[MikeInNV]

Originally Posted by David

I don't know how all four members working on an album "from the ground up" would solve the problems Stevie had with the last album. She apparently didn't like the way some of her songs turned out. Does that mean she wanted those songs to be a lot more like the demos she shipped from the road? Did she make her beefs known during the recording she was there for?

Maybe it was all just an argument over the inclusion of "Come," or a problem she had with the running order.

What does it even mean to work on an album from the ground up? That you write all your songs in the studio? The two writers could try that--maybe even try writing a song together--but I don't see how doing that would prevent the problems they had with Say You Will. If they have a prickly, unpleasant time working in the same room, doing the album from the ground up could even exacerbate that problem.

Musically, is there any advantage to be gained by writing & recording from the ground up? No, not when one of the members is influencing the final sound of the album fifty times as much as the other three members. That guy will still make his songs sound "out there" in comparison with the other songs.

Actually, the one musical advantage to the from the ground up method is that the tracks won't sound as if they were timestamped over the course of six or seven years. That was my main problem with Say You Will: I could literally hear four different major recording sessions spread out over six years. It sounded like a bootlegger had grabbed a bunch of unreleased stuff from the vaults, and thrown it onto a single CD-R regardless of what year it was recorded.

I agree with every word of this.