Random Notes

You can keep your Flashdance and Staying Alive LPs: our pick among current movie soundtracks is National Lampoon’s Vacation, which features a smattering of rock classics from the Fleetwoods to the Ramones, and best of all, two new tracks from the hook-crammed brain of Lindsey Buckingham. We recently caught up with Buckingham at a post-performance bash (he skipped the show) for his Fleetwood Mac colleague and former paramour Stevie Nicks. He reported that he’s already recorded "twelve or thirteen" songs for his second solo LP.

Buckingham admits that the track record of his producer, Roy Thomas Baker (Queen, the Cars), is "a lot more bravadoesque than my music." Still, Baker is also the new A&R chief at the revamped Elektra Records, and Buckingham noted that his involvement in the project is "good on the political level." And it’s showing artisitc dividends as well: "Usually, my producers say, ‘You can’t do that - we’ve got to sell some records.’ But this time, I was trying to keep myself covered commercially, and Roy encouraged me to do more of my oddball stuff." In the offbeat category, he said, is "Playing in the Rain," tentatively described by Buckingham as "a four-section, formalized musique concrete thing with almost no vocals."

As for Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham says a new album’s a possibility late in ’84, "but only if we can get some new juice in there. On that last record [Mirage], we should have progressed, but instead we just reacted against Tusk. It was pleasant but much too safe."