Under the Skin (Lindsey Buckingham album)

Under the Skin is the fourth solo album by American musician and Fleetwood Mac vocalist/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, released on October 3, 2006. The album, long delayed by Fleetwood Mac's reunion tour in the 1990s and 2003 album Say You Will, was his first solo release in 14 years.^[7] Under the Skin peaked at number 80 on the Billboard 200 album chart in October 2006.^[8] In the United States, the album sold 13,000 copies during its first week of release, with 32 percent of those sales coming from purchases on the Internet.^[9] "Show You How" was also released as a single but failed to chart.

Predominantly an acoustic album, the album does not feature many instruments besides acoustic guitar and percussion. Buckingham sought to forgo the more ornate elements on his previous albums in favor of orienting compositions around vocals and a single guitar.^[10] Buckingham wrote most of the material for Under the Skin while he was touring with Fleetwood Mac. He recorded the material on a Korg 16-track unit and mixed them onto CDs in hotel rooms during days off from live performances.^[11] He also used a Roland delay on his vocals and said that the recording process was conducted "in an orderly, overdubbed manner, but with just the limitations that I wanted to impose on the tracks."^[12] In an interview with Sound & Vision, Buckingham discussed his approach in recording Under the Skin.

It was kind of freeing to be able to overdo the vocal effects and processed guitars yet have the sound be so transparent. I just went for what excited me.^[12]

"Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind" and "Down on Rodeo" predated the other songs on Under the Skin and were recorded with Rob Cavallo ten years prior at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood.^[11][13] He said that these songs were already "mixed and ready to go" for Fleetwood Mac's Say You Will album, released in 2003.^[11] Some tracks on Under the Skin were also recorded at Buckingham's home studio on a 48-track machine.^[12]

"Down on Rodeo", which was written about Buckingham's brief relationship with Anne Heche,^[14] and "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind" are the only two songs on the record with contributions from outside musicians.^[13] These two songs, along with "To Try For the Sun", were also included on a Gift of Screws bootleg that was leaked online in 2001.^[15]

When Buckingham was completing a take for "Flying Down Juniper", Buckingham's son Will beckoned him for dinner through the studio intercom, which was caught on tape. "I'd just finished the take, and all of a sudden, 'Dinner, Daddy!' So I had to leave it in. It's a perfect ending."^[16]

Buckingham said that many songs on Under the Skin presented him with an opportunity for self-discovery.^[17] He also recalled that the album received a lukewarm response from Warner Brothers, who expressed a lack of interest in promoting it. "When I turned in Under The Skin, their general response was 'Yeah we'll put it out, but don't expect us to do too much.'"^[10] Warner Brothers requested the addition of more conventional rock songs to make the album more marketable.^[18]

According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Under the Skin received "generally favorable reviews" based on a weighted average score of 80 out of 100 from 15 critic scores.^[1] AllMusic writer Thom Jurek noted how several songs felt autobiographical and described the album as "the most nakedly visible and tender recording he's ever dropped."^[2]

Chris Willman of Entertainment Weekly complimented Buckingham's "frantic" guitar fingerpicking and said that his production work enhanced the sound of his nylon-string guitar. Willman added that despite the album's nominally stripped back nature, some of Buckingham's recording techniques, including the use of mulitracked vocals, prevented the album from being truly unplugged.^[19] Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone thought that Buckingham achieved "maximum effect from minimal arrangements" and said that "Down on Rodeo" resembled a "lost Fleetwood Mac hit."^[6] Mat Snow of The Guardian called the album "a small masterpiece of tightly balanced musical contrasts."^[4]

All songs composed by Lindsey Buckingham except where noted.

Main performer

• Lindsey Buckingham – vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, percussion

Additional personnel

• John McVie – bass (9)
• Mick Fleetwood – drums (9, 10), percussion (9, 10)
• David Campbell – orchestration (10)

• Lindsey Buckingham – producer, recording (1–8, 11), mixing (1–8, 11), additional photography
• Rob Cavallo – producer (9, 10)
• Ken Allardyce – recording (9, 10)
• Mark Needham – mixing (9, 10)
• Brian Gardner – mastering
• Bernie Grundman Mastering (Hollywood, California) – mastering location
• Frank Ockenfels III – photography
• Stephen Walker – art direction
• Tony Dimitriades – management
• Robert Richards – management

Three promotional music videos were shot for Under the Skin, these included "It Was You", "Show You How" and "Shut Us Down". Both "It Was You" and "Show You How" are available for digital download via iTunes, but the video for "Shut Us Down" remains unavailable.