Rediscovery--Out of the Cradle

When you have a large collection of music, every once in a while you get to rediscover something that brings a big smile to your face. Lindsey Buckingham's Out of the Cradle is the album that just made that happen for me, and I'm betting that most of you never heard it.

It has moments where the Fleetwood Mac sound is pretty obvious--largely, though, because Buckingham has a distinctive voice and production style that came through pretty strong on the FM songs. It's only natural that there would be a common thread.

The first thing that really shines through on the album, though, is just what an amazing guitarist Buckingham is. Though his production sometimes tends towards the clinical, his playing is never short of brilliant. After the quiet, 25-second intro track, the opening song, "Don't Look Down" is as innocuous a piece of pop fluff as you'll find. But the guitar work shines when you put aside the rest.

The CD really starts hitting pace with the next song. "Wrong" is a darker sort of pop song, chugging along until it hits points where it absolutely burns. This isn't a fast song, but it's invested with a menace that underlies pop gloss.

It does hit some notes that just don't work for me. "Soul Drifter" is a throwaway song that should have been snipped before they shipped the disc. "You Do or You Don't," similarly, feels like a song that Fleetwood Mac must have rejected as being too tame. When Buckingham goes wrong it's not because of his experimental moods; he fails when he plays it too safe.

But then there are points in the slower songs--"All My Sorrows" and "Street of Dreams" in particular--which are both invested with a beauty that's missing from most of today's popular music. In a time when most of the most popular musicians are terrifically indistinct, it's nice to hear music that has its own identity.

His pop instincts are strong. "Doing What I Can" and "This is the Time" are little gems, and it's a shame that more people haven't discovered them. And, my goodness, the second instrumental intro is 42 seconds of classical guitar heaven. Lovely. As I said, Buckingham can play, and, frankly, I'd love to hear an album of purely classical guitar from him.

Yes, the whole affair has moments where it feels so stuck in the '80's that I almost wanted to break away and watch Red Dawn,, but it has its redeeming values. It's nice to break away from what plays on the pop stations these days; a few hours listening to the local pop stations is usually enough to convince me that there's a really strong reason for the decline of album sales.

What's more, Buckingham may be one of the finest guitarists of his era. When he plays "This Nearly Was Mine," a wistful little thing, you'll find yourself wishing there was a little more talent gracing the top 40.