I think some of you get what I am saying and some are totally lost
What I am trying to say is that BOTH albums started with one producer, with a certain "Sound" in mind and that BOTH albums ended up a mix of several producers, several different "sounds" and very eclectic in terms of instrument types used, vocal qualities, and even production value of the songs themselves.
It is well documented that Jimmy left in disgust prior to the final version of Rock A Little we got. Some have called these sessions the "Mirror Mirror" "album". These songs were closer in production value and instrumentation and "sound" to her first three albums. Reconsider Me was one of those songs. I think that Mirror Mirror, I sing For The Things and perhaps even Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For you?, Running Through The Garden and All The Beautiful Worlds were in those sessions? Clearly, that batch of songs is high and above some of the more "modern" songs that ended up on Rock A Little like Talk To Me and I Can't Wait, which were trying to compete too much with Belinda Carlise and Heart's recent conversion to "Modern" sounding songs. THAT is what I call a "Lost" Album.
Fast Forward a year and Stevie was still working on the Album, changes producers and they do some more songs and now the project is very different and the batch of songs lose their cohesion of production.
Then same thing happens in 1998. Stevie started TISL with Sheryl, for whatever reason Sheryl overcommitted and the project DRAGS on much like Rock a Little. There was a good batch of songs that all have the same production value, same "sound" and similar instruments. The vocals are also suprerb and some of her best in years. If You Ever Did Believe, Crystal, Socerer, Candle bright (Nomad), Its Only Love. That is FIVE great songs, half an album of very consistent songs that "belong" together. Then the other producers come in, and she takes on some other songs written by other people to make a more "Pop" sounding album. They tack on Too Far From Texas with some half-@$4ed vocals, some dull sounding Everyday and over produced Planets of the Universe. They didn't belong with the first batch of songs at all. They didn't even hardly use "REAL" instruments in sone of the songs. Whomever mastered the album probably had a cow trying to get the songs to match sonically, but failed. Too much time between the various vocal takes and she sounds great on one song, and the next it too vasal.
NO matter if you like the album or not BOTH are a hodgepodge of TWO albums smashed together. I think it would have been great if Stevie had actually finished album with Sheryl. That "sound" was very IN in 1998. The Globe Sessions remains one of Sheryl's best albums and I think a similar sounding consistent album would have stood the test of time better than what we actually got. THEN, say a year later, released a second album of the NEW era with The Dixie Chicks and Sarah McGlonklin and the rest like Santana did with the more modern sound and fake or programmed instruments.
Take what we got on both actual albums, add in the outtakes, totally recorded but not released (My Heart, Touched By an Angel, Mirror Mirror, Running Through The Garden, Reconsister Me, and any we don't actually know about etc etc...) and we would have FOUR albums instead of two. It is my opinion that as least TWO of those albums if not ALL FOUR would be MUCH better.
Thats my thinking.
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