Say You Will - Revisited

[Dodfather]

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering what everyone's opinions are on Say You Will? I've been listening to the album a lot lately and was discussing it with one of my mates last night. They said they'd never been impressed with the album and that it's probably the weakest of the Stevie/Lindsey era.

I was just looking at some reviews online and they all seem to agree with him. They all call it patchy and inconsisteent and so I think the album has been undersappreciated, I love it! I think it's better than Mirage (with the exception of Gypsy) because it's more consistent and, controversially, it has Stevie's best successive run of Mac songs since Tusk. Thrown Down, Say You Will, Destiny Rules...all brilliant. As much as I love Seven Wonders from Tango it was just one really great song whereas Say You Will has several.

Of course, Lindsays songs are great too, Come and Miranda especially.

What do we think? Is it time to give this album its due?

[wildheart048]

I think SYW is their best album since Tusk...I love Mirage & Tango and even Behind The Mask, but to me they are disjointed...especially Tango...seems like a collection of artists tracks rather than 'band tracks' (and I love The Dance, but obviously, that's a live album)...and Christine is missed on SYW, make no mistake...but as a cohesive FM 'album' to my ears, SYW is the best of them...the only two tracks I really don't care for are Come and the version of Smile At You on it...just my own two cents...

[jedw]

There is no getting away from the fact that a lot of the songs on here were written and thrown out 20 years ago or more.

That said, "Running through the garden" is my favourite track on the album, and that has its origins as a "Mirror Mirror" track. But songs like "Everybody finds out" and "Thrown down" just don't do anything for me. EDIT: The 1982 demo for smile at you beats what we end up with on SYW! So many good demo's chucked out LOL

Lindsey is stronger than Stevie on this album (Don't shoot me all at once)
but parts of the album feel like I'm listening to a lindsey solo album, "Murrow turning over in his grave", "Come", "Red rover" etc.

Overall its a good listen, but theres some track I just have no time for, including the title track.

"Bleed to love her" is another one I DO like. - one of the few that feels like FM and not a Lindsey or Stevie album.

[Dodfather]

Thrown Down is my favourite track on Say You Will, probably followed by Miranda. The only song I ever usually skip is Red Rover.

I agree with what you say about Tango. It's a very good album with some real standouts but a couple of the other tracks feel a bit too much like filler 9You and I Part II and When I See You Again).

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by Dodfather

pitchy and inconsistent

That's exactly how I'd describe it in two words (notice I changed patchy to pitchy). There are a few really good songs on the album, but as a collaborative effort, it's a stinker. The only reason I ever put Say You Will in these days is to hear Destiny Rules.

I disagree heartily about Tango. I think it's their strongest, most cohesive, approachable album outside of Rumours. While I will always think Tusk is their masterpiece, Tango is pure pop gold. I think I appreciate it now more than ever, because it FINALLY doesn't sound wretchedly dated to me. New music is again using all the sound effects and synthesizers Tango did 22 years ago. But outside of that, I think the personal turmoil and drama that helped fuel Rumours is also what made Tango so great. There was a whole lot of drama going down during the making of Tango! I think the band came back 10 years after hitting mega fame, and totally redefined themselves with Tango with their new worldly, sophistocated, adult pop sound. Truly, I used to think Tango was cheesy pop garbage... but it's grown on me HUGELY the last few years.

Come to think of it, it took me many years to appreciate Tusk fully too... so maybe Say You Will one day will grow on me. But I have my doubts. I wanted to like Say You Will *SO MUCH* when it came out. And I did like bits and pieces of it. But my overall opinion of the album has sharply declined over the years.

[David]

Originally Posted by Dodfather

Hi everyone,

How ya doin, kiddo?

I was just wondering what everyone's opinions are on Say You Will?

I never got fond of this album. That may have been owing to the fact that, by 2003, I was no longer a Fleetwood Mac wacko. But I think it has a lot more to do with what I hear in the work. I just don't like it.

The "quality" of the songs themselves -- structure, lyric, etc. -- is irrelevant to me in the sense that I react to what I'm hearing rather than reading. A great pop orchestrator can take a dumb lyric & turn it into a fantastic listening experience. It's been happening since the 1940s & '50s, when pop songs were built into tracks with elaborate emotional & musical characteristics (interplay between instruments & vocals, orchestration, specialized instruments, etc.).

The converse is that you can ruin the experience of a pop song by what you do to it in the studio. A theater director can take a great play -- Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," say -- & turn it into a miserable night in the theater by a rotten treatment (stuffing it with detritus, casting bad actors, "reimaginings" in ridiculous new settings, etc.).

The tracks on "Say You Will" don't sound good to me. There are technical considerations -- compression & levels & line clarity & all that -- which I feel are poorly executed. And the aesthetic, less formalistic conceptions are mostly misfires, I feel. If another listener loves the way that "Running Through the Garden" sounds, that's a difference in our center, you might say. I have a different center of balance from that person -- there's no logical account of it. It's taste.

I give "Say You Will" 1.5 stars out of 5.

[kak125]

I freaking love Say You Will. I thought it was good back in 2003 and I still love it today. I really missed hearing alot of those songs on tour this time around.

What amazes me most about Say You Will is that my hubby loved it even though hes not even a FM fan.

[GypsyVisions]

I love Say You Will.


I think it has many many wonderful wonderful songs.

[gold_dust]

Well, I love Running Through The Garden and Thrown Down, but I think this is an album that Lindsey excels in. I prefer his material on this album than some of Stevie's. And it's almost never been that way. Don't get me wrong - I love what she's done on the album, but how they managed to completely mangle Smile At You is unknown to me. Stevie rocks that '82 version, and it would've been so much better if it'd kept that way. Hell, I would've taken the Tusk demo over the SYW version. I've never warmed to Illume or Goodbye Baby, but, I suppose, it took me a really long time to actually listen to Rock A Little without wanting to turn it off. So, I guess, there's still hope for me yet. But, on the plus side, Come is amazing. And I love Murrow and Red Rover.

[JbbyStew86]

Before I got heavily into FM, I really liked this album. Now that I'm so heavily into it, it's middle of the road.

Say You Will is about 5 songs too long. With 2/3rds of the singing/songwriting corps intact, why make a longer album? When that happens, each of the remaining two has to come up with more songs which dont deliver (Illume). Imagine taking 2/3rds of SYW and ditching the filler. It would be spectacular. I agree with David that the production style leaves much to be desired, and much of that is in technical work, not really theory. It couldn't be theory because so many of these songs are decades old. Compare the SYW and orginal demo versions of Smile at You to understand that.

It's hard to compare this to other Mac albums because it's so different. In a lot of ways I see Tango as what Say You Will should have sounded like, only Stevie's song's on SYW were infinitely better. You can hear a lot of Come and Miranda in Caroline and Tango in the Night. You can also hear a little TISL on Stevie's songs.

I've given more thought to how SYW will match up to this theoretical new album that everyone's so hopeful for. Frankly, I'm not too ecstatic over the idea, though I would love to see new material. Before last year, I feared too much of SYW influence on a new album, but after Lindsey's two solo efforts, more importantly GOS, I have faith that it could be a real turnaround. I still say that most of GOS is way better than any of SYW. Let's face it, Love Runs Deeper and Right Place to Fade sound more like Fleetwood Mac than anything else from this decade.

Some songs are fantastic (Destiny Rules, Running Through the Garden, Red Rover, Whats The World), but honestly, if they never made the album, or made it half as long as they did, I'd be just fine with that.
Id give the album 2.5/5 stars.

[Musicman408]

Well it's the Say You Will album that got me into FM- my parents bought it while we were in Florida and I thought nothing of it until I gave it a listen in the car- and here we are today!!

That being said, I think there are some tracks that didn't necessarily have to be on the album- but as a complete whole- I love it! Especially the Stevie songs. There are just a couple of Lindsey's that I'm not too fond of.

[MacAttack88]

Say You Will is an album I have really waxed and waned on, but I think I have settled on a ranking of 3 out 5 stars. It is definitely better than Mirage to me and, on some days, better than Tango in the Night I am very impressed with WTWCT, Murrow, Illume, Thrown Down, Miranda, Come, Steal Your Heart Away, Destiny Rules, and Say Goodbye. It is a very interesting album to me, certainly not mixed/mastered very well and sequenced poorly, but a worthwhile and interesting effort just the same. I cannot wait for the next album, because I really have no idea what to expect, that is the great thing about the Mac, they never give you the same thing twice with an album!

[macpai]

Say You Will has actually grown on me of late. I really sort if was kind of a trifle at first, but now there are some songs that I am genuinely attached to. 3.5 out of 5 for me.

Saying anything 'bout Tango in the Night though is gonna race my motor. That's one of those albums -- and yeah the Mac have had a few -- that I can listen to every track on. I love how that puzzle somehow fits together. It just seems right, even what may appear disjointed or jarring.

[mylittledemon]

I LIKED Say You Will when it came out...and I still LIKE it. I probably was more enamored of it when it first came out because it was "YAY FLEETWOOD MAC IS BACK" that sort of thing...

I'd give the album 2.5 stars (on a 4 star scale). It falls short of spectacular, while managing to stay above average for me.

[Skyveris]

I'd give Say You Will a 3.5 out of 5. It's probably my fifth favorite Mac album after Rumours, Tusk, The White Album, and Tango, although I listen to it with not nearly as much frequency as I do the aforementioned four. There are few really good songs (Thrown Down, Peacekeeper, Destiny Rules), but several on the album are decent enough (What's The World Coming To, Bleed To Love Her - I prefer The Dance version, Come, Miranda, Say You Will, Steal Your Heart Away, Goodbye Baby), while other songs I'm less enthused about that are still listenable (Illume, Red Rover, Smile At You). Say You Will was definitely short of standout excellence, but a solid offering nonetheless.

-Matt