ALBUM: Law and Order (1981)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
A little fun. Disjointed. Not sure there was a direction. Random Play. (and you know I’m OK with that.)
Lindsey Buckingham was a key vocalist, songwriter and guitar player for Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful bands in the 70’s and 80’s if not all time. This album sounds like a collection of Tusk and Rumours outtakes — which is not a bad thing, really. Rumours is a classic and its success both critically and commercially is in that rarefied air where the Beatles roam.
There’s just a lack of fluidity on this when you have a Tusk-like song Bwana, with its hints of Africa followed by a mild Fleetwood Mac b-sider-like song, Trouble. Pretty, though it is.
Shadows of the West, which oddly is the only song on the album without its lyrics printed on the sleeve has an interesting line: The setting of the sun scares me to death’ and it made me think of an opposite sentiment by the Rolling Stones in the song ‘Rocks Off.’
The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.
Maybe that’s why the differences between the Stones and the Mac are night and day.
But the teetering album, almost toppled by silliness, recovers with a splendific version ‘A Satisfied Man’ (see Below) Classic.
Last verse:
When life has ended, my time has run out
My friends and my loved ones, I’ll leave, there’s no doubt
But there’s one thing for certain, when it comes my time
I’ll leave this old world with a satisfied mind
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.