Out of the Cradle 30th Anniversay
 

Out of the Cradle--released in June 1992. Thirty years ago!
Happy 30th anniversay, OOTC.

At thirty years, it is probably Out of College and holding down a desk job, doing what it can and refusing to look down.

Hard to pick a favorite track out of such a first-rate collection, but which is yours?

Which ten tracks would you choose for your own shorter Cradle album?

Was this peak Lindsey? Or just one of his many turning points?

1. "Instrumental Introduction To:"
2. "Don't Look Down"
3. "Wrong"
4. "Countdown"
5. "All My Sorrows"
6. "Soul Drifter"
7. "Instrumental Introduction To"
8. "This Is the Time"
9. "You Do or You Don't"
10. "Street of Dreams"
11. "Spoken Introduction To"
12. "Surrender the Rain"
13. "Doing What I Can"
14. "Turn It On"
15. "This Nearly Was Mine"
16. "Say We'll Meet Again"

As I wrote a few posts ago, WHAT IF OOTC had been his first solo album? Would he have been a big solo star, rather than a SNL caricature?

And as always, Law And Order is one of my favorite all time albums. Love every note on it.

What if he released it sooner or even later? I feel like 1992 was the absolute worst time to release such an album with an intention to reignite any interest in Lindsey/FM. They were just too far gone at that point. It just seems like either 1988 or 1995 would have seen it have more success. I think it’s a great album and had a lot of potential commercial appeal with some strong singles but Fleetwood Mac and all associated acts were at about the lowest of popularity at that point in time.

Good points. The early 90's are when I began listening to country. I didn't care for Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or grunge in general. So you're right, it wasn't a good time for it's release.

Out of the Cradle is a fantastic album and has stood the test of time, still sounds fresh. Nearly every track is a stand out. There was a recent You_tuber- can't recall his name who chose Countdown as a lost potential hit single of the early 90's. Don't Look Down is still my fav, followed by Soul Drifter. With its timeless sound, it would've fit in perfectly around the time of the Dance, however, I believe the ship sailed long before that on his solo career and it would never have been the massive hit it deserved to be. Hard to believe, 30 years old though :(

Fleetwood Mac in that post-Tango to pre-Dance time period is so weird. They were just so out of the mainstream. I was only 11 when OOTC was released so much of my knowledge is not exactly first hand from that time. But it’s not like all “legacy” acts were hated. The Stones had a massive resurgence with Steel Wheels in 1989, Petty was absolutely on fire releasing some of his most popular songs, Aerosmith was everywhere, I can never forget Cher in the fishnets on that battleship, a post-Waters Pink Floyd was touring all over the world to massive audiences…and then there’s Fleetwood Mac being about as uncool as possible.

OOTC just had no chance. If he released it sooner, closer to Tango and coming off that momentum, it would have sounded overly 80’s and not been nearly as timeless as it was. If it was released after The Dance there might have been some momentum and exposure but at that point it would have quickly faded into obscurity.

Wasn’t Countdown the second single released from the album? There was even a video for it.

I graduated from college in 1992 and had this cassette. I played this nonstop in the car. Soul Drifter spoke to me because when you graduate college you are sort of drifting, wanting to leave home and move on.
It just happened to be released in the peak of grunge music. It would have been a bigger hit if released in 1989 I believe.
Wrong is still my favorite video of all the solo work of the band. They played the hell out of it on MTV. I dont know why he does not play it live these past few tours. IMHO, it should have been his opener after he was fired.

These were the singles, or so I read in Wikipedia:

"Countdown" Released: June 1992
"Wrong" Released: August 1992
"Soul Drifter" Released: November 1992
"Don't Look Down" Released: April 1993

Wikipedia I think has it "Wrong." Later on this same wikipedia page says this.... This is cut and paste directly from the site which shows Wrong was the first single. Thats what I remember too.

Singles
Song US Hot 100 US Mainstream Rock Adult Contemporary Canada Top 100
"Wrong" – #23 – #50[12]
"Countdown" – #38 #32 #29[13]
"Soul Drifter" – – #38 #31[14]
"Don't Look Down" – – – #59[15]

I think the fantastic You Do Or You Don't should have been a single, maybe instead of Don't Look Down, but Lindsey seems to love the latter. I wonder if he jettisoned You Do Or You Don't from his repertoire after he repurposed its bridge in Bleed To Love Her.

Bleed To Love Her is a bit too laconic (maybe Mick's behind-the-beat drumming doesn't help).
Don't Look Down a touch too frenetic.
You Do Or You Don't is in the sweet spot!

Same here. This has always been my biggest "What if?" regarding his career.

As much as you love L&O, I found it disjointed and sorta like a collection of outtakes and random experiments. One review referred to him on that album as a something like a smirking brat, and one called him the 'enfant terrible' of the band. Probably not wrong. He was a bit of an incoherent d*ck on it, really. How he thought that would shake up the music biz in any way or make people appreciate his musical genius is still beyond me. Tusk, yes, L&O, no.

There's a maturity to OOTC that is severely lacking on L&O.

Tusk is disjointed. As I've said, at that point in my life they could really do no wrong. Tusk took a while to grow on me, but it finally did. If I could accept Tusk, L&O wasn't far behind it, in terms of being accepted.

And on every adjective you used above....none of them are incorrect. It's kind of amazing, the balls he had, to do all that. Especially if he thought the record buying public was going to be into all that weirdness. Wrong.

I guess the sales of Rumours gave him balls. But they were glass balls. He was wrong. The public wasn't going to buy WEIRD. And was left with being a caricature on SNL. I still cringe every time I see the Go Insane album cover.

And yet I still feel love every time(although it's a more private love, lol) I hear L&O. My high school heart races, hearing those songs, and singing along.

Welllll, it'sssssss a long long time, from May to September.......:xoxo::angel:

Or what if Lindsey never joined the band to record Tango. OOTC would have been released in ~1987 and maybe had included Big Love, TITN, etc.

It would have been better received had it been released in 88-89. A lot of it is interchangeable with his TITN songs, so it still felt pretty ‘80s. Musical sensibilities had moved on by that point. “This is the Time” is the only song that might have connected had it been released sooner. Otherwise, it felt a little too coffee house rock.

For me, OOTC exposes Lindsey’s limitations as an artist and how much his music benefited from having Mick and John playing behind him.

Yes, yes, I understand your point. That dickiness is exactly what I think works on the album because it explodes the bottle. Think of it in movie terms. Maybe like Marco Bellocchio — a bratty little dickhead genius — and his first feature, Fists in the Pocket. He is saying, “Up yours, Catholic Church!” and then making us laugh and shocking us at the same time. Nobody expects that approach. Thoughts?

Mine certainly had. I was spiritually ready for Lilith Fair. I eagerly embraced that retro-hippie Third Wave Feminist sound of Lilith Fair. I wanted to immerse myself in Joan Osborne, Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, and Patty Griffin.

I did not want to hear Lindsey Buckingham’s high-tech gooky-fooky.

Thoughts?

I agree 100%. Especially, when Lindsey does all the instruments (again). His bass playing is so boring. His keyboard work doesn't have that Christine funk and flare. And his percussion was as if he was giving a class in imitating a drum machine.

Also, the freshness of this album did get stale by waiting so long to release it. What was he waiting for? I do love a lot about this album, but it's slightly safer than the little amazing package that Go Insane is. Of course, IMO.

I've always wondered what his tunes would be like if he fronted a real band in the studio. I'd love a "rock" album from him.

god, he's too much of a control freak for that to happen!

That's just it, Homie! It's controlled ad nauseam.

The obvious singles on this album are Countdown and Soul Drifter.

While I love Don't Look Down, it's just NOT single material.

I really like Street of Dreams into Surrender the Rain. I think they are a great documentation of where his head was at in the years leading up to this album and the whole letting stuff go he had to work thru personally. I kinda wish he would do them back to back live like on the album. The interstitial talking bit reminds me of a Laurie Anderson sort of performance art piece.:shrug:

Interesting that that was sort of the last time he worked on anything with Richard and their personal friendship pretty much ended as well.

I liked the imagery of the title Out of the Cradle because it speaks simultaneously to maturity as in just aging but also to the idea of getting out of FM and that whole 'rock star' thing which can be infantilizing.

We all celebrate this release and I think Lindsey did relish in the great reviews the album got. But it also was a little depressing because this experience stung Lindsey. If you have never seen the Behind The Music: Lindsey Buckingham there was a somber Lindsey after this album was released. Its discussed how Lindsey's hit making machine with Fleetwood Mac never materialized with his solo career and why. It mentions how Lindsey did solo shows for the first time after the release of this album but had to curtail the shows due to poor attendance. Its a very sad ending which is usually not the case with Behind The Music segments. I know he did eventually end of on Tina Turner's shows as the opening act so he did make a little money. I think it was a process of realizing that he was not going to be a solo superstar. If Lindsey would have become a big solo star, would he have come back to the Mac for the Dance? After the Eagles reunion tour, Irving definitely convinced everyone to suck it up and go out on another tour. The money was just too good to say no.

I think it was Carl Stubner who contacted everyone.
I don't know think Lindsey would have come back because there wasn't a new album involved with The Dance.

Looks at the cover of Go Insane. How was ~that~ going to be a mainstream superstar? He's too weird for superstardom(Michael Jackson slipped by this rule).

Don Henley(especially) and Glenn Douchenburger were big stars solo, and they both came back to the Eagles...

I don't have so much to say about this gem. I discovered it 10 years ago and it really marked my life, as a person, as a musician. It touched my soul as it introduced me to a world of words and music that I didn't see before, even knowing the FM music!!
I think that if it was released after the reunion of the Rumours line up for the Clinton's campaign, or released shortly before The Dance reunion, it would have had more success than what it had. 1992 was a different time for music, and Lindsey tried to put his efforts to sound like the "newer" music of that time, without a good reception.
But anyway, his music is incredible. Don't count the "commercial" thing. Wrong, Countdown, Soul Drifter are amazing songs!! Good lyrics, good rythm. Street Of Dreams, Surrender The Rain and Say We'll Meet Again can touch your heart easily.
He worked almost alone. Like on Go Insane. And it worked so good! But the ears were listening to other bands in 1992. But Lindsey showed his talent in all the instruments once again, but this time he needed to show a rock face, not like in Go Insane, where he worked so much with synths... I don't blame him if he's not a great keyboard player, probably his idea was with a basic keyboard base! And giving a more starring role to the guitars. "I told these guitars, I mean, come on!"
His worst ranked album is today by far one of his best ones. And as I said before, what he did next, especially from 2008 to the date, was basically the same. Speedy guitars, a soft voice, a basic percussion...With good moments indeed! So it gives more credit to his first three or four albums, because of the original ideas he had on them respectively...

So happy birthday to my favourite album!!! :thumbsup:

For the first time in a while, I recently listened to this album. I was surprised at how much a disliked a lot of the drum machine. Perhaps the technology was primitive then, but in any case much of it sticks out rather than blend into the music to the point where one doesn't even notice it's a machine.

He could have hired Mick for probably $15/day.

I think he was embracing that primitive sound. I love him, but he was never destined for a big solo career. He apparently didn't want it, or underestimated the public's love of weird.

Even just a better drum programmer would have helped a lot. It doesn't move with the music (and yes, good drum machine programming can do that).

30 years ago seems like yesterday, having only got into Fleetwood Mac after Tango's release in 1987, I was horrified to learn that Lindsey had left the band, waited patiently for his long-promised solo album and finally in Summer of 1992 I managed to pick up the CD on import in the UK, it was the longbox version from an independent record store, played that album to death and absolutely loved it, still do, probably my favourite Lindsey album, it is in desperate need of a release, especially on vinyl.

Does anyone know what he was doing between 1987 and 1992?

According to his interview on Regis & Kathy Lee, mostly working on OOTC. He described himself as a studio rat. Of course he also had to write the thing first.

My encounter with OOTC was entirely unexpected. I’d pretty much given up on FM by then. BEHIND THE MASK embarrassed me and TANGO struck me as a very calculated record—successful, yes, but largely planned as a successful record, which is different than making a great record that happens to be successful.

Before I knew of OOTC’s existence, I saw the Wrong video and thought “Who cares about Lindsey Buckingham right now?” The song underwhelmed me. But when I happened on the cd in a used bin a year or two later, I listened to it then and there before taking it home. I was astonished. Every song was so fresh and crisp. I even liked Wrong in the context of the other songs. To this day, OOTC remains my favorite solo album by any FM member. For what it’s worth, my second favorite is LAW AND ORDER, so there’s that.

Right around the time of OOTC’s release came Love Shines and Heart of Stone, both of which are as good as the best work on OOTC and easily better than anything on BEHIND and TANGO (or even MIRAGE). Again, I wasn’t expecting that kind of quality from FM at that point. Imagine what Christine and Lindsey might have done together! Paper Doll, on the other hand, is as bad as the worst Stevie material on the previous two albums…

Imagine if Mick had waited six months before rebuilding Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey would have rejoined. By then, he knew he was going nowhere as a solo act.

Maybe Bekka, Billy, and Dave would have been spared. Not saying anything bad about them, but I think a Fleetwood Mac as an opening/theater act fronted solely by Lindsey would have gone over better, although it could have bitten them in the ass with having the big reunion album/tour.

Not so much, but for what I know, he finally worked with Brian Wilson, even when we don't know their work, and gave Make Me A Mask to Fleetwood for the 25 Years: The Chain compilation. I'm not sure, but I guess that song was recorded after the TITN days, so it's not a material from that period.
He appeared to perform Landslide live with Stevie Nicks in 1990, and gave his guitar talent to Chris' song Behind The Mask.
Also in 1990 he lost his brother Greg, olympic medalist, because of a heart attack, like his father. This part, plus the death of one of the Kingston Trio members, made him a more reflexive man, so it's a side of his inspiration for some of the OOTC lyrics, as he talks more about his younger days, on the album and on different interviews he did on the OOTC days.
I need to refresh some information maybe!! :laugh: But these are things you probably know!

These bits reminded me of a theory I’ve had for a long time, which is counterintuitive. I think it’s Lindsey’s Fleetwood Mac fame that kept him from having a solid, self-sustaining solo artist career. I think if he had not been in Fleetwood Mac (or been in for only a few years), he may have created an indie career with enough buoyancy to last for decades, like Stereolab or Thomas Dolby or Elliott Smith. But he was always worrying about success at the Fleetwood level, and that sunk him over and over again. Somehow, too, many listeners who might have been in his camp in the 80s and 90s just kept comparing him with Fleetwood — “He should have been more this or more that.” But every single solo record he puts out is contraindicated by the gargantua Fleetwood Mac. He is always an extension of them (as are Stevie, Christine, Mick, and John). He cannot cut that tie; all his solo work is an analogy (this is like that or unlike that).

Part of the reason Stevie was able to have the self-sustaining solo career was doing all of the duets with the likes of Kenny Loggins, Tom Petty, and Don Henley, which allowed her to be seen as something outside of the context of Fleetwood Mac. The music she made as a solo artists sounded different from Fleetwood Mac. She also toured and kept her name out there.

While Christine wasn't especially interested in being a solo artist, she was still able to deliver something a little different from her Fleetwood Mac work by working with other musicians.

Lindsey had done so much on his own within the context of Fleetwood Mac that it was much harder to delineate his Fleetwood Mac work from his solo work. There were truly no compelling reasons to consider his solo work on its own merits. It didn't shed any new light on Lindsey, it only spoke more to his own eccentricities. That he only made three studio albums (two solo, one Fleetwood Mac) and played about 80 tour dates in 21 years (OOTC tour and The Dance) further compounded the problem.

I think you have it nailed here Steve. Lindsey from a solo perspective is such an odd thing. He clearly resented a lot of Stevie's solo success, especially early on. But, in what way was he ever out there building his own name/brand as a solo act? She had her name out there everywhere starting in the late 70's so she wasn't JUST the Fleetwood Mac girl. Not touring until 1992, when he was already into his 40's and relatively unknown outside of the band, coupled with his general weirdness from a musical perspective, really hurt him from that standpoint. I mean, fine if he didn't want the solo success, but I think for many years, he kind of seemed to think it would happen. Had Lindsey mounted a big tour in 1984 and never pivoted his solo album into Tango and toured in the 1987-88 timeframe with music that was geared a bit more commercial, things may have been very different for him.

Although, I think a Dance-like reunion was inevitable no matter what happened. OOTC could have been a #1 and once Eagles did Hell Freezes Over and boomers started having money to spend, a reunited Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac was bound to occur.

Lindsey addresses the above in this article. Among other things, he says it's much easier to get his work out via Fleetwood Mac than under his own name. Upon the release of Say You Will:

"I spent about seven years trying to get my material that's on this album placed and heard." "I felt an extreme need to have it have a home and get it out so someone could hear it." "I would be completely happy to continue with this [Fleetwood Mac], never to pursue anything solo again. Because it's a hell of a lot easier": https://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/articles/FMart115.html

Sigh, OOTC is still my favorite LB album and my favorite FM solo album with Bella Donna coming in second. I think it still hangs together well as a collection of songs but I don’t know if any of them really could have been serious hit singles. Somehow his solo work never quite hits the sweet spot of mass appeal the way his FM work has. He is someone who is really best suited to a band context and to producing other artists but somehow he has not come out with the songs to make a big hit. He’s come to realize that and seems to accept his solo career. I’m just glad he keeps at it — I really do love a lot of it even if it’s never going to be massively popular.

But it makes me kind of feel sorry for him. He deserved that mass appeal, but never really tried to court it. So I guess it's his own fault. Weird is never going to appeal to the masses, I guess.