[daniellaaarisen]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

Yes, Lindsey's approach has evolved... but in his case, I don't think evolution is necessarily a good thing. He has been on a musical journey, surely. But I think his style has become a bit too heavy-handed and forced. What I loved about albums like Rumours and Tusk was that they were rough yet effortlessly polished at the same time. And even when a song was very heavily produced, e.g., "Sara" or "You Make Loving Fun," there was something very warm and organic about it. In recent efforts, it seems like Lindsey was just digging through his electronic bag of tricks and trying to use every effect he can throw at a song. For me, the results are not "cutting edge" as much as they are cold and mechanical. Rather than complementing the songs, his production tends to overpower the songs. Yes, one could argue that perhaps the material on an album like SYW was so weak that it needed a lot of heavy-handed production. But on songs like "Smile at You," which was pretty great to begin with, I think he could have dialed back the vocoders and Pro Tools a notch and employed a simpler, sparser sonic field. Not to say that it was all bad- I think the production on "Destiny Rules" was perfect, as well as "Thrown Down." But two or three good songs out of ten (Stevie) songs is not a good batting average.

I completely agree. And although Trouble in Shangri-La is definitely heavily produced as well, I believe that it was relatively consistent in sound which made most of the little pointless production additions more.... believable. Less out of place. Especially since we were hearing one songwriter and one more commercialized style throughout the entire album while Say You Will was jumpy in that sense-- not even separated out into Stevie vs. Lindsey as writers/singers.