The real curiosity here is, why isn\u2019t this billed as Fleetwood Mac album? After all, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie made an album as Fleetwood Mac without Christine McVie (2003\u2019s Say You Will<\/i>). The only real difference with this album, which grew out of initial band sessions dating back to late 2014 \/ early 2015, is that the band\u2019s five-person \u201cclassic\u201d lineup is still technically together, whereas Christine McVie was temporarily retired from music at the time Say You Will<\/i> was issued. (Perhaps there\u2019s something in play regarding the ownership of the band name, which CM presumably surrendered her share of when she retired, and recouped when she returned\u2026 but who really knows.)<\/p>\n
The genesis of the album is widely known by now; four-fifths of Fleetwood Mac\u2014all save Nicks, who\u2019s had the most successful solo career of any of the band\u2014were ready to go into the studio and make a new album. Nicks wavered and waffled and eventually bowed out, saying she wanted to focus on solo work for the next couple of years. The end result was that the rest of the band decided to go ahead and make an album without her.<\/p>\n
You might think the absence of the one band member who doesn\u2019t play an instrument, and who only writes and sings a third of their songs, wouldn\u2019t make all that much difference in the end. Instead this album, rather like Say You Will<\/i>, emerges as further proof of the inscrutable magic at work in the musical interplay and tension between the big three fronting Fleetwood Mac: Buckingham, McVie, and Nicks. One difference that manifests itself almost immediately is the diminished dynamic range of these tunes as compared to classic Mac; these songs, as a group, tend to be a little more straightforward, a little less precious or melodramatic as compared to when Nicks is in the mix. It\u2019s still very identifiably Mac music, and bears all the hallmarks of Buckingham\u2019s distinctive production approach (dense layers, quirky background vocal choices, shiny guitars), but it doesn\u2019t take long at all to feel like something important is missing. <\/p>\n
First-rate craftspeople that they are, of course, Buckingham and McVie almost can\u2019t help but deliver several superb tracks, and wise merchants of their own work that they are, they front-load the best. The trio of \u201cSleeping Around The Corner\u201d (Buckingham), \u201cFeel About You\u201d (McVie) and \u201cIn My World \u201c (Buckingham) opens the album in fine form, with catchy chorus following intense verse, their two voices complementing and supporting one another wonderfully. (You even get familiar touches like that synth sound that sounds like someone banging on a pipe on the typically intense \u201cIn My World.\u201d) None of these tunes is likely to make you forget classic Mac, but they\u2019re solid, appealing songs with strong hooks.<\/p>\n
From there Buckingham and McVie alternate lead vocals down the track list, though Buckingham takes co-writing credit on several of the McVie written-and-sung tunes, as well as being credited as producer\/co-producer and mixer\/co-mixer on every track. (It all makes you wonder what might have happened if someone had suggested they call this project Christine McVie Lindsey Buckingham? Whatever diplomatic excuses were offered, it seems fairly obvious why Nicks might choose solo work over months in the studio with her ex Buckingham; the laboriously detailed credits fairly scream \u201cI\u2019m a controlling bastard!\u201d)<\/p>\n
Back to the music, though; after that strong opening trio, the highlights grow increasingly fleeting. \u201cRed Sun\u201d finds McVie singing of her nostalgia for an old lover, which naturally makes you wonder which one as ex-husband John plunks away on his bass in the background. McVie\u2019s \u201cToo Far Gone\u201d is another snappy number with plenty of sexual tension in it, strong presence from Fleetwood behind the drum kit\u2026 and Buckingham\u2019s guitar dominating McVie\u2019s keys in the mix. (Sigh.) <\/p>\n
The vocals are a common strong point, with McVie\u2019s lush harmonies softening up Buckingham\u2019s lead voice on tunes like \u201cLay Down For Free,\u201d to very nice affect, while Buckingham\u2019s harmonies add an edge to McVie\u2019s typically warm delivery. (Buckingham also sings in a lower register more often here than in the past, typically double-tracking his voice rather than pushing it, likely a strategic concession to age.)<\/p>\n
For all that, once you get past the halfway mark these songs start to feel a bit colorless and samey, and missteps begin to creep in. For example: McVie\u2019s \u201cGame Of Pretend\u201d is pretty enough, but the lyric, which seems intended to be sweet, instead plays out like a textbook case of corrosive co-dependence: \u201cYou are the reason for my happiness and I am so blessed to find you \/ You take away the emptiness and I will follow, follow behind you.\u201d (Eek.) Buckingham\u2019s throwaway \u201cOn With The Show\u201d feels like a half-hearted dig at Nicks, expressing his devotion to the band and the road before devolving into a repetitive, extended outro that pads this half-a-song out to 3:47. Finally, closer \u201cCarnival Begin\u201d slumbers along for nearly four minutes before Buckingham cuts in with a sparkling, emphatic guitar solo that finishes the album off on a (literal) high note.<\/p>\n
One of the advantages the full classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac has always enjoyed is that with three songwriters and three lead voices, there\u2019s only room for the best of the best from each individual. The songs that make up the second half of Lindsey Buckingham \/ Christine McVie<\/i> feel like they probably wouldn\u2019t have made the cut for a Fleetwood Mac album that had to hold room open for contributions from Nicks; they\u2019re B- and C-level work from talents with a pretty fierce A game. <\/p>\n
Besides the absence of any songwriting or vocal contributions from Nicks, what\u2019s missing on Lindsey Buckingham \/ Christine McVie<\/i> is any real sense of creative friction, the very thing that drove and perhaps at times even tortured Fleetwood Mac into creating its best work. There\u2019s nothing here with the ferocity of \u201cGo Your Own Way,\u201d the bliss of \u201cOver My Head,\u201d the deep longing of \u201cDreams\u201d or the sheer terror of \u201cI\u2019m So Afraid.\u201d It\u2019s an album that never feels like it has big emotional stakes and never ranges far from the safe and comfortable middle, an album whose sessions have been described as having a \u201cpositive and relaxed vibe.\u201d Maybe too relaxed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10023],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-45013","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-linsdey-buckingham-christine-mcvie","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45013"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}