to find it... just as you feel it takes the most devoted of fans to appreciate Stevie's demos).

Yeah, I think of him as a painter but it doesn’t mean like he’s completely modernistic and has abandoned any semblance of a memorable structure. That’s his musical background after all. If you’re thinking of something like “Play In The Rain” getting “lost in the translation” then I won’t join you there. I think it is a memorable track. It has plenty of catchy riffage and powerful images that come to my head when I listen to it. It’s not a song, it’s a sonic painting with obvious lines for us to latch on to. If you want to hear something that has the experimental approach but abandons memorability, go listen to Can’s “Aumgn”. Or Amon Düül II’s “Chamsin Soundtrack”. Or Captain Beefheart’s “When Big Joan Sets Up”. Those have the painting ideas and you can’t really attach yourself to anything else in there. Listen to those and then come and tell me Lindsey loses the heart of the song. He isn’t that experimental, he has a good understanding of the unusual and the conventional and he stays admirably in between the too.

Both approaches have their pros and their cons... again, it's all about what appeals most to those of us who care enough to listen.

So be it. I want more than the moving performance, I want the powerful music too. For you the former is enough. But somehow I feel that this debate will resurface later again.

[shackin'up]

Originally posted by trackaghost


Damn, I hate writing long posts.

BUT: You say many accurate things that make me think about stevie's role on tusk. I agree with you there, i think. And you're one of the only ledgies who declares that OOTC is too slick in terms of production. Agreed again. Nobody ever responded on my repetative comments on the friggin' emotionless drumsound on that album. If he had used mick on that one it could have reached so many more people... It's the "band-feel" that misses on that album, although I know that was not what he was looking for. It's weird that tusk does have that feel. Even in the "one-man-band"-songs on that album....

gerald

[Les]

Originally posted by trackaghost
Take it how you like, and I know I'll be berated as being a "feminist" or whatever, because I'm annoyed with that, but whatever, I'm just calling it how I see it. Obviously Lindsey needs to listen to artists like PJ Harvey or Bjork.

Hey, there's no berating necessary if you're a feminist. Say it loud and proud! I'm right there with you.

I see how the comment seems condescending. I don't really think it was meant that way. As Carne said, he may simply have been answering an extremely familiar question for the 8593rd time and just didn't weigh his words. Personally, if it means anything particularly meaningful at all, I think the whole "femaleness" comment does relate to attitude and it especially relates to a willingness to be a little more adventurous or experimental within Fleetwood Mac.

I say specifically within Fleetwood Mac, because as Gaius pointed out, Lindsey still to this day points to the very experimental (and female) Laurie Anderson as an important and favorite artist.

But within Fleetwood Mac, I think Stevie and Christine were/are the most vociferous against wanting to try something a little off the beaten track. Stevie just as recently as this last year said she views it as part of her role in FM to argue against Lindsey's radical ideas. Bob Welch has said Christine was very much opposed (and sometimes unpleasantly so) to ideas that were out of the mainstream.

I'm not suggesting Stevie and Christine shouldn't have their opinions and make their arguments against experimentation as strongly as he made his arguments for it. But if he ever had allies in the band for experimentation, it came from the men in the band (particularly Mick), not from the women. I think that probably informs his comment to a large degree. He equates a "softness" to an unwillingness to challenge conventions. Frankly, I don't think it's far-fetched, based on some of Stevie's comments through the years, that she equates his wanting to challenge conventions to a hard-headed stubborn "maleness".

It made me laugh in that Virgin interview when Lindsey said his solo work was never meant to be as commercial as his stuff with Fleetwood Mac, because there's lots of poppy stuff on all his solo albums in particular Out Of The Cradle.

Do you think he's just lying to cover up for what, I'm guessing, you sort of see as failures, even though you like his work? I think Lindsey's always been pretty honest about assessing how audiences perceive him, and knowing he's never set himself up very well to gain mainstream appeal. Besides, I think I disagree with you. Except for the few singles that were released from Law & Order and Go Insane (Trouble, Go Insane, Slow Dancing), I don't hear much of anything that would have been welcomed on radio at the time. Lindsey has even said that he thinks if people bought Law & Order thinking it was all going to sound like Trouble, they were probably sorely disappointed, hehe.

Cradle was a different creature where he was consciously trying to reconcile his experimental side with his pop side. But the climate in 1992 was not a friendly one for someone like him. Had he cemented himself as a radio hit in some niche as a solo artist in the early 80s, he might have had a chance. But he didn't, and the dynamic that Gauis has mentioned was in full bloom - "Lindsey of MOR Fleetwood Mac" was too square for alternative radio and "Lindsey weirdo solo artist" didn't have the reputation for mainstream radio -- regardless of what the music sounded like.

It's very easy after the event to say "well, that wasn't meant for a mass audience" when it didn't do well.

That's true. It could all be an elaborate excuse. But I think you can go back 25 years and see quotes from Lindsey where he recognizes he isn't making mainstream stuff that will appeal to everybody. There are a lot of things Lindsey could have done differently to be more popular, but he didn't do them. Since he has only released three solo albums over the course of his career, and he generally tries to resist the pressures and conventions labels try to impose, I think there is some reason to take him at his word. That's just me.

[David]

Originally posted by Les
I see how the comment seems condescending. I don't really think it was meant that way. As Carne said, he may simply have been answering an extremely familiar question for the 8593rd time and just didn't weigh his words. Personally, if it means anything particularly meaningful at all, I think the whole "femaleness" comment does relate to attitude and it especially relates to a willingness to be a little more adventurous or experimental within Fleetwood Mac.

I remember Kate Bush talking about the "female side" of her music in 1989 & how it came to the fore on the "Sensual World" album -- I assume she was referring to thematic (the Molly Bloom soliloquy of the title track) as well as musical (the incorporation of the Trio Bulgarka into several tracks creating a banshee-like sound or the use of pentatonic & other eastern modes of scale-building) concerns. I think Kate was also referring to a longstanding -- & perfectly valid -- distinction between "male" & "female" traits in rock music: the heavy distortion & volume & kicking tempi of the former, & the reflective, subdued, more lyrical essence of the latter. It may strike some of us as unfairly or even inaccurately locked into unnecessary or outmoded gender categories, but it's a distinction that has been made for decades. You can hear it in terms like "cock rock" & all the adjectives used to describe the Lillith Fair roster of performers.

I think Lindsey refers to "male" & "female" characteristics of music in this way. I seem to remember his saying that, since Christine & Stevie generally wrote ballads -- the more languid, introspective, lyrical pieces -- it sort of fell to him to provide the balls-to-the-walls, wailing lead guitar sort of songs that every rock band needs to provide, at least periodically.

[wondergirl9847]

Well, I can just add to this thread that there are of course, songs that have a guitar or musical part that touches my soul more than any lyric EVER could. Case in point: Go Insane from the OOTC Washington DC show (the one Nancy has on her site) and of course, the difinitive...ISA from the Dance. Sure, I love the lyrics to BOTH songs, but it's not the lyrics that really get me, it's the guitar playing. Also, the music in Red Rover....brings me to tears.

I've always listened to songs musically first, then, sat down to soak in the lyrics...so they are secondary for me. Which is weird, as I write poetry...LOL