SYW, best album of all time?

[Spikey]

Until:

Next to Tusk, indeed, this eighteen-track opus is a box of All-Sorts replete with countless different colours and moods.

Say You Will is a wild album compared to Tusk? No way, Tusk is out there. There's nothing close to "The Ledge" on SYW, Murrow and Come are far more mainstream or at least more hard rocking than obscure, compared to the Tusk work, especially Lindsey's. SYW is very much overall a mainstream album (which didn't help it differentiate from the competitors, IMO), despite a couple of LB oddities.

I will agree there are many musical styles on SYW, which is great. But Tusk has more than half its' tracks differing in style, even within the same genre and style.
That;s why it's my number 1 of all time, it's literally beyond compare (IMO).

or

As one would expect, there's a slew of those Stevie songs that are essentially narcissistic hymns to, well, Stevie Nicks. One of them is called ‘Silver Girl’, no less.

Silver Girl's not even about Stevie, and I think most of her songs on this album are about other people.

or

(You can hear Chrissie, though, on the moody, thumping ‘Murrow’.)

I don't think I need to explain this one.




I agree with a lot of the old article, but it feels sorta like he didn't listen to the album very closely (IMO). Of course, we know a lot more about the album and its history 8 years on..





On demos- the "Smile At You" Mirage demo sounds like a mostly finished track. I don't know if jbrownsjr has heard the version I've heard (he probably has), but I can't believe he said it's embarrassing. It sounds like many Mac Stevie tracks, a little rambly but the music is near flawless.

The disappointing thing, which has been covered ad nauseum, is that Buckingham's rock piece is replaced by that syncopated synthetic boring guitar (similar to what happened to Thrown Down from the original Stevie solo version with Buckingham), and as David said, Stevie's vocals lack emotion. But you could say that about a lot of her vocals on SYW. Maybe it's the production, with her live work and now IYD, we know she hasn't lost it by any stretch.


If I was to nail down feelings on this album, it's that it's very good (without going on, the album is great), that Buckingham's songs are beyond great but sadly don't fit within the environment of the mellow Mac at all (well, songs like Come and Murrow anyway), and that the letdown is the production on the album- it's very random and very poorly done.
The very tight "Bleed To Love Her", for example, is left to ramble on from well past the 3 and a half minute mark to no great end, and there are too numerous other examples to mention.
Also, the single choices. Duh, they suck (I mean, good songs, but awful choices for the lead singles, worst choices BN-era-Mac ever made). Maybe something more like Destiny Rules and Bleed To Love Her, but we could debate that all year, and I'll probably change my mind tomorrow.
The final thing would be that the Dylan cover of Love Minus Zero is excellent, Lindsey really sounds like Bob, which is amazing to me, I didn't think he would, and the song is played really well. Of course it's another one I don't understand why it would have anything to do with a FM album.


Like someone just said, with the DR doc, and with subsequent media, we know it wasn't a good time for S and L by the end of the album and decisions were badly made, mistakes were made, the album didn't turn out how it should. Stevie's unhappy with it, Lindsey seems overall happy with it, I guess because his work was unaltered from his demos and Stevie's were probably really messed with. Anyway.


Anyone else's thoughts?