Fleetwood Mac

I'll nominate the Buckingham/Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac as as a finalist for Best Rock Band Ever. The original Mac was a very good, though maddeningly inconsistent blues rock band that had some truly great moments. And many more not-so-great moments.

Just MHO, (and I know I'm in the minority here, so save the invective) but LB writes pop/rock tunes (though not lyrics) as well as anyone - including Brian Wilson or Lennon and Macca. The vocal harmonies are often masterful and the production values rival just about anyone's. "Go Your Own Way" is, again, JMO, at the top of the list of classic r'n'r songs and there are TONS of others that are right up there.

Buckingham is also in my list of top 5 guitarists and -for my money- that separates his stuff from any of the other top tier songwriters (Richard Thompson excepted, but that's a different kind of songwriter).

BTW, Peter Green, as fine a player as he is/was, and despite his interesting hardware and the resultant interesting tone, cannot touch LB in my book. Take a listen to "I'm So Afraid" or "Come" to get a taste of Buckingham's electric style or "Big Love" (as great a display of right hand rhythmic ability as I've ever heard from a pop player) for his acoustic fingerpicking.

OTOH, you do have to wade through Stevie Nicks' and Christine McVie's contributions which are ....ahem...often less compelling.

To answer the OP's question - all of the LB solo albums are interesting. IMHO "Cradle" tops the list, followed by "Under The Skin" (although that one is not for every taste) and the most recent "Gift of Screws".

FM's "Tango" is a very good record, but "Say You Will" features LB at his absolute best. Great songs and just scorching guitar.

I know that most everyone here disagrees with the high esteem in which I hold this band, but that is my opinion, and it comes from someone who has spent WAY too much time thinking about this stuff. That fact doesn't make the opinion right, just carefully considered.

FWIW.

Marty

One more note:

Buckingham's "Live at Bass Performance Hall" is an outright spectaculat CD/DVD set and Fleetwood Mac's "Live in Boston" (also CD/DVD) is just a notch behind it.

Marty

Okay, we've had the shout out for Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, Lindsey Buckingham, and now Bob Welch.

So, to finish the cycle, I'll mention that Jeremy Spencer just released his first album, "Precious Little", in over 25 years. Amazingly enough, it's actually pretty good and worth checking out. FWIW, "Guitar Player" magazine called it (IIRC) the best comeback record in the last 30 years. Fleetwood Mac has certainly had some guitar talent move through the rotating door over the years, hasn't it?

Neil Heywood (a pretty fair player, himself) was the "offstage" guitar on the last tour and in the late '90s, when Buckingham quit, the band toured with a couple of stand-ins. If someone can identify those two, I think we'll have name checked anyone who ever strummed a chord for Fleetwood Mac.

Marty

At the end of the day, though, if forced to choose, I'd still take Lindsey Buckingham's catalog over that of anyone else (Beatles expressly included) mentioned in this thread. Just my preference - I love the tunes from a lot of these folks, but you can't beat the pickin' of LB and Fleetwood Mac.

RW,

I knew someone would ID the final guitars and you're absolutely right about Vito - he can play.

As to Buckingham's "primative" admission; he wasn't using it to describe his playing abilities. For reasons of his own, LB has deliberately decided not to learn to read music. That is indeed primative in a sense, but don't confuse that with his technique, which is anything but.

Marty

Okay,...Abba.

Long dormant (and possibly substance addled) brain cells seem to recall a(n early '80s?) double Abba Live album with an extended guitar solo during "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, A Man After Midnight". Might have been pretty rockin'. Anyone else recall this one or did I hallucinate it?

Marty

Rrog,

I don't know about a sin, and I actually like Abba for what they are, but I was thinking something similar. If you listen past the hits, a fair bit of (Buckingham's solo and) Fleetwood Mac music sounds much, much closer to Led Zep than to Abba.

Marty

Don't know about Abba and Deep Purple but I just remembered that Dave Mason had the proverbial "cup of coffee" with Fleetwood Mac in 1993 or so. One more guitar notch on the band's bedpost.

Also, the band does have some interesting (and unexpected) fans. Radiohead has been pretty vocal (and did that USC marching band tribute at the Grammy's on the 30th anniversary of the "Tusk" release) and Matthew Sweet - guitar connoisseur extrordinaire - once referred to LB in his liner notes as "a rock god with the power of Zeuss in his fingertips").

Marty

Buff

"Say You Will"

and

Buckingham's "Gift of Screws"

are pretty sure to please you
They both bark up the tree you seem to prefer

Marty

Again (and at the risk of beating that horse one more time),

The studio work was pure Buckingham. He was well known (maybe notorious is a better word) for his obssessive (hour burning) behavior. Both "Out of the Cradle" and "Under The Skin" are REALLY remarkable in this respect. Both, and particularly the latter, are a million miles from audiophile style, but a masterpiece of studio work.

Marty

Mac,

Like 'em or not, the LOWEST sales number commonly cited for global ABBA sales is 150 million units worldwide. That figure is generally used to debunk the 300 plus million plus that's often thrown around, so the real figure is almost certainly higher than 150,000,000. It seems that there is confusion because the record keeping for album sales isn't exactly a precise science, but ABBA appears to be, by all of the counts that I've seen, one of the top dozen selling bands (excluding solo artists) ever. Given that the band released all of 8 albums, it's hard to argue with their commercial success.

If pure pop ear candy ain't your thing, I can see why you'd dismiss them outright. OTOH, some people love that kind of thing and others (including me) find it fun in (very) limited doses. ABBA may or may not suck (depending on your tastes), but they certainly sold a sh*tload of records.

Marty