My Little Vent Thread

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Earlier today, I found myself in an odd sort of situation.

I was browsing through my Photobucket gallery, and saying things to myself like "I'm really getting frustrated with you" and "you know, I think somebody ought to have a word with you about this whole business."

Okay, now that I've creeped everyone out, I need to get some words out. Yeah, I could have just posted this on the St. Louis thread, but I'm just a thread-starting fool.

I'm really frustrated with Stevie right now. Not really pissed off, but my poor insignificant mind can't really begin to fathom some of the things she's said lately. Every time I gain some respect for her, she says something that makes me lose respect, and the cycle repeats in an endless loop. What irritates me the most is that I have a hard time saying what I should be saying, for a really shallow reason: Stevie is one of the few singers whose songs have ever had an emotional impact on me. Christ, the first time I heard BATB, I just hid in my room and cried for 20 minutes. Really embarrassing...but why would I want to put down someone whose songs have touched me deeply?

Well, perhaps I should be thinking about that. Here's a laundry list of things that are frustrating me right now:

1. In all the years I've been actively interested in music, I've never seen a singer or musician as creatively stagnant as her, or one so complacent about their state of stagnation and so stubborn in their unwillingness to change it. I wouldn't even consider myself a "hardcore" fan, but I can think up a dozen songs that could be added to her set list, perhaps enough to temporarily offset the fact that she's probably never going to make a new album.

2. How hard is it to get an album made these years? I'm sure there are a hundred producers who'd be willing to provide their services to Stevie, and since so many of her songs are actually more interesting in stripped-down demo form, it's not like it'd take months to hammer out the production process.

3. If her songs are so damned personal, why won't she perform them in a more personal setting? For example, it's kind of hard to take EO17 as being a really private, intense song when it's being belted out to a stadium with 15,000 people in it.

4. She really needs to take some kind of personal responsibility. We've all come to expect Stevie and Lindsey to blame each other for the same things and put on the "it's all your fault!" act, but Stevie is starting to come across as a Carol Ann Harris type. "I didn't know cocaine was bad for me, I didn't know Klonopin was addictive, I didn't know that the fans want to hear new songs, it's all their fault that I'm doing greatest hits and covers, and I'm just a poor girl from a poor family, spare me my life from this monstrosity!"

5. Her voice is in the best shape it's been in years, but she refuses to take advantage of the opportunity to record anything new. Or maybe that just goes with Point 1.

6. The Lindsey/Stevie thing is getting old. Yes, it was a traumatizing breakup...which happened during the second year of the Ford administration. One wonders what Chris and John, who actually managed to remain as professional music partners without letting their past relationship get in the way, are thinking right now about those two irritating Yanks and their endless fights.

7. A brief retirement/extended vacation to some exotic locale or meditating place in late 2004/early 2005 would have giving an opportunity for her to take some time to think about the future, perhaps giving us some new material instead of an endless mobious strip of nearly-identical GH tours. But the time to strike is long past, unfortunately. She should try doing this after the current tour is over. There's a reason why many musicians take long periods of semi-retirement; continuous touring just saps the mind the soul!

Okay, I'll just shut up for now.