Yea, this is a very good question, and I'd be
very interested to hear Lindsey answering it!
This album certainly doesn't follow the "safe/return to pop" methods of Mirage and TITN, but I don't think it's as daring as Tusk. Even though several of the songs definitely DO "push envelopes", they're not, IMO, as wacky as some of the Tusk songs. The thing is, SYW has pushed envelopes for
Fleetwood Mac/Lindsey, whereas Tusk pushed envelopes for
music.
I think Lindsey has definitely come a long way musically since 1987, and this is certainly some of his best work. If I was to take LB's tracks from Tusk and put them onto one disc, and do the same with SYW, I would definitely prefer the SYW disc, but with respect to both albums in their entirety, I prefer Tusk.