The Rock Legends Lindsey Buckingham Thought Were Sellouts

Lindsey Buckingham has never been afraid to shell out his opinion. Given his prestige, we’re inclined to believe said opinion on all things music. Nevertheless, his opinion on the Eagles is somewhat hard to get behind. He once called the legendary rockers “sellouts.” Find out why, below.

[RELATED: The Dark Fleetwood Mac Song Lindsey Buckingham Wrote That Was the Most Difficult for Him to Perform, “I’m So Afraid”]

The Rock Legends Lindsey Buckingham Thought Were Sellouts

In Buckingham’s view, Fleetwood Mac always put an onus on switching up their sound. He feels that the band never wanted to rest on their laurels, unlike the Eagles who he thought dug their heels in after Hotel California.

Hotel California was a mammoth effort for the Eagles. As such, we could see why the band would want to replicate that success. According to Buckingham, continuing to hock the same sound was evidence that the band had sold out.

“Lindsey scoffed at bands that sold out,” Fleetwood Mac engineer Ken Callait once said. “In fact, he thought the Eagles sold out during the next few years when they nearly duplicated the sounds of Hotel California on the next two albums. That’s why Fleetwood Mac departed so much from Rumours.”

While we’re not sure we can get behind Buckingham’s damning opinion of the Eagles, we can agree that Fleetwood Mac has avoided stagnancy. Their discography is certainly varied. Each of their albums has its own unique brand of rock attached to it. Moreover, the band went through some evolution before Buckingham even joined the ranks.

“Things change, and that’s a part of Fleetwood Mac,” Buckingham once told Rolling Stone. “We’re a moving target. We’re a group of people who, you could make the argument, don’t belong in the same band together. It’s the synergy of that that makes it work.”

In the same interview, he did give the Eagles a little bit of praise, commending them for their ability to be on the same page creatively.

“It also sort of makes us the anti-Eagles, in terms of never, ever being on the same page,” he continued. “One thing I admire about the Eagles is they always seem to know what they want. They always seem to know why they want it. They always seem to want it at the same time. We’re just the opposite. It’s kind of a political minefield out there. It’s interesting.”

(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)