Style: rock, new wave
Label: Reprise/Waner Music Group
Year: 1984
Home: California
Members: Lindsey Buckingham ~ guitars/ bass/keyboards/percussion/organ/vocals
Additional: Gordon Fordyce ~ keyboards
Bryant Simpson ~ bass
You never know what you'll get with a LB solo album, which is often their biggest draw as they tend to be hit & miss affairs. Hit being startling great songs, the misses being fragmentary ideas that are too obsessed with studio wizardry & not enough focused on listenable arrangements. Further, his solo albums rarely show the lyrical depth he had with Fleetwood Mac. This second solo release hits the highs ... & lows ... of both those points. 'I Want You' & 'Go Insane' could be Fleetwood Mac. While, 'Play In The Rain' is an example of a game of studio sound effect manipulation with no reigns. The vinyl version even had a locked groove that kept the last notes going, only to begrudgingly return to a 'Part 2' on Side 2 when all you want to do is get to the next song. What the record label thought upon hearing this one wonders. Indeed, Go Insane hits the highs & the lows & the lows & the lows & the ... LB is known for loving the world of the studio & what he can do in it. His albums are his children. He makes them for himself & not for chart positions. This is a sad case because when he has a successful solo album it doesn't get heard like it should. The first LB album I ever found was in a discount bin & it's the album many critics consider to be his best. I think of David Byrne as a comparable musician in many ways, in approach, musical style, experimentation & lack of chart success. Proof is that when LB went to put out a new studio album, the label said they never sold & would only take a Fleetwood Mac album. Thus, the reunion was born & only then after a live & a studio album did his solo work finally hit the shelves & then only riding the coattails of a tour. But, for whatever the lows of his albums, my focus on later day Fleetwood Mac has always been LB. I consider the pre-LB & Stevie Nicks band a different band. I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert at the Garden last year & the highlights for me were a couple solo spots by LB where he just let things rip. I'd see him again. Fleetwood Mac is just a nostalgia band. If they came back I'd bring my spouse whose a Stevie Nicks fan. But, I've 'done' the show. The fact that they didn't play anything from their 'newest' album (i.e Say You Will) - 'new' being 7 years old - nor anything since 1987's Tango In The Night, though two albums followed albeit sans LB & Nicks ... I'd love to see a LB solo concert as I'm sure it would be full of vitality. He's a greatly under-rated guitarist with a choppy style all his own with a tired but emotive singing style that's a perfect match ... & he's even got a classy looking guitar. When he plays he shines. When he twiddles nobs he experiments. But, if you're a die-hard collector like me you buy the good with the bad just to hear something. Lindsay always promises new, without doubt & that's what we want to hear. Go insane is the perfect title as he does. He may not be seen as a guitar god, but he's definitely an inspiration.
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