Say What You Will
Seems like an impossible task to rank albums across eras, yet John and Mick were there through it all and they are the brand name, so it's fair game. A fairly solid ranking, I think. I'm squarely in the Tango before Mirage camp but it's good that each album has fans to champion it.
I've come to the conclusion that the release of the GOS demos forever diminished SYW to some extent. (Speaking as a fan here, because the average listener or even average fan wouldn't have heard the demos.) When SYW came out, to some extent I judged it for its songs that weren't from the GOS demos, as if those didn't count. Had those Lindsey GOS tracks been fresh to SYW, it would have been a revelation and necessarily elevated SYW to a near all-time favorite Fleetwood Mac album, Girlie Girls notwithstanding.
Had, for example, Miranda made its first appearance not on the GOS demos but as an (apparent) SYW session track, I would think of it more fully as a Fleetwood Mac song (not a Lindsey solo song, as I always have), and in that context I would put it up there close to Gypsy. It's a knock-out; musically it's Mirage-style Lindsey at his best but lyrically it's Mirage-level Stevie at her best.
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Joe
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