[mitzo]

I watched the whole discussion which was often impassioned and had a lot of depth. This album is not my favourite at all, it is frustrating, frankly. I do love the lush complicated production and the (for the most part) good vocals, but all the co-writes and the song choices seem to drown Stevie somehow. Unlike the discussants, I do not really hear genuine feeling anywhere here. Maybe it ended up an exercise in songwriting and craft rather than a project with heart. I am first and foremost a fan of Stevie's ballads and there really isn't one here, and the endless mid-tempo stuff gets boring.

I also am against the grain on what cuts are good or not. FWIW has always irritated me, it has potential but man, the super bass vocals in combination with the weird bagpipe drone instrumentals drag it way way down. Moonlight is so much better live as a real emotive ballad than the overwrought disjointed thing that is on the album.

Several cuts like Soldier's Angel and You May Be the One try your patience by being wordy and dragging on forever. Annabelle Lee is beautifully done here but the song leaves me cold, why is she singing about her love, a female, why the hell did she chose that poem? Similarly, Italian Summer is lovely but the lyrics are the Italian weather forecast bellowed six times over. The guitar riff on Ghosts are Gone bugs the hell out of me, loud, insistent, in you face, and distorts the song into an irritant.

My favourite is last night's punching bag Everybody Loves You. Compelling lyrics and vocals, gorgeous guitar solo bridge, it gets closer to what I like than anything else here.