Seeds We Sow is the sixth solo album by American musician and Fleetwood Mac vocalist-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, released on September 6, 2011. It is his first to be self-released.[3]
Background
Work on the album began after the completion of Fleetwood Mac's Unleashed tour. Unlike his previous two albums, Buckingham entered the recording studio without many fully fleshed out songs and lacked an overarching agenda on how to approach the material. He spent roughly one year working on the album.[4]
With the exception of "She Smiled Sweetly", a Rolling Stones cover, every song on the album was either written or co-written by Buckingham. "I wrote them out as snippets of ideas right before I went in to start the actual recording. 'She Smiled Sweetly' was the only thing I had recorded previously; it had been sitting around for a while, waiting to find a home. It seemed somehow appropriate to end the album with it."[5] Another song on the album, "In Our Own Time", was written about Buckingham's relationship with his wife, Kristen.[6]
Some of the lyrics to "Stars Are Crazy" derived from the song "With You on My Mind" by Lisa Dewey, who first played the song for Buckingham backstage during his 2006 performance at the Palace of Fine Arts. Buckingham then built a new instrumental arrangement around her lyrics from "With You on my Mind" with the intention of including the reworked song on Seeds We Sow. His manager contacted Dewey for permission to use her lyrics, although she was initially unsatisfied with the original terms established, so reached out to Michael Steele for assistance. Steele redirected her to Michael O. Crain, who settled on an agreement more favorable to Dewey. Crain, who had previously represented the estates of Jerry Garcia, John Lennon and Bob Marley, secured royalties for Dewey in instances where "Stars Are Crazy" is played live or transmitted on the radio. She also received a writing credit for her lyrical contributions and royalties for CD and DVD sales that include the song.[7]
Release
The album was released physically on CD as an eleven-track album with an additional three tracks available as a digital download. The album was also released as a limited-edition 180-gram red vinyl gatefold 2×LP via Back On Black records. It entered the Billboard 200 in the week of September 24, 2011 with 9,000 units sold.[8][9] By reaching number 45, Seeds We Sow ties with 1984's Go Insane as Buckingham's second highest-charting album after his 1981 debut Law and Order.[9] It also reached number 6 on the Billboard Rock Album Chart[10] and number 5 on the Billboard Independent Albums Chart.[11]
"In Our Own Time" was released as the album's lead single on June 13, 2011.[1] That same month, the title track was made available as a free download.[2] "When She Comes Down" was released in the UK via digital download and "End of Time" was serviced to radio stations as a promotional release.
At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received a score of 73 based on 13 reviews.[18] Thom Jurek of AllMusic thought that Seeds We Sow was "different from anything we've heard from him before, even if his musical and lyrical signatures are all over it; they pick up where Gift of Screws left off".[12] Jason Heller wrote in The A.V. Club that "Buckingham elicits gooseflesh for the right reasons. "Illumination" is a sharp, accusatory screed that vibrates like a Tusk outtake, and "In Our Own Time" wrings sorcery out of Buckingham's signature finger-picked arpeggios and haunted swathes of harmony."[19]
Los Angeles Times commented that "like all of the singer-guitarist’s own work, Seeds We Sow is thornier than Buckingham’s material for Fleetwood Mac, with an emphasis on his percussive, sometimes-discordant acoustic guitar playing and on his intimately recorded vocals."[20]Rolling Stone was more critical, saying that "the recording suffers from thin, uneven sound and, on tracks like "Stars Are Crazy", a surfeit of muddling reverb".[13]
Track listing
All tracks written by Lindsey Buckingham except where stated.[21]
