(Credits: Far Out / Steve Proctor)
Tue 13 January 2026 19:42, UK
The songs of Lindsey Buckingham have helped millions through their fair share of heartache. Buckingham may now be seen as the villain of the Fleetwood Mac story, but his songwriting ability can never be forgotten.
Even though the sound of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours may sound like bliss coming out of the headphones when listening to them, fans who were willing to go deeper knew how much Buckingham was hurting, writing about the dissolution of his relationship with Stevie Nicks. Before he had even started to write songs about his emotions, Buckingham could always rely on one band from the 1960s to soothe a broken heart.
When first coming up in the music scene, Buckingham initially had chops playing in the bluegrass world, favouring a finger-picked guitar instead of the usual pick approach. Although he admired acts like The Beatles at the time, it wasn’t until another band from California turned up that he began paying attention.
Around the time of the British Invasion, The Beach Boys were making the most tuneful odes to the surf culture that anyone had heard. Although most acts from around the time may have seemed relatively disposable, no one could remove their ears from what Brian Wilson was creating.
Always standing in the back and playing bass, Wilson’s knowledge of a hook was pivotal to the band’s career, twisting the fabric of conventional pop inside out throughout songs like ‘California Girls’ and ‘Good Vibrations’. While most fans were getting into the band just like any other group, Buckingham thought that their songs made the entire world shift.
The Beach Boys in 1971. (Credits: Far Out / Public Domain)
When talking about their influence with Rolling Stone, Buckingham thought that Wilson’s approach to rock music helped push music forward, saying, “They may have sold the California Dream to a lot of people, but for me, it was Brian Wilson showing how far you might have to go in order to make your own musical dream come true…In the process, he really rocked the boat and changed the world.”
It’s hard to disagree; Wilson’s vision and compositions were one thing, but his ability to arrange his work and the meticulous creativity he added to them lifted The Beach Boys into a new plane of brilliance. Wilson and the Californian band became icons of perfection for so many artists, including Buckingham.
Instead of relying on the same formulas that got him to where he is today, Wilson was willing to go outside the norm when working on the band’s album Pet Sounds. Treating the album as its artistic entity, Wilson created a kaleidoscope of different soundscapes throughout the record, all while penning some of the most fantastic rock tunes ever made on tracks like ‘God Only Knows’ and ‘Wouldn’t It Be Nice’.
As Buckingham was coming up in the rock scene, he wanted to continue the journey that Wilson had sent him on. Although he would make brilliant pieces of art on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, he would go on to have the same problems with sticking to a formula on their long-awaited double album, Tusk.
When cutting the record, Buckingham hit the same wall Wilson did when selling Pet Sounds, recalling, “I would relate to Brian’s struggle as an artist against a machine that tended toward serving the bottom line. Music meant much more to him than that. He was trying to do something bigger than that with his teenage symphonies to God.”
While Buckingham may have carved out his niche apart from Wilson, both of them are kindred spirits in terms of songwriting. Rather than focus on the strength of a good hook, Buckingham and Wilson were both looking to see what music they could make that would still be relevant decades after they were gone.
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