[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by aleuzzi

Say You Will gets a bad rap, and that's not really fair. I agree with you that it's the band's strongest, most adventurous and rigorous studio album since Tusk (though perhaps for me not as enjoyable as Mirage--depends on the day).

I was initially pissed because Christine wasn't there. But when I let that go, since I had no choice and was forced to accept the music on its own terms, I was really pleased with the record. About five or six of the songs are indulgent crap, but the remaining 12 are great. I see Stevie in particular growing in ways I hadn't seen before this. And the instrumental trio was as tight as ever.

Of course in a perfect world, those six lousy songs could have been replaced by six amazing Christine songs and then you'd have, well, magic...

As far as The Dance goes, I was just happy to see them playing together again. But once the initial thrill wore off (it took about three or four months) I realized we were left with an album that didn't really amount to much. We'd heard so many of those songs before that it was hard not to see the project as nostalgia. There were the four new songs (should have been at least 8), Silver Springs, a killer rendition of Gold Dust Woman (why wasn't this used instead of Dreams?), a brilliant reinvention of Big Love, and smoking delivery of You Make Loving Fun. Everything else was merely pleasant...

I really love the version of Songbird from the DVD.. also Go Insane is remarkable... The piano intro w/ Christine accompanying Stevie is also superb..