REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham is an upbeat, frequently delightful album 8/10

Lindsey Buckingham tips his hat to ’60s pop on solo album

By Sam Richards

RIFF Magazine

8/10

After what nearly amounted to a Fleetwood Mac reunion album with 2017’s Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, the first solo album from Lindsey Buckingham in a decade sounds as if it could have been the second disc of the fine 2011 solo release Seeds We Sow.

That isn’t a bad thing at all; far from it. The new self-titled album is full of songs that meld pop hooks ranging from pleasant to glorious with instrumentation—layers of acoustic guitars, in particular—that give the songs a subtle edge while maintaining, even magnifying, their sweetness.

Where Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie seemed to be striving for the sound of the late 1970s and mid-1980s glory years of Fleetwood Mac, the new solo album turns back inward. Lindsey Buckingham, like most of Seeds We Sow, is a true solo effort, with the guitarist playing all the instruments and doing all the singing. And if there’s a lack of the immediacy of his classics like “Go Your Own Way,”  “Monday Morning” or “Big Love,” there’s a depth of musicality that hits just as fast, if not quite as hard.

REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham Fresh Songs with a Classic Mac Sound

Lindsey Buckingham album review: Fresh songs with a classic Mac sound
If we ever get bored of those greatest hits, this will be a handy addition to the canon

By David Smyth

Evening Standard UK

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Over four decades since the release of their biggest album, the world seems hungrier than ever for the music of Fleetwood Mac. The turbulent band’s greatest hits collection, 50 Years – Don’t Stop, has been in the UK top 20 all year, while that giant album, Rumours, is at 22 today – its 905th week on the chart. Possible explanatory factors include the death of founding member Peter Green last year, and the band’s song Dreams appearing in a viral TikTok video, but more likely it’s just that these sounds of the Seventies don’t appear to lose any appeal across the generations. Queen, Elton John and the newly recording ABBA are also in the top 20 this week, so it can’t just be your mum playing them for the 905th time.

Fresh music is thinner on the ground, however. The closest we’ve come to a new Fleetwood Mac album since 2003 was a 2017 recording that featured four main members, but not Stevie Nicks, and ended up being called Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie. Nicks was also responsible for the ousting of Buckingham from the band before their last tour, across 2018 and 2019, in what was reportedly an “either he goes or I do” situation.

As Rumours proved, the friction between these former lovers often makes for the best music. However, there’s not much on his seventh solo album to suggest that Buckingham is still taking inspiration from that particular battle. I Don’t Mind, with lines such as: “Where there’s joy there must be sorrow/Never far apart,” is more likely about Kristen Messner, who filed for divorce from him after two decades of marriage this summer. In any case he sounds magnanimous in the song, which easily replicates his classic sound with its bright plucked acoustic melody and breathy female backing vocals.

As long as they’re not taking sides, Mac fans will find lots to love here, including the bucking guitar solo on the racing On the Wrong Side and the sweet, easygoing chorus of Santa Rosa. There’s not much evidence of ageing in the 71-year-old’s weightless voice. There are a few missteps – the restless electronic beats of Swan Song might be intended to keep up with modern times but in fact make it sound more dated, and the closing ballad, Dancing, is a dreary finale. But if there’s ever a chance that people tire of those greatest hits, this is an appealing minor addition to the canon. 

REVIEW Lindsey Buckingham bustles with defiant spirit while leaning heavily on deeply catchy songwriting

Fleetwood Mac visionary’s stellar return

The artist's first solo album in a decade sticks to the world-beating path he’s mastered, drawing on love and lost relationships along the way.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

By Rhys Buchanan

NME

Recent world events have proved deeply frustrating for musicians of all levels – even those once central to one of the ​​best-selling groups of all time. The long dark tunnel stretches further back for Lindsey Buckingham though; after being fired from Fleetwood Mac in 2018, the visionary then faced life-saving emergency open-heart surgery in 2019 before the pandemic even hit.

He described the three life-changing punches as “a trifecta of events that were completely off the charts.” It’s no wonder then, that Buckingham finds himself picking through the rubble as well as seeking light on his seventh solo studio album ‘Lindsey Buckingham’. On his first solo studio effort post-Mac, he’s intent on staying grounded musically and emotionally.

The buoyant opener ‘Scream’ feels a fitting way to kick things off – the swift and sweet track gleefully casts those difficult and stormy days away. A sense of abandon cuts through the driving acoustic melody with innocent simplicity through the lyricism: “Lost in the language of your touch / Just like you’re wakin’ from the dream / Oh, I love you when you scream.”

One of the record’s most enchanting moments comes early on with ‘I Don’t Mind’. A figure who has been embroiled in drama and heartache throughout his career, it’s no secret that Buckingham can pen an impacting love song. The track floats with masterful melodies as the lyricism elegantly picks apart the struggles and compromise of a long-term relationship.

He’s just as effective when dealing with the more notable long-term relationship that came crashing to an acrimonious end. The rhythmic anthem of ‘On The Wrong Side’ deals with the feelings of his split with Fleetwood Mac: “I’m outta pity / I’m outta time / Another city, another crime / I’m on the wrong side”, he sings before cutting loose with a soaring emotionally charged guitar solo. There’s definitely some healing going on here.

Even the most casual Fleetwood Mac fans won’t have to look hard to uncover the band’s classic hallmarks, which are dotted all over the listen. ‘Swan Song’ packs the deep velvety guitar textures once heard during the ‘Tango In The Night’ era; elsewhere ‘Power Down’ showcases the effortless grandeur of the timeless finger-picking behind their biggest hits.

The album bustles with defiant spirit while leaning heavily on deeply catchy songwriting and production. And with Mick Fleetwood having reconciled with Buckingham back in March, it’s exactly the kind of triumphant return that could give his old band food for thought.

Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham chooses the light over the fight

REVIEW

BRAD WHEELER

The Globe and Mail

September 16, 2021

Drake and Kanye West are feuding. Meanwhile, Stevie Nicks says: “Hold my shawl.”

In the days leading up to the release of ex-bandmate Lindsey Buckingham’s new self-titled album, the fractious former Fleetwood Mac couple were once again in discord. In 2018, the latter was booted off a Fleetwood Mac tour he wanted to postpone in order to accommodate a solo tour of his own.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Buckingham blamed his dismissal from the band on Nicks, his long-ago partner. “I think she wanted to shape the band in her own image, a more mellow thing – and if you look at the last tour, I think that’s true,” he said.

In response, Nicks released a statement to the magazine: “To be exceedingly clear, I did not have him fired. I did not ask for him to be fired; I did not demand he be fired.” If one reads between the lines, the suggestion is that Nicks had nothing to do with Buckingham’s dismissal.

Has anyone thought of bringing in the comparatively harmonic Oasis brothers Liam and Neil Gallagher to mediate the latest Fleetwood Mac he-said/she-said? Probably not. “Now here you go again, you say you want your freedom,” as a great song once put it.

Which brings us to the eponymous seventh solo studio album by singer-guitarist Buckingham. It’s an acoustic, melodically agreeable affair with contemplative lyrics and restrained production. It’s deeply El Segundo – one is compelled to move West, hire an agent and embrace the earthquakes. The fury of something like Fleetwood Mac’s Big Love just isn’t there.

Don’t be misled by the title of the opening song: Scream is a good scream, a gratified scream. “Nighttime’s the time I love so much, lost in the language of your touch,” Buckingham sings, his voice drenched in familiar reverb. It sounds like it could have been written for a Fleetwood Mac album – and maybe it was.

The verse of I Don’t Mind is a more whispery Nirvana, but the chorus is sweet and sun-drenched. Though the third track On the Wrong Side is more up-tempo, its mood is wistful. Pretty guitar solos wind down to their destinations, like a top-down coupe on a coastal highway. Being on the wrong side of 70 seems to be what the 71-year-old is contemplating:

Time is rolling down the road

Now goes right in a hearse

We were young and never old

Who can tell me which is worse?

There’s a retro vibe at work. Blind Love is dreamy pop from the Ricky Nelson era, and a haunting cover of the sixties folk song Time (originally recorded by the Pozo-Seco Singers) conjures a Roy Orbison-Brian Wilson duet.

There are moments of cocaine-fueled tangos. And Santa Rosa could be a breakup song. Still, there’s more gentle resignation than fight to the record. The word “compromise” even comes up. One might even say the album is mellow – the same adjective Buckingham used to describe Nicks’s vision of the modern-day Fleetwood Mac.

Seems like someone’s made a breakthrough here.

 

VIDEO Lindsey Buckingham on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Lindsey Buckingham Brings Ripping Guitar Solos to Late-Night With ‘On the Wrong Side’ Track appears on former Fleetwood Mac rocker’s new self-titled solo album

By JON BLISTEIN 

ROLLINGSTONE

Lindsey Buckingham stopped by The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to perform his new song, “On the Wrong Side,” Thursday, September 16th.

“On the Wrong Side” moves with a restless rock & roll rush, and the performance ended with some dizzying guitar soloing from Buckingham. But the most thrilling moment — perhaps unsurprisingly — were the rich, full-band harmonies on the chorus, “I’m outta pity/I’m outta time/Another city, another crime/I’m on the wrong side.”

“On the Wrong Side” appears on Buckingham’s new eponymous solo album, which arrives Friday, September 17th. Lindsey Buckingham is the singer-songwriter’s first solo album since 2011’s Seeds We Sow, although it also follows his 2017 self-titled collaborative effort with former Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie. The new solo album is Buckingham’s first record since he left Fleetwood Mac in 2018.

Earlier this month, Buckingham launched a North American tour in support of the record, and it’s set to wrap September 30th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A winter leg will kick off December 2nd in Los Angeles and end December 20th in Boulder, Colorado.

INTERVIEW Lindsey Buckingham talks new album, tour and Fleetwood Mac

Lindsey Buckingham Holds Forth On His New Self-Titled Album, How He Really Feels About Fleetwood Mac Touring Without Him

Grammy.com

by Morgan Enos

September 16, 2021

Lindsey Buckingham has taken some life situations on the chin lately, from bypass surgery to Fleetwood Mac removing him. But as his new self-titled record attests, almost nobody is better at flipping awkwardness and darkness into joyous melodies.

Lindsey Buckingham's new album comes prepackaged with obvious talking points. Crane your ear, and you can faintly hear the click-clack of MacBook keys assembling the following lede: Open-heart surgery (opens in a new tab), almost losing his voice forever(opens in a new tab), a looming divorce(opens in a new tab) (they've since thrown that into reverse(opens in a new tab)—love never fails!) and a certain über-dramatic rock institution handing him the pink slip.

But that readymade narrative leaves out the most important part, which is how it all comes out the other side of Buckingham's brain. For decades, the two-time GRAMMY winner alchemized pain and awkwardness into effervescent pop music like almost nobody else—and sold millions and millions of records as a result. How does he keep that psychological and spiritual mechanism well-oiled?

Perhaps the answer is best articulated in good ol' music: His new album, Lindsey Buckingham, which arrives September 17, is permeated with this big-picture thinking. And everything he's been through since he recorded tunes like "Scream," "I Don't Mind" and "On the Wrong Side"—honestly, the album is three years old now after a comical number of delays—gives the tunes added heft, import and longevity.

But for now, the singer/songwriter and guitarist can give it the old college try. "It's not like I'm attracted to any of the dark at all. It's just that I think it exists hand-in-hand with the light," he says over FaceTime. "There's nothing you can do about that." That was the attitude he maintained during the Jerry Springer-style lovers' fiascos that fueled Rumours, and it's how he feels today, when predicaments and headaches that "weren't on the radar" blindside him.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Buckingham during rehearsals for his current U.S. tour to discuss the long road to the new album and how he maintains a PMA (opens in a new tab) with the Sword of Damocles over his head. Near the end, he spills the tea about why he's really no longer in Fleetwood Mac.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

How's it feel to be rehearsing with your bandmates?

It's great! The camaraderie can't be beat. There's none of the politics that always were there with Fleetwood Mac. We had several attempts to get this album out over the last three years because it's been ready to go for over three years. Certain things kept getting in the way. So, we're finally here and it's good to be playing. I love it.