you're right on the one hand.
on the other, a lot of people don't want the same old same old from an artist every.single.time.
Imagine if an actor were out doing interviews and such promoting his/her movie....except it was THE SAME MOVIE every time. "Hi, I'm here to promote my movie, Star Wars/Gone With the Wind/The Godfather" whatever. And a year later, they're on the circuit and doing interviews etc promoting....the same movie. Now it's on DVD. Ok, great that makes sense. But then,a year later, they're out talking about and promoting their movie......the same movie. Nothing new about it. Over and over and over. That's the annoyance and boredom some fans find with musical artists performing/promoting the same music every.time.
You can only repackage the same thing so many times before people get BORED. I think really that's where most people's "anger" comes from.... it's really just boredom...the old "nothing new here, folks". Artists are typically people who see the world uniquely from the rest of us and what makes them so fascinating is that they show us a way of seeing or thinking about the world that we wouldn't have thought of on our own. They open our eyes/ears/minds to new perspectives. If you want to stay relevant as an artist, part of your job/calling/talent is to continue doing that, or at least striving to do that.
When you decide you're done creating, and are happy with re-hashing the past, that makes you stale and a lot less relevant. It's still a nice nostalgia trip for people, and that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not moving forward.
People need to accept that Stevie is very, very, ok with doing that. She doesn't seem likely to change her mind. She bought into money/sales as the metric of the value of her work a long time ago, but at least it didn't stop her from producing new material....coz the sales were still there. It's hard to accept that she isn't the "mad songwriter" writing for the love of it anymore like she was when we fell in love with her. But the thing is, she hasn't really been that girl for a long time now.
