I still like a lot of the Mirage songs, but they're really 'pop songs' with no emotion- totally unlike White Album, Rumours, Tusk, TITN.
TITN lacks a little cohesion because of Lindsey controlling, and Stevie being in rehab for most of it and not really having an influence.
But I think the music is at a completely different level than Mirage. The main problem is the lyrics, in Tango. So many songs are excellent musically but poor lyrically- that's where I feel tracks like Family Man and Mystified fall down- they sound neat but have no substance.
Whereas I felt Mirage was very boring musically but talented lyrically.
I think Tusk was the last album (IMHO) that had the lyrics+music winning FM cohesion.
Also, something I feel that works on TITN is the 'stars get to shine'- Lindsey with Big Love, Stevie with Seven Wonders,Christine wth a bunch of trax- they get to stand out instead of silly FM harmonies like that was found on Mirage. I like being able to hear the individual artists' voices. Although I like backing vocals being sung by the other members ala Mystified and the outtake of Family Man.
I think TITN would be rated much better if they'd used some more 'out there' outtakes and not used a lot of the final cuts (or mixed the final cuts that way, either way). But I guess we'll never know
- Spike