To me it is Stevie's best solo album, all nine of those tracks are amazing to listen to.

She has a couple clunkers, but I rather like her songs on this album. (strange I know) WTWCT is a horrible way to start the album. It's such a dud.

IT is partly due to Lindsey's ability to make a sonic silk purse out of a sow's ear. Silver Girl under any other producer's touch would be horrendous. On SYW it manages to have a weird charm. The title track SYW and illume the same. Most of the attraction to those is the atmosphere and arrangement.

^I think Silver Girl is Stevie's best song. Lyrically it's superb. I love the opening and then the roving guitar throughout. Stevie and Sheryl on the chorus are great too.

WTWCT is a horrible sounding song, it hurts my ears on so many levels.

i'm always impressed with the musical diversity of FM fans, and i think that's maybe the most clearly expressed when discussing SYW: SYW has several different styles that are a part of FM all put up against one another -

• your more classical Rumours-era sounding songs (the ones that most people argue should have been the only songs on that album such as SYHA, Thrown Down and BTLH),
• typical LB later style songs, and
• typical Stevie later style songs.

so people who like FM Rumours era sound are selecting and arguing a certain set of songs were the only songs that should have been on the album. people who are mainly fans of Stevie like stuff like Illume and her other songs on SYW. Christine fans cannot even listen to SYW, they miss the smooth FM glue that she is. and Lindsey fans like me adore Lindsey songs on SYW.

i became Lindsey fan that i am after hearing bootleg GOS. i still think that was probably his strongest set of songs, interesting both musically and lyrically. so i adore SYW as an album because of those Lindsey songs. and because the sound of those songs is redefining Fleetwood Mac as evolving and musically viable and fresh band, while still true to themselves.

that said, i do have to admit that as an album, SYW has no coherence and makes no sense. i tried and tried, but besides severely disliking WTWCT and Say Goodbye, i cannot make it through most Stevie songs on there. her sound just grates on me. (same as when she comes in on WTWCT - i attempted to give that song a chance, but once she comes in, that just makes it completely unlistenable for me and i have to turn it off).

and of course, i am forever unhappy that original GOS didn't come out as intended. a few of those songs sprinkled on SYW confuse many of middle-of-the-road FM fans, while make fans like me annoyed that there are not enough of them and that they are interspersed with other songs that don't belong. i am forever grateful that at least bootleg GOS exists so i can listen to those songs in order and enjoy them - complete bliss. :nod: :)

the whole coherent GOS would have had a different audience all together, especially if it was pushed out in 1998. if Lindsey had the business acumen to push it through right after the Dance, instead of sitting on it, listening to what WB bras were telling him, and waiting for Stevie to come back to FM from capitalizing on the FM fame rebirths after The Dance reunion. business-wise she was always savvy and smart one, he was always the exact opposite.

see this statement exactly proves my previous post - Christine fan cannot stand SYW. :xoxo::laugh:

re sales comparisons between early stuff and after-2000 stuff - SYW came after napster. a completely different era of music sales. those numbers cannot be compared as apples to apples to numbers before napster.

I think I’m the only one who likes this one.

Her absence is noticeable, however, in the era of playlists, the people who like the Rumours era songs and Christine fans can abridge the album to the point where it becomes very listenable. Lindsey and Stevie picked up some slack by having poppier contributions, namely WTWCT and SYW, that give it some continuity in addition to what we’d normally expect from them.

Wow. And Trouble.

It should have been released in 1998 and credited to Buckingham Fleetwood McVie, further capitalizing on the reunion and setting them up with a way to work as a band without Stevie.

see this is the part of the argument i don't get. they were never working band with Stevie after the reunion. she was clearly not interested (and is still not), FM is just a vehicle for her own name for her. SYW as this whole thread shows was slapped together and negotiated to have the same number of Lindsey and Stevie songs, and was musically incoherent.

after the success of the reunion gave them all back their musical legends cred (vs the old dinosaur laughing stock band aura they had before that), once it became clear Christine was done and Stevie was only interested in solo name, there was no need to try to keep the band going (well other than for Mick, obviously). it was just a colossal 20-year waste of time (making tons of money for all of them and their managers in the process of course, but as fans that does next to nothing for us - other than taking tons of money outta our pockets).

Lindsey should have hired some smart business.PR person and pushed GOS out in 1998.

:confused: Trouble is on SYW?

No. Just…

Oh, nevermind.

I agree with much of what was written above and there is a very good point about releasing the GOS album in 1998 and highlighting the Mick and John involvement and Christine was on Bleed to Lover Her and Steal Your Heart Away as well.

Stevie could have gone her own way, choosing to not contribute much in the way of new material. Yet, John, Mick, Lindsey and eventually Christine again could have continued to make and release new material. And when it came time to go out on big tours and make money, the queen could return to her throne.

New music doesn't sell much anymore and who cares? Musicians like to create. Let them do that. And as for Stevie not being part of the new material but touring, again these tours aren't about challenging the audience. Its 80% people who want to hear their greatest hits plus the Chain, Gold Dust Woman, Second Hand News, etc.

Lindsey had had his fill of being a solo artist after OOTC. Given a choice, he would have only done Fleetwood Mac albums after he rejoined. After the SYW tour, when another Fleetwood Mac album was off the table, Fleetwood Mac was how he funded the small machine.

As for Stevie, Fleetwood Mac gave her an outlet to make touring money after she saturated her solo shows as much as she possibly could.

And, of course, it’s hard to turn down that much money for a few hours of work, and the ego boost to playing in front of tens of thousands of people.

yep - together and apart. we could have had several albums from BuckVies or Fleetwodmacs or however they'd like to call themselves in the last 20 years, and twice as many LB solo albums, starting from GOS.

and several Rumors 5 Classic FM moneymaking reunions, if necessary. without that whole push-pull waiting-forever do-we-exist / do-we-not-exist as a band crap.

like when Lindsey said he wished they were more like the eagles - FM is a moneymaking business, like The Eagles, only Eagles get that while FM likes to pretend they are also lovey-dovey [long gone] soap opera.

There’s a comment that didn’t age well.

that's a pure speculation, which if true just proves my point that he has no business acumen or savvy whatsoever. so he blew it. he was working on another great solo album after OOTC, he became huge respected name all of the sudden with The Dance, and just needed the right placement and release deal for it.