Lindsey Buckingham

Under the Skin

(Warner/Reprise)

Record Review by Alexis Roberts

Lindsey Buckingham is best known for his time spent as a guitarist and vocalist for the rock legends Fleetwood Mac. Although he will be branded for life as a member of that band, he has quite a few solo albums under his belt (four to be exact), but Under the Skin is the first one he has released in fourteen years. What has he been doing all that time? He says that he had been coming to terms with what was making him unhappy for so long and trying to achieve a new level of emotion with his music.

It’s rumored that many of his past solo albums had lyrics focusing upon his relationship with Stevie Nicks. Although it’s always fun to expose an ex-lover in your music, you don’t really see that here. He took the opportunity to write personal and emotional songs about things dear to him. This is reflected in the album artwork, which features photographs of Lindsey with his family (his lovely wife and three adorable children) and guitar.

His songs are poppy folk and very appealing, and he sings as sweet as ever. Over the course of this album, you also get a feel for how fantastic he is as a guitarist. His impossibly quick and difficult finger picking techniques will make any guitarist jealous. The songs have hints of Fleetwood Mac here and there, but that is obviously to be expected and perhaps embraced as well. I hope that he carries that with him throughout his solo career.

I don’t feel like Buckingham was particularly trying to appeal to one demographic with this album. My hunch is that it’s going to be big with the baby boomers, but anybody—old or young—could find a song that they like on Under the Skin.