Stevie still not on board for new album.

[anusha]

I don't know -- last year, it seemed that Lindsey was more in a we'll see if Stevie wants to do anything but I'm not pushing sort of vibe, but now that Chris is on board to do an album, and they've enjoyed working together in the studio, you've got 3 people who want to do an album (Mick, Lindsey, Chris, though Mick could flip-flop), one who'd probably be fine touring forever (John), and Stevie, who still seems to want no part of it.

I also think that this is probably a source of real tension among the band, if only because of the press that everyone is doing. And I get it -- Stevie has 100% control of the situation. And this has been the situation for FM albums going back to when she put out Bella Donna and became a huge solo star.

I don't think it would work for them to release the everyone-but-Stevie stuff if they're going to hold themselves out as a five-piece for the long, lucrative tours (that have, for the past decade, largely banked on the Stevie-Lindsey reconciliation, though the Chris comeback has changed that a bit).

That Say You Will ended up being a negative situation for Stevie, subjectively, is huge here. Did they ever say what the big sequencing fight was at the end? Clearly it was big, since she gave a lot of interviews after the fact that she was unhappy, and Lindsey alluded to it during his Under the Skin solo jaunt. I always suspected it was about Lindsey's songs ("Come" in particular), and how they were sequenced in the album. And I just think that, given that she has an outlet for her solo work, is fine with its quality, and it probably sells the same or maybe even more than a new FM album would, given her iconic status (and FM's demographic and poor album sales generally), she just can't be bothered to give up any songs for a new album.

But this band, and its politics, are a moving target, so we'll see. They will likely tour through a good part of next year, so I wouldn't expect that album anytime soon.