(Credits: Far Out / Raph Pour-Hashemi)
Thu 2 October 2025 16:00, UK
When the dust from Fleetwood Mac’s monster album Rumours had settled, fearless creative Lindsey Buckingham directed his gaze straight to the future.
He wasn’t concerned with replicating the magic of their dramatic record, no matter how much internal and external expectation pressured him into doing so. The latter perhaps being the louder of the two, with music fans across the globe lapping up this soap opera dynamic that gave way to one of their most treasured albums.
Then there was the former, the bandmates who, for better or worse, were the equal sources of drama. While the five core members indeed squabbled, fought and betrayed each other, they all knew that when it came to the music, there was an unspoken coalescence that allowed for great music to exist. Buckingham, along with Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, shared songwriting duties, and between the three, never discouraged one another from sharing their truths.
As much of a control freak as Lindsey Buckingham was, he regularly put his own ego to one side and served the wider purpose of whatever song either of them brought to the group, even if he was the subject of it.
But in 1979, that attitude changed somewhat and Buckingham decided to take the trajectory of the band into his own hands. Tusk was the ambitious and almost inflated double album that saw Buckingham dragging the rest of the band into his own vision.
Stunning in parts, misguided in others, it was the sound of the inner workings of a well oiled musical machine starting to come apart at the seams. Chaos was slowly arm wrestling brilliance into submission, as the band sonically accepted their fate. In that sense, it was of a very similar vein to The Beatles’ White Album, which is probably why Buckingham likes it so much.
“I think The White Album is one of the most exciting and divergent albums The Beatles ever made,” Buckingham said. “By far, Revolver is probably one of their best albums in most people’s opinions, but even then it was Paul doing Paul’s music and John doing John’s with support from the others. They’d been doing that since Rubber Soul, yet no one criticized those albums for that.”
Sure, Buckingham makes a valid point. The Beatles songwriters have always had their own individual stamps on their songs, and The White Album was no different. Which is a pillar of defence he uses in criticisms thrown at Tusk.
“I’m not sure it’s valid to criticize something because on one record the approach is individualistic and on another it’s collective. The question is, ‘What is the music giving off? Is it any good?’. To criticize Tusk for that is silly. I think there are valid criticisms of Tusk, but that’s not one of them.”
While previous Beatles albums were, of course, built on the individual ideas of each member, it was delivered with more concision. The White Album was the band running with their ideas with freedom, but crucially, they were the ideas of each of them, not just one member. The difference was that Tusk was an inflated showcase of just Buckingham’s ideas, and no one else’s.
Related Topics
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.