Lindsey Buckingham knows there's an easy way to guarantee pretty good sales for the solo album he's just putting the finishing touches on now.

"I could slap the name Fleetwood Mac on it and it would get a lot of attention," says the singer-guitarist-songwriter.
The name value is clear. "The Dance," the 1997 Fleetwood Mac reunion album, sold an impressive 3.6 million copies in the U.S. In contrast, Buckingham's last solo album, 1992's "Out of the Cradle," came in at a mere 53,000.

In some ways, it wouldn't be a huge stretch to turn Buckingham's album, which will probably come out in the spring, into a Fleetwood Mac project. Mick Fleetwood was a big presence in the sessions, playing all the drums, while John McVie played much of the bass parts and Christine McVie added some piano. In fact, much of the material was recorded before the band's reunion tour, and more or less stimulated the members' talk about getting back together.

The songs themselves, full of dramatic dynamics, contain emotional twists and turns through personal puzzles, but that's what Fleetwood fans expect from Buckingham. All it would take is a few songwriting and vocal contributions from Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks, et voila: platinum prospects.

"I'm probably the happiest with this work solo-wise as anything I've done, and you would think that would make it the most precious to be heard in a certain context," he says.

"But if the idea of it being a Fleetwood Mac album was to take a life of its own . . . I wouldn't discount it. But it would have to be certain parameters, a cohesive project in the spirit of 'Tusk.' "

So if the brass at his and the band's label, Reprise Records, were to urge that the album be converted to a group effort, he'd consider it, though the prospect hasn't officially been discussed with the other Fleetwooders. Buckingham's manager, Tony Dimitriades, reports that upon hearing the new material recently, Reprise President Howie Klein said that he loves it and wants it to be a solo album.

In any case, the album represents two new phases of his life. Calling "Cradle" a "sigh of relief" after he left the Fleetwood fold in 1991, he says that the energy of the new material reflects a flowering of confidence that came from operating outside the group context, and elation at the reunion's relative lack of psychodrama.

And the newest material is the product of a new life, with Buckingham, who just turned 50, having become a father for the first time 16 months ago.
"The theme that seems to come up [in the songs] is really the challenge to try to care about something and take responsibility," he says. "I'm never really happy with my lyrics, always something workmanlike about them, but I think I got some great lyrics in this."