Lindsey Buckingham – Lindsey Buckingham

 

Lindsey Buckingham – Lindsey Buckingham

By

Jesse E. Mullen

You’ve co-led a massively successful group on and off for 43 years. You’ve written numerous hit songs, spearheaded a change in sound for your group, and have helped influence modern production techniques, while also surviving personal turmoil within your band. But what happens when that turmoil finally catches up with you?

As was the story of Lindsey Buckingham leading into 2018. The guitarist and songwriter was as famous for his chops on his instrument and studio prowess as he was for his breakup with Fleetwood Mac bandmate Stevie Nicks. That breakup inspired the timeless 1977 album Rumours, but it also left a lot of lingering tension.

This tension eventually led to Buckingham leaving the group for 10 years in 1987 but appears to have boiled over in a more permanent fashion in 2018. According to Buckingham, Nicks informed him – via Fleetwood Mac’s manager – that she “never [wanted] to share the stage” with Buckingham again.

This (allegedly) led to an ultimatum – either Fleetwood Mac fire Buckingham or Nicks would depart. The group apparently chose the former. Whatever truth to this there is, the result was the same. Buckingham was out of Fleetwood Mac.

With time to spare – following a solo tour and an excellent greatest hits box set entitled Solo Anthology – Buckingham put the finishing touches on a solo record which he intended to release in either 2019 or 2020. But a pair of issues put the brakes on his plans.

Buckingham underwent emergency open heart surgery in February 2019, which put him out of commission for the better part of a year. Further complications arose when it was revealed that one of Buckingham’s vocal cords was damaged when he was intubated during the procedure, leading to questions about the future of his singing voice.

2020 led to another complication in the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, delaying the release of the album further. One must be asking: could anything else go wrong for Buckingham from 2018 onwards? On a more personal level, the answer was sadly “yes.”

Buckingham’s wife filed for divorce in June of 2021. However, it was later reported that the couple were working on their marriage. Personal anecdotes aside, it would be easy to assume that the next Lindsey Buckingham album would be a dour affair. But then again, this was also an artist famous for finding dry humor in his relationship woes – see: “Second Hand News” and “Big Love.”

Buckingham’s new album, the self-titled Lindsey Buckingham was finally released in September 2021. The album artwork certainly would support the theory of a dour affair, with a po-faced Buckingham mugging for the camera in a black and white image – in line with the sepia-toned Gift Of Screws cover from 2008.

The resulting music resembles that album, at least on a surface level. Screws featured Buckingham at his most pastoral to date on “Time Precious Time,” as well as his most chugging melody since “Trouble” from 1981’s Law and Order in “Did You Miss Me.”

Conversely, Lindsey Buckingham also features many of the production techniques which made Tango In The Night a classic. Varispeed (pitch shifted) backing vocals, sequenced keyboards, drum machines, and “uhh-ahh(s)” are all reprised to great success. But Buckingham proves he is willing to update his sound for modern times.

“Swan Song” features syncopated techno beats and staccato vocals looped into infinity, while Buckingham shreds away on one of his glorious, fingerpicked guitar solos. Interestingly, this track originated from a session Buckingham was producing for Medicine’s Brad Laner. Laner – who primarily works within the shoegazing genre – handed Buckingham a copy of demos he had recorded, with hopes that Buckingham would find them interesting – and possibly cover one.

One of those songs intrigued Buckingham enough that he did just that – partially. “Mind’s Eye” was a song from those sessions which formed the basis for the chorus of “Swan Song.” Consequently, Laner has a co-writing credit and a share of all royalties earned. (Life lesson – sometimes it really helps to put yourself out there.)

“Power Down” mixes baggy beats with the new wave pop Buckingham has pursued in his solo career to great success. Buckingham plays the part of a lover left behind, saying he “called your name but no one was listening.” It’s one of a few hints that not all was right in his life at the time.

The other, “Santa Rosa,” deals with distance between a couple, with Buckingham warning his lover “that world is gonna close you” if she leaves. That Buckingham marries his lyrics to a major-key acoustic country groove makes it one of the melodic highlights of the album, even if it is one of the more solemn moments here.

However, not all is doom and gloom. “I Don’t Mind” shares the wisdom of an older man in a relationship – it deals with an aging couple accepting each other’s flaws. It might be the most Fleetwood Mac-like song on the album – Buckingham’s varispeed harmonies even sound a bit like Christine McVie. Layers of acoustic guitars and Buckingham’s drum machine programming add further color to the sonic landscape of the track.

“Scream” features a rising and falling vocal melody and chord progression that manages to recall “Go Your Own Way,” while some of the vocal production resembles the simulated female backing vocals from “Caroline.” It’s chorus of “I love you when you scream” is open to interpretation, as it could either have a sexual connotation or a sexual one – or both.

Elsewhere, “On The Wrong Side” bolsters a tune that is catchy, singable, and melodic while also featuring a bit of a bard lyric. Buckingham sings that he’s “out of pity” and “out of time.” Could this be directed at his wife? Or at Nicks and his impending removal from Fleetwood Mac? Only Buckingham knows for sure.

Given Lindsey Buckingham’s troubles over the past few years, it’s hard not to read the lyrical tea leaves on these songs. However, their actual meaning doesn’t at all affect the quality of the material. With Lindsey Buckingham, Buckingham (the artist) has delivered some of the finest moments of his solo career.

Reprise/2021

 

 

Slowdive – Souvlaki

 

Slowdive – Souvlaki

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve known each other since childhood. You’ve been a couple for several years. You also happen to lead one of the most stylistically innovative bands of your generation. And then you end your romantic relationship. How do you go on?

It’s the classic rock and roll story for couples in music groups. From Fleetwood Mac to Linda and Richard Thompson, to Ike and Tina Turner, all of these couples dealt with breakups within their groups. On the independent circuit, Slowdive were no different.

The Thames Valley shoegaze quintet formed in 1989, and quickly developed a sound all their own. Drawing on influences as diverse as The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Syd Barrett, and the Twin Peaks soundtrack, Slowdive were quickly snatched up by Creation Records.

Their debut EP, the 1990 release Slowdive, became an instant cult hit. One magazine review said that the music was so dreamy, ethereal, and light that it “made the Cocteau Twins sound like Mudhoney.” (This was apparently meant as a compliment, by the way.)

The band – lead guitarist/songwriter Neil Halstead, lead singer/rhythm guitarist Rachel Goswell, second lead guitarist Christian Savill, and Nick Chaplin – would soon add a new member. Simon Scott joined as semi-permanent drummer and the band released more music to even more acclaim.

However, as quickly as the British press can build up a band, they can also tear them down. Sadly, Slowdive would learn this the hard way. The band’s debut album, 1991’s Just For A Day was universally panned by critics, despite not sounding much different than the music they universally praised just a few months earlier.

Meanwhile, other problems began brewing within the group. Halstead and Goswell had been dating for several years at this point. The two met as young children but deepened their bond over music in high school. Halstead was a big Dinosaur Jr fan, while Goswell gravitated towards gothic rock. In fact, it was Goswell’s idea to name the group Slowdive – after a Siouxsie and the Banshees song.

But by 1992, Goswell and Halstead split up. Halstead dealt the only way he knew how – he wrote a ton of songs in isolation. By the time he was finished, he had stockpiled 40 songs, which Slowdive then attempted to record. However, Creation boss Alan McGee was not at all pleased with the material recorded – infamously declaring “they’re all shite!”

Slowdive were forced to re-do most of the album, but they also took a little bit of guidance from an outside source. Brian Eno – a universal favorite within the group – was brought in as something between a mentor and a collaborator for the group.

In one instance, Eno took a clock off of the studio wall and stuck it on the mixing desk, instructing Halstead to play guitar and create textures until Eno told him to stop. Halstead said the experience had a profound effect on both his creativity and his confidence. Momentarily freed from the label pressures to deliver a hit record, Halstead could instead focus on creating something groundbreaking.

The resulting album Souvlaki was released in May of 1993. However, it wouldn’t be released in the US until May 1994. But the question remains how did all of this music sound? And could Slowdive channel the heartbreak at the core of the group into a masterwork?

“Alison” starts the album off in grandiose fashion. Shimmering waves of guitars – both acoustic and electric – and Scott’s frenetic drumming introduce the track before Halstead’s voice enters. The lyrics speak of the titular girl, who is no longer in the life of the narrator. Is she deceased? Or is she a metaphor for Halstead’s breakup with Goswell?

The track is a rousing success, not only because of the mystery surrounding it, but also because of the music. The entire group play in harmony, but the guitar textures of Halstead and Savill deserve special praise. Furthermore, Goswell’s voice adds a haunted melancholy quality to the chorus, particularly when she and Halstead sing “I guess she’s always somewhere” in harmony.

“40 Days” uses a biblical metaphor for Halstead’s loneliness in the wake of the breakup. The lyrics allude to him fasting, but not on food, water or anything sinful. Rather, it is love that he is depriving himself of. The cascading wall-of-guitar-sound on this track is so dense, that it resembles an orchestra.

“When The Sun Hits” is possibly the most anthemic track on the album. The track starts out quietly, before bursting into the chorus – using the ultra-popular “loud/soft/loud” dynamic of 90s alternative rock. The lyrics, however, just may have been a little too clever for mainstream radio.

Halstead uses sunburn as a metaphor for a relationship which dies out – thus crashing and burning. The song, however, seems to take place before the end. Halstead mentions “waiting” for “when the sun hits,” and watching his lover “burn so fast it scares me.” He sees things going wrong but is powerless to stop them.

Goswell’s own turns at the microphone are no less enchanting. “Machine Gun” is as angelic as she’s ever sounded. The song also uses the same simulated orchestra effect of “40 Days” in an equally impressive manner.

The album’s centerpiece, “Souvlaki Space Station” is also the most tinkered with. It was mixed in a “dub style” more commonly employed by electronic musicians. The track features more digital delay on the guitars than I’ve ever heard on any other song.

Goswell wrote the lyrics, and it is still a mystery to Halstead as to what exactly she is singing. Due to the waves of reverb, chorus and delay on her voice – and the fact that Goswell has never mentioned what is sung – we can only speculate. However, it is generally accepted among fans – and Halstead – that Goswell used the track to tell her side of the story.

Chaplin’s bass is also a standout. Usually, the least prominent member of the group, his contributions here are stellar Seefeel-influenced dub. As the track fades into ether, a loud, descending screech features prominently in the mix. Radiohead would use a very similar effect on their 1997 hit “Karma Police,” and it’s generally accepted that they got the idea from Slowdive.

The albums two acoustic numbers – “Here She Comes” and “Dagger” – also point to what lay ahead for both Slowdive and Mojave 3. On “Here She Comes,” Halstead uses just his voice and guitar to evoke the solitude of an early October day. The emotion in his voice betrays the simplicity of the lyrics. When Halstead shifts from “it’s so lonely in this place” to “it’s so cold now/I swear it will be warm,” the effect is truly chilling.

Album closer “Dagger” has a slightly more complicated history. One of Halstead’s most personal songs, Slowdive attempted a version in the initial Souvlaki sessions, complete with a beautiful string synthesizer part, and Scott’s most powerful drumming to date.

However, this was also one of the tracks that McGee had rejected as “shite,” and the song was re-recorded with a double-tracked Halstead alone on acoustic guitar and light piano accompaniment. While this version works better in the context of the album, the electric full band arrangement is stronger overall.

The American release adds four bonus tracks to the tail end of the album. The cover of “Some Velvet Morning” transitions from a dub-influenced, bass-heavy tune in the verses, to a swirling psychedelic waltz in the choruses. Halstead plays Lee Hazelwood in the verses to Goswell’s Nancy Sinatra in the chorus. A wonderful track which eclipses even in the original in creativity.

“Good Day Sunshine” and “Missing You” are EDM-influenced tracks which hint at the even more experimental sounds of Pygmalion. And “Country Rain” might as well be the first Mojave 3 song. Featuring pedal steel guitar, liberal use of reverb, and Goswell’s enchanting voice, it feels like a prequal to “Love Songs On The Radio.” Now that’s a way to close an album!

In the end, Slowdive were able to overcome all obstacles to deliver the classic album Halstead envisioned. In the years since its initial release, Souvlaki has rightly gained its status as a stylistically innovative, unparalleled masterpiece. Not so shite after all.

UK: Creation/1993

US: SBK/1994

 

 

 

Radiohead ‎– Hail To The Thief

 

Radiohead ‎– Hail To The Thief

By

Jesse E. Mullen

 

You’ve been hailed as the second coming of Pink Floyd. You’ve made three albums which are in anyone’s list of the top 200 of all time. You’ve written songs about trying to disappear, and others about being reborn. Where do you go from here?

That was the question upon Radiohead in early 2003. The Oxford quintet had just emerged from a highly prolific, but highly contentious period. While two excellent albums came out of it – the genre-defying Kid A and the slightly more subdued Amnesiac – the conflict which arose nearly destroyed the band.

In the wake of the smash success of OK Computer, Radiohead completely reinvented their working methods. No longer recording live-to-tape with loud guitars and numerous effects pedals, the band set about recording their parts separately. Entire songs would be recorded without a recognizable guitar, drum, or bass part.

Instead, singer Thom Yorke would loop his piano, while guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien – as well as producer Nigel Godrich – would sample and manipulate Yorke’s voice. While this left certain group members marginalized – not every member was on every song – it brought Radiohead to new creative heights.

So, when Radiohead decided to blend these influences with their previous “rocking out” style, it was met with a certain degree of skepticism. Had they run out of ideas? Were Radiohead about to become just another band? However, there was one new element which gave Radiohead an edge.

A lot had changed in the world since the last time Radiohead made an album. But all of it influenced Yorke’s lyrics when the band entered LA’s Ocean Way studios in the fall of 2002. The United States response to the September 11^th attacks had been milked completely.

Two wars received bipartisan support from congress. One was with an uninvolved country and enacted without any hard evidence. To make matters worse, British Prime Minister Tony Blair – a member of the social democratic Labour Party – decided to join the ultraconservative President Bush as an ally in the wars, angering his base.

Blending music and politics has always been a messy subject. There will be those who applaud the addition of political themes to lyrics, while others perceive them to be dogmatic and getting in the way of entertainment. To their credit, Radiohead never let the political themes of the album obscure its greatest asset – melodic hooks.

One possible source of these breezy melodies would be the band’s aforementioned trip to LA. No longer confined to the gloomy scene of the converted fruit farm in the English countryside, Radiohead opted for the sunshine of Oceanway Studios.

Los Angeles is a fascinating city aesthetically. It is bright and warm, but also plastic and superficial. Radiohead previously wrote a song about the commercialization of Canary Wharf in London. Now they were making a record in that environment. So how would this change affect the band? Strap in and find out.

The album opens with the sprightly “2+2=5.” Electronic drums tick and burble, as a double tracked Yorke sings in haunted tones about the end of the world. It is clearly a metaphor for the political climate of the day, with leaders such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair joining hands in bipartisan, war criminal activity.

As the track continues to build, so does the tension. When the crescendo hits towards the end, it is a blast of catharsis. The guitars wail as Yorke accuses those around him – and by extension, the listener – of not paying attention. A falsetto command to “go and tell the king that the sky is falling in when it’s not” ends the track in dramatic fashion.

“Sit Down, Stand Up” is propelled by a slow but steady blip of electronic drums and grand piano. Yorke is now singing from the point of view of an oppressive dictator, saying “we can wipe you out anytime.” Much like “2+2=5,” “Sit Down, Stand Up” builds into a hypnotic crescendo of the band jamming and Yorke singing “the raindrops” ad infinity.

On “Sail To The Moon,” Yorke imagines his young son as president. A sparse piano ballad, which builds into a spacy ambiance, it is an absolutely gorgeous track. The insertion of minor key seventh chords into an otherwise major key track gives the song a “trouble in paradise” vibe.

“Backdrifts” is a return to Kid A-styled electronic territory, with nary a guitar to be found. A glitchy, syncopated beat predicts what the band would later do on “15 Step,” while Yorke sings about “rotting fruit” and “damaged goods.”

The track has no explicit political references until Yorke sings that “all evidence has been buried” and “all tapes have been erased.” He seems to be describing a political cover up and subsequent scandal.

With “Where I End and You Begin,” Radiohead – and guitarist Jonny Greenwood – reintroduce one of the most famous elements of their early 2000s sound. The Ondes Martinot. An early 1900s electronic instrument, Greenwood took a liking to it during the Kid A sessions.

Here, Greenwood shapes the siren-like wail into a sound resembling a Moog synthesizer. He wraps musical figures around Ed O’Brien’s e-bow guitar and Yorke’s frantic rhythm guitar. The lyrics, while initially having no discernable literal meaning, borrow a line from Kid A’s “Optimistic.”

That line, “the dinosaurs roam the earth,” could deal with the end of our world through environmental decay – which would make sense and give the title an ascribed meaning. Yorke previously touched on the apocalyptic effects of climate change on Kid A’s “Idiotique.” So, it makes sense that a lyric which draws from that period would have a similar theme.

Things slow down momentarily for the creepy, Halloween-esque piano ballad “We Suck Young Blood.” Yorke sings from the point of view of a vampire, as hands clap in 12/8 time like a zombie on valium. Midway through, the tempo and volume increase rapidly, as if the monster was woken up by an episode of sleep apnea.

Lyrically, the track seems to be a metaphor for how major labels use predatory contracts to “suck” the life out of young bands. Radiohead were about to end their relationship with musical giant EMI/Parlophone, so the timing of such a track is fitting.

Common practices in the industry have included: not paying the bands for record sales until the recording bill is “covered” by said sales, owning the recordings “in perpetuity” (forever), and refusing to release entire albums of material. However, none of these were issues for the group.

The rights to their back catalog reverted from EMI back to the band in 2016. And EMI stuck by the group and their unconventional Kid A era, whereas American band Wilco had trouble with their label when they went experimental a year later. So, the origin of the song is puzzling.

The pounding krautrock anthem “There, There” has built up quite a reputation live, often being used as a show opener on the 2006 tour. It had it’s debut in a skeletal arrangement on a Radiohead webcast in February 2000. But here is where it first gained its spark.

Guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien join drummer Phil Selway on kits of the own, pounding out primal rhythms to the gods. Yorke, usually a rhythm guitarist, churns out a feedback heavy lead on semi-hollow body guitar. Midway through, Greenwood joins him, and the tempo shifts towards a swirling finish.

Described by Yorke as “the angriest song [he’d] ever written,” “I Will” is a slow, Beatles-esque ballad which deals the evils of Western foreign policy. The line where Yorke sings “little babies’ eyes” refers to a bombing during the Gulf War where the victim’s faces were imprinted on the walls of the concrete shelter they occupied.

While it wasn’t finished until September 2002, the track actually has its origins during the OK Computer era. Yorke can be seen performing it acoustically at a 1998 soundcheck in the film Meeting People Is Easy. As the events detailed in the song go back to the early 90’s, it’s possible the track is even older.

On the penultimate track “Scatterbrain,” the band seem to be at peace, with Greenwood playing a gentle electric part, and Selway ticking the rims of his snare and tom in twos. Yorke sings about a force ten gale, “yesterday’s people,” and headlines being “blown by the wind.”

He could be talking about the way sensationalism and propaganda have infiltrated the news media. Or maybe he’s referring to what Noam Chomsky once called “the bewildered herd,” meaning people who are only used by politicians during election cycles, and then discarded like trash. Either way, it’s a compelling song.

The early 2000s were not easy on anyone. The cultural changes and ill-advised combat were reflected in music and art. As the world changed around them, so did Radiohead. While Kid A remains their high watermark, Hail To The Thief showed the group could match their sound with a message and heart.

EMI/2003