Fifteen minutes ago, I was explaining the Lindsey Buckingham Paradox to Malav.
Malav, like most people, furrowed his brow and asked what, exactly, this paradox might be.
The Lindsey Buckingham Paradox is what happens when otherwise brilliant musicians decide they're better than their bandmates (creative differences, natch), strike out on their own with solo "careers", and somewhat curiously never again manage to grasp his or her own genius in the way we all know is possible.
Lindsey is a goddamned genius. He strives for constant musical evolution, always pushing the creative envelope, and is unto himself an origination point on the great conceptual flowchart of musical evolution in the last 40 years. But, solo? Mania. I mean, oh dear god, concept albums. He's a one-man Plastic Ono Band, all by himself.
It is when Lindsey Buckingham's lunatic genius is tempered by Stevie Nicks (and even Christine McVie) that the magic happens, because the whole of Fleetwood Mac is so much greater than the sum of its parts.
Once this is explained, people grok the Paradox immediately and offer up their own suggestions for musicians who suffer from the same.
After numerous discussions with numerous people over the years, I thought to start making lists of artists with a terminal case of the LBP. Lindsey, of course, goes without mentioning, as he is the namesake. There are many many more, these are just today's starting point.
Today's Top Ten Artists Suffering The Lindsey Buckingham Paradox:
#10 Steve Perry (Journey)
Oh Sherry notwithstanding, just... what? Diva, untamed.
#9 Glenn Frey (The Eagles)
Where, oh where, has our Desperado gone?
#8 Tim Finn (Crowded House, or even Split Enz)
Crowded House undoubtedly achieved its great(er) success after Tim left the band, and while they were never the same, Tim... didn't. And wasn't. While Tim's brother Neil is a creative genius in his own right, somewhere in the collaboration? That's where the miracles live.
#7 Art Garfunkel (Simon & Garfunkel)
The haunting magic that Art brought to Paul Simon's artful mastery was like the unexplained awesometasticness that bursts out of, say, dipping french fries in chocolate milkshakes. There's no reason that these two things should be any good together, but they ARE. Unlike this example, however, both of those ingredients are better on their own. Not so with Mr. Garfunkel.
#6 Peter Cetera (Chicago)
Sorry, Matt. I know you're going to drive to South Carolina expressly to poke me with a very sharp stick over this one, but, man. I know even you will agree with me when I say: If You Leave Me Now? The apex. There was nowhere Cetera could go but down, down, Karate Kid down.
#5 Dennis DeYoung (Styx)
Remember when Styx was groundbreaking? Then remember how Dennis DeYoung put on the +20 Perm of Suck and went all concept album on our collective asses? Yeah. Me too.
#4 Paul McCartney (The Beatles)
Say you want a revolution? Well, you know.
#3 Jon Anderson (Yes)
The mere existence of that Jon Anderson lyrics generator is enough said.
#2 Sting (The Police)
Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers brought their own special flavors to the Police party, and without them, Sting is just a big bowl of goddamned puffy cheetos. Like Bono, maybe, without the passion or, you know, cred.
#1 Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins)
"My band is a bunch of mean-spirited drug addicts! H8erade! Solo Career! Wait, oh noes, where'd my career GO? Come back! I'll stop being an insufferable diva with a superiority complex, oh my god, I swear, just take me baaaaaack (wah)".
There are many (many) more, of course. Who do you think suffers from the Lindsey Buckingham Paradox? Let me know in the comments.
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
And ain't this position familiar darling
It's 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday
It doesn't get much worse than this
These were the wholly appropriate song lyrics in my head as I woke up at 4am sandwiched between Meredith and Tim (with a barnacle Stella), blinding pain in my back, my legs.
The pain ran me out of bed this morning, but fretfulness kept me awake.
So tired of hurting.
So much on my mind.
With five hours of sleep, four advil, three cups of coffee in me... I'm going to wake my three loves and get ready to face the day.
It doesn't get much worse than this
These were the wholly appropriate song lyrics in my head as I woke up at 4am sandwiched between Meredith and Tim (with a barnacle Stella), blinding pain in my back, my legs.
The pain ran me out of bed this morning, but fretfulness kept me awake.
So tired of hurting.
So much on my mind.
With five hours of sleep, four advil, three cups of coffee in me... I'm going to wake my three loves and get ready to face the day.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
To Be Continued
Writing, like any art, is only effective when it evokes emotion.
Note that I do not nod to the creative process, nor the feelings of The Artist, here. The emotion generated by The Artist and the emotion generated by The Voyeur are two entirely discrete sensations, and it is those of the latter which have been on my mind.
The Voyeur. The powerful, lustful, ever-cunning Voyeur.
Pleasant or unpleasant, it doesn't matter to The Voyeur; one set of emotion is just as desirable as the next when we're talking about creative response - any emotion at all is a distinct check in the column of 'win'.
Distinct as they are, each their own association and yet still often each other's, this 'pleasant' and that 'unpleasant'... the distinction is of no mind to The Voyeur. The only jones that must be fed is the howling lust for some kind of emotion, as The Voyeur bores all too easily. The lack of caring at all, the void where desperation for evocation exists will, if ignored, eventually lead to distinct disgust. Nothing offends The Voyeur so effectively as boredom. Still, the end result? This distinct disgust? Emotion. Therefore effective... yet the path to that end is worthless, as The Voyeur's disgust is shameful when it is not earned.
I've digressed.
Writing, like any art, is only effective when it evokes emotion.
When my own Voyeur read Matt's writings on U2's The Joshua Tree, the lump in my throat insisted that I pay attention, reminding of that time of innocence. And fear. And pressure. A familiar, the lump wasn't new and unknown and revolting; no. It was interesting and provocative. It made me feel. I discovered that this album, which I have never owned, has a very concrete association with time and events nearly twenty years dead.
They were strange days, those. Strange days indeed...
Note that I do not nod to the creative process, nor the feelings of The Artist, here. The emotion generated by The Artist and the emotion generated by The Voyeur are two entirely discrete sensations, and it is those of the latter which have been on my mind.
The Voyeur. The powerful, lustful, ever-cunning Voyeur.
Pleasant or unpleasant, it doesn't matter to The Voyeur; one set of emotion is just as desirable as the next when we're talking about creative response - any emotion at all is a distinct check in the column of 'win'.
Distinct as they are, each their own association and yet still often each other's, this 'pleasant' and that 'unpleasant'... the distinction is of no mind to The Voyeur. The only jones that must be fed is the howling lust for some kind of emotion, as The Voyeur bores all too easily. The lack of caring at all, the void where desperation for evocation exists will, if ignored, eventually lead to distinct disgust. Nothing offends The Voyeur so effectively as boredom. Still, the end result? This distinct disgust? Emotion. Therefore effective... yet the path to that end is worthless, as The Voyeur's disgust is shameful when it is not earned.
I've digressed.
Writing, like any art, is only effective when it evokes emotion.
When my own Voyeur read Matt's writings on U2's The Joshua Tree, the lump in my throat insisted that I pay attention, reminding of that time of innocence. And fear. And pressure. A familiar, the lump wasn't new and unknown and revolting; no. It was interesting and provocative. It made me feel. I discovered that this album, which I have never owned, has a very concrete association with time and events nearly twenty years dead.
They were strange days, those. Strange days indeed...
Friday, February 16, 2007
This Is The Hook
It was late 1994 and I was twenty years old when Andy sent the album.
The first part of that year had been spent awakening to the idea that there was so very much more to my world than that which existed in and between those 650 miles on the road map kept in the glovebox of my $550 1982 Datsun B-210.
I want to say that I was happy before that awakening; I wasn't. I acted happy. By all accounts I looked it, too, to the people around me. I went through the motions; I laid plans and John over that foundation of blissful ignorance in my 650-mile-wide world. I love John still, in that way which we love those who shepherd us through our big changes. Today, mutual connections infinitely removed still carry whispers of his presence and life, but twelve years now for me he's absent. Living but not; I killed him dead, right on out of my life.
Unfortunate collateral damage, all my own.
But he was there then, John was, when I put together that 486 and plugged the 9600 baud modem into it. He was there when I started talking about the wonders of the Internet, and he was there as I made friends and formed relationships with people I would never meet.
Enter Andy.
It was 1994 and I was twenty years old when Andy sent Grant Lee Buffalo's Fuzzy across the country. A few weeks later I went out on the hunt for Mighty Joe Moon, and together those albums were the soundtrack of my revolution.
When I backed out of the wedding and packed up all the worldly goods of my (by then) twenty one years, those two albums played. When I turned and ran away as fast as the U-Haul would carry me across those 650 miles, they played. When I finally stopped to look back at the ruins in my wake, they played. When I packed up again (this time only what I could transport in four suitcases and two carry-ons) and moved to South Carolina, they played. Since 1994, whichever turn I take, those two albums have played. They go with me and have been with me and they remind me: I am.
I am the child who left the comfortable and struck out for the new. I am the young adult who was too afraid to stay and fight through the trouble. I am the fierce mother bear. I am the person who used to believe she was never good enough. I am the the product of a good hard look at my life. I am the thirtysomething woman climbing my peak. I am the adult who took the responsibility. I am the careful and the deliberate. I am the impulsive and the fickle. I am the grownup, on the outside. I am the shamelessly tender. All of these things and yet so many more, I am.
Today, those albums play.
The first part of that year had been spent awakening to the idea that there was so very much more to my world than that which existed in and between those 650 miles on the road map kept in the glovebox of my $550 1982 Datsun B-210.
I want to say that I was happy before that awakening; I wasn't. I acted happy. By all accounts I looked it, too, to the people around me. I went through the motions; I laid plans and John over that foundation of blissful ignorance in my 650-mile-wide world. I love John still, in that way which we love those who shepherd us through our big changes. Today, mutual connections infinitely removed still carry whispers of his presence and life, but twelve years now for me he's absent. Living but not; I killed him dead, right on out of my life.
Unfortunate collateral damage, all my own.
But he was there then, John was, when I put together that 486 and plugged the 9600 baud modem into it. He was there when I started talking about the wonders of the Internet, and he was there as I made friends and formed relationships with people I would never meet.
Enter Andy.
It was 1994 and I was twenty years old when Andy sent Grant Lee Buffalo's Fuzzy across the country. A few weeks later I went out on the hunt for Mighty Joe Moon, and together those albums were the soundtrack of my revolution.
When I backed out of the wedding and packed up all the worldly goods of my (by then) twenty one years, those two albums played. When I turned and ran away as fast as the U-Haul would carry me across those 650 miles, they played. When I finally stopped to look back at the ruins in my wake, they played. When I packed up again (this time only what I could transport in four suitcases and two carry-ons) and moved to South Carolina, they played. Since 1994, whichever turn I take, those two albums have played. They go with me and have been with me and they remind me: I am.
I am the child who left the comfortable and struck out for the new. I am the young adult who was too afraid to stay and fight through the trouble. I am the fierce mother bear. I am the person who used to believe she was never good enough. I am the the product of a good hard look at my life. I am the thirtysomething woman climbing my peak. I am the adult who took the responsibility. I am the careful and the deliberate. I am the impulsive and the fickle. I am the grownup, on the outside. I am the shamelessly tender. All of these things and yet so many more, I am.
Today, those albums play.
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