Stevie Nicks solo - Classic or Dud?

"Edge of Seventeen" and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" propel her solo career into teh classy.

no, no, she said the bathroom is where she did her best lines.

Dave Q started a thread about "Stand Back" recently.
Oh, one more thing,

Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace Leather and Lace
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(yet another example of Don Henley's best work coming after the Eagles)

Generally, yes. But I'll take "Talk to Me" or "Stand Back" or "Rooms on Fire' over "That's Alright," "Sisters of the Moon," or "Welcome to the Room, Sara".

(also that comment about her needing LB's arrangements upthread is wrong cuz LB would never have realized "stand back" ought to sound like a prince tune)

This song would have greatly benefitted from a Bonnie Tyler and Eddie Money treatment rather than Don Henley mewling "Sometimes I'm a strong man/Sometimes cold and scared/And sometimes I cry." Yeah sometimes I cry too Don, usually when I'm listening to one of your solo tunes.

Plus I think it's quite ironic that she was never all that popular in the UK, which is essentially where Fleetwood Mac come from.

But *every* Stevie Nicks song involves a delusional girl. Her songs are nothing if not full of uncertainty and self-doubt.

We're all allowed to flub lines in the midst of cocaine psychosis.

also, "i can't wait" video had some serious mid-80's sizzle to it.

Brian, it's not really fair to tease us like that. Esp. since my first thought was OMG I MUST HAVE THIS.

'Far as poetry goes, all props to Alfred for the thread. We haven't actually mentioned "After The Glitter Fades" by name, but it stands for me among the best of all singer-songwriter SoCaliana*, from "Late For The Sky" through "A Long December."

*A genre defined by the hoovering of rails in an elegiac mode.

Edge of Seventeen is a stone classic. But not as stone classic as "Stone in Love" by Journey which is a double-stone classic for use of the word "stone" in the title.*

*Also, I noticed the other day that the main riff from Stone in Love is totally ripped off by "Drown" by Son Volt, which was by far their best song. Huh.

Suspect the collective might throw a lot of "Windfall" and "Tear Stained Eye" at that Son Volt POO, but "Stone In Love" was WITHOUT QUESTION Journey's finest hour. I love it without irony. Deserves its own thread.

"Edge of Seventeen" was what Destiny's Child sampled for "Bootylicious," right?

Not sure which I like more: "Seventeen" or "Bootylicious."

Hilarious!

"Edge of Seventeen" is fucking immense.

Get ahold of yourself, man, for God's sake.

Yeah, you know it, Bitch.

"Stand Back". I saw this video before I could even GET fucking MTV. You know it fucking rules. And look at her fucking hair. Is it not perfect hair??? How many hairdressers were responsible for that?

This one goes out to Alfred Soto - "I Can't Wait":

And by the way, Edge of Seventeen...

Get ahold of yourself, man, for God's sake.

Hahaha. Why?

She's the goddess. Get on the train now. She's the Queen, man. She's even going to outdo Nico as Queen of Goth if I'm not careful here.

Anyway I don't want to talk to people who haven't heard Kate Bush's The Dreaming album just yet. Just sayin'.

Leather & Lace, live 1981

How Still My Love, live 1983

"This is a song about an old Welsh witch" LOL

haven't read any of this, but its obviously not even an issue, stevie has held her own.

I know I have resurrected this thread about a zillion times, but I want to know if anyone knows this song "Gold & Braid" which didn't appear on either of her first two albums for some weird reason. I'm not even positive that she wrote it, but it's become a big fave of mine.

It's on the box set; before then it was only found on that live show VHS to which you linked.

Yeah! Thanks for responding. I knew it was on the Enchanted thing, that was it. Allmusic says it's indeed her song, but I suppose allmusic could be wrong.

I mean can someone please look at their CD or whatever and confirm that she has the writing credits on this one? Or someone else? Thanks.

Also, I'm determined to keep calm tonight about the music I love, but I just want to say that her song "Outside The Rain", I heard that on my iPod while running through this HUGE graveyard near my house a couple months ago with my friend, and I can't now divorce that feeling from the song itself. I felt like a child, and its a reminder that this gorgeous HUGE graveyard is near my house and I have only to walk a few blocks and I'm in that place again in my mind. There's something incredible about a child running through the greenery of nature, and she summed up that whole feeling for me.

this was on the vintage WS thread but wanted more ppl to see it!

wow so awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HguL2bIri1Q&feature=player_embedded

man this clip is making my life better

the crazy thing is that this is like 10X better than the album version....just such a nice little moment, lost to time...thank god for youtube....

getting irl goosebumps.

wow, that really is gorgeous! Her face kinda makes it better too: a lotta joy in singing.

yeah it's like she's singing like how you sing when you're a little kid, like un-self-conscious and just for the fun

Never really been a huge Stevie Nicks fan, but damned if that isn't one of the most charming clips I've ever seen.

don't blame it on me

BLAME IT ON MY WIIIILD HEEEART

a friend showed me that clip a couple of months ago. it was all we talked about for a couple of days basically

Really, really sweet. Love when the pause in the music (about 1:40) makes her eyes go wide, and she elicits a little chuckle from the makeup woman.

new solo album may 3rd

http://i.imgur.com/LBSZ0.png

Her?

i don't believe so

I got the demos for the Wild Heart album... the dressing room video of Wild Heart sounds way better than any of the WH demos I downloaded. Does anyone have a decent mp3 of it?

aka, YSI?

wild heart video is captivating. i didn't realise she looked like that

"i really like it when you sing like *a* child"

She looks like Ann Veal from Arrested Development.

Rave review.

A lot more generous than the Slant review: http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/in-your-dreams/2487

Lots of rong in that review. First, David Stewart is certainly not "one of pop music's most progressive, fearless producers" -- one of the most regressive and reactionary, actually, which sometimes worked in his favor.

Secondly, since when is anyone upset over Nicks' choice of literary role models? This is a woman who wears leather and lace, boots in the summer time, and fucked Joe Walsh.

SFJ reviews the new album.

it's more a summary of stevie nicks in general

SFJ reviews the new album.

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 9, 2011

cf. Headlines That Write Themselves

I actually heard the single on the radio. I liked it. I thought, "wow, this sounds like Stevie Nicks."

i am weirdly intrigued by this

The song based on Twilight is excellent. She has so much empathy for these girls.

Never knew this before:

Stevie Nicks wrote “Edge of Seventeen” after Tom Petty’s wife Jane started telling her how they met. “She was telling me about Tom [Petty], about when she met him, and she has an incredible Southern accent…and she said that she met him at the age of seventeen, but I thought she said “edge”, and she said “no…age” and I said “Jane, forget it, it’s got to be “edge”. The “Edge of Seventeen” is perfect. I’m going to write a song, ok? And I’m going to give you credit.” She didn’t believe me, you know? She couldn’t believe it when it came out on the album.”

One Week//One Band almost done with its weeklong celebration of Stevie Nicks. A lovely post answering the question "What are some of your fondest memories of being a teenage Fleetwood Mac fan?"

I think I miss the culture of it, mostly. Which was the culture of a certain time, too — we hung out on Usenet! The wars between the message boards! There was this guy who was like the Frank Kogan of Mac fandom, and he had all these stories about bootlegging concerts from the parking lot behind the stage when he was a kid in Southern California in the ’70s — and I think at one point before the wars he invited me to join the bad board, which was kind of a badge of honor, particularly as a Stevie Nicks fan, particularly as a female Stevie Nicks fan, since we were basically what the bad board was designed to destroy. There was a sexist aspect that I didn’t pick up on as a kid, or I picked up on it but I accepted it, where a bunch of adult males created a hierarchy of what was cool, what was smart, what was better, and at the top was them and the things they liked, and at the bottom was young women, and the things young women wanted to talk about. Stevie was the least cool thing you could like. (So of course I loved her like my life depended on it. I loved her like her life depended on it.)

But there was a culture beyond that, the things handed down from fan to fan. All the little legends — the things someone once said Lindsey once said to Stevie, the story about him slapping her, whether it was true. Whether we could trust Mick Fleetwood. The fight over “Silver Springs.” The fight over “Go Your Own Way.” The fight over “Tusk.” The fight over Tusk. Every concert ending with “Songbird.” Mick’s balls, and John’s tattoo, and who “Sara” and “Caroline” were about. And all the things we traded — the Rosebud documentary, the Tusk documentary, the Almanac demos, and there was a recording of Stevie saying this, and there was a video of Lindsey doing that, and after a while you knew it so well you felt like you were born with it, born knowing the stories and the symbols and the traditions and what was classic and what was rare and what was valuable.

For those curious, I believe Mick's balls we/are actually souvenir pull-strings from some old hotel toilets pilfered while on tour in the old days, back when the band also used to adorn the drum set with dildos and fill condoms with scary liquids then spray them at crowds. I'm not making this up.

You know how when you hear about some pampered rock star demanding something like reshooting an entire video because they didn't like they way they looked in it? The MTV Oral History book mentions how Stevie Nicks shelved the first version of "Stand Back" for that reason and reshot a more 80s version with the wind in her hair and dancers in the shadows.

Sounds like the old version would be better than any generic second take, right? I think Stevie may have known what she was talking about.

Here, how about she explain to you why this first one was a bad idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC5YWPTCNEQ

"Now we're in the Civil War..."

http://www.vulture.com/2013/06/stevie-nicks-on-life-at-65-with-fleetwood-mac.html

She's been terrific lately. Check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXg2kZV8-6s

“She’s very amazing about making these major decisions about her life that a lot of people would just stumble along, and suddenly you’re 35 with three screaming kids and going, ‘Hey, how did I end up here?’ ” says Dave Stewart. “It’s this free-spirit thing: Don’t let people push you into a box that you don’t like.” Carlton, 32, remembers Nicks telling her that when Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, she only saw one path for herself, and it didn’t involve child­bearing. “She said, ‘I wanted to be respected by every single dude on that stage, and if I walked out and I’d made that choice, the dynamic would have been different.’ And she’s right,” Carlton says. “And now it’s a little bit different because of women like Stevie. And I think, God, I’m just so grateful to her. She’s a total badass.”

Carlton tells me that last year she asked Nicks to write out her “rules of engagement”—how to get what you want out of life and men. Nicks gave her a stack of hotel stationery with handwritten directives and the overall message that you shouldn’t compromise on having a wonderful, interesting life just because it can be a challenge for some men, but that you should also be aware that that lifestyle can be a burden. Carlton reads one aloud: “ ‘He must have a good job. He must be happy and satisfied with his own life. You are there to enhance his life, not take away from it, and he is there to enhance your life, not fuck it up.’ That’s my favorite one. Thank you, Stevie!”

Re that YouTube clip. Listen to the last four minutes in which she discusses the death of her mother. Damn.

I wonder if any child has the courage to ask those questions of their mother.

I love you Stevie Nicks

I bought Wild Heart and a best of yesterday, I only knew 'Stand Back' and daaaamn I really love pretty much every song on Wild Heart! If Anyone Falls is killing me.

Man her choruses are so fking great, I love her so much

"Nightbird"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQzY97UCXns&feature=kp

New leaked track, a rerecording of the oft-bootlegged "The Dealer":

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/stevie-nicks-delivers-emotional-new-track-dealer-20140805

New album of old material is quite not bad.

http://i.imgur.com/O3c84A8.gif

YES

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/stevie_nicks_will_fuck_you_up

In those shoes!

http://themuse.jezebel.com/stevie-nicks-recording-edge-of-seventeen-is-some-of-the-1796921774

Huge Stevie fan here, but nonetheless I fathom to guess that person who wrote that hyperbolic clickbait article title hasn't watched a lot of studio footage in their lifetime.

booo to you

it's pretty fkn mesmerizing imo

That stuff along with the "Chronic" history was my favorite thing about that slick PR piece.

Meaning "The Defiant Ones".

Stevie was serious crush material

Wow I had no idea Jimmy Iovine was bald.

Just kidding. That was the first time I've ever seen him without a baseball cap. Next on my list: Edge without his knit cap, Daniel Lanois without his knit cap, Steve Van Zandt without his whatever ...

http://i.imgur.com/LpBt87i.jpg

You look perfectly fine. Lose the dumb hats, Dave.

Ha, Edge looks so much better without the hat!

I need you to hate me, I need you todaaaaayyy.

“And sometimes <sniff> I cry” always made me chuckle a little.

*sniff* is coke obv

Her best Mac and solo stuff.

Either this is an in-joke or that’s the wrong link, Alfred.

Ha! It's the wrong link.

For someone who spent the good part of a decade+ of her peak gacked out, she recorded a remarkable number of great songs. But wow, no Silver Springs, which has sort of become the definitive Nicks Mac song. (Storms may be the prettiest.)

I'll tell you what, I forgot "Nightbird"!

I feel like “Stand Back” deserves the Lindstrom and Prins treatment.

Rooms on fire slays, the drums are A+

Could be Jerry Marotta ...

That vaporous Rupert Hine production, also used to splendid effect on Rush's Poppy Bush Interzone hits.

I don't know how many times I've listened to Rooms on Fire today and I don't want to know

She's great in Fleetwood Mac, but I'm not a fan of her solo records. She seems to be at the complete mercy of her collaborators, but seeing as she's choosing most of them, it's probably more of a reflection of poor choices. Iovine's okay but he's generally less interesting than what Nicks had with Buckingham et al. Things get better when Tom Petty and/or the Heartbreakers are involved, or with Prince in "Stand Back"'s case. The one unqualified triumph that belongs to her is "Edge of Seventeen," and as much as I prefer Buckingham's solo career, I don't think he's ever quite matched it on his own.

Depends how you define 'collaboration,' for Prince just played on "Stand Back."

"Rooms on Fire" is lovely, and it took years to notice it doesn't rhyme! And how many top twenty hits have lines like "She dreamed of a wanton luxury"?

When Rooms on Fire hits at the bar the place goes up in flames 🔥

Depends how you define 'collaboration,' for Prince just played on "Stand Back."

I didn't want to drown the post in details, but generally the point is that the track owed a lot to Prince:

She wrote it on the day of her marriage to Kim Anderson on January 29, 1983. The newlyweds were driving up to San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara when Prince's song "Little Red Corvette" came on the radio. Nicks started humming along to the melody, especially inspired by the lush synthesizers of the song, and "Stand Back" was born. They stopped and got a tape recorder and she recorded the demo in the honeymoon suite that night. Later, when Nicks went into the studio to record the song, she called Prince and told him the story of how she wrote the song to his melody. He came to the studio that night and played synthesizers on it, although his contribution is uncredited on the album. He and Nicks did agree however to split the publishing royalties on the song 50-50. Then, she says, "he just got up and left as if the whole thing happened in a dream."

oh I'm well aware of it -- I own Timespace and the story's been passed down for years -- but his influence on the track is overstated, especially when "Nightbird" and (especially!) "If Anyone Falls" boast similar synthesized arrangements. Her awarding him some publishing dough was a gesture of generosity. The track was already awesome.

“Blue Lamp” is phenomenal. I can’t believe it was relegated to a b-side/soundtrack cut

I want to resist this notion of Nicks as "at the complete mercy of her collaborators," which may have been true in 1985-1996 but was certainly not true in Fleetwood Mac (as her demos show) or her solo work from 1989 onward.

Also, most singer-songwriters are at the mercy of collaborators, "complete" or otherwise.

They need bands to flesh out their crystal visions. I suspect a Nicks-at-the-piano album at her peak would've been special, though.

"Blue Lamp" is a catchy motherfucker.

stand back would be a great song without the synths

so she “stole” a bit from little red corvette

it’s a stretch to call prince a “collaborator” there

I think she’s a really underrated songwriter and singer and all this surgical picking apart what she “really” did is weird.

otm

Some great comments on here, just for one example: Hell yeah. Hell yeah to the LA session players. Hell yeah to Don Henley knowing that with Stevie to light his nights, somehow he'd get by. Hell yeah to Alfred Soto correctly observing that when you didn't plan to hear it just then, "Stand Back" is in fact the best song ever written. Along with "Edge Of Seventeen" or "If Anyone Falls." Hell yeah to doing fat rails at some record producer's party up the canyon in Studio City, or maybe it was a real estate guy, and finding yourself alone on a balcony at four in the morning, the has-beens long retired to the bedrooms with the wannabes, and maybe a few stragglers sprawled on living room shag, too wasted or too desperate to know that for them the party ended weeks ago, with the Valley twinkling everywhere below, and knowing that love is only one fine star away. Hell yeah.
― rogermexico (rogermexico), Tuesday, July 5, 2005
And the one already in italics, apparently from somewhere else, re the Frank Kogan of Mac collectors, the beneath-the-hierarchy of fans, young women who wanted to talk about young woman things, and what in Stevie songs of and to such want, despite any degree in songs or fans of accepted sexism, and "there was a culture beyond that'---who wrote this, Alfred?

meant to refer to "what in Stevie songs *spoke* of and to such want"

stand back would be a great song without the synths
so she “stole” a bit from little red corvette
it’s a stretch to call prince a “collaborator” there
I think she’s a really underrated songwriter and singer and all this surgical picking apart what she “really” did is weird.
I like the record more than the song - I've never been especially bowled over by any covers or live performances to really think it was the other way around, and I definitely like it more than the remixed version on Timespace, so I can't agree there.

I think we already covered this in the previous posts, but 1) I didn't want to spend too much time discussing details, so "collaborator" shouldn't be taken that literally, "influence" probably would've been better and 2) Alfred already said he thought that influence was overstated, even if it's been stated by Nicks herself, and that's fine if we disagree

Anyway, I'm not sure I'd call her underrated as a songwriter given how massively popular her songs are - her songs with Fleetwood Mac are probably heard and covered more than the others by her bandmates, and they are great songs so they seem rated just fine.

I was going to suggest "influence" as a substitute because no question Prince influenced the writing of "Stand Back."

And lol I prefer the remixed "Stand Back" on Timespace -- punchier, longer, with the extended coda of Nicksbabble.

I don't like any of the CLA remixes on that compilation, I never kept it for that reason.

Sometimes it's a bitch!

LOL

I rarely like remixes like this, unless it was a record that was seriously compromised, remixing at best feels pointless, but it could be a lot worse.

wow 18 new answers and none of them are about “Show Them The Way”? It’s good. It didn’t blow me away or anything but it’s staying on my 2020 playlist.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U74L8TbHsoY

Never forget

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AjarDaringAsiaticmouflon-small.gif

the live “stand back” on the chain box is hurried and thin but I kinda like it

Sorry Jeff -- that's what started my solo Stevie binge, I got distracted by Rooms on Fire.

The new song's okay. Too many JFK references instead of JFK references.

the live “stand back” on the chain box is hurried and thin but I kinda like it

It's not bad. I don't think that was a balanced collection - they really shortchanged the pre-Buckingham/Nicks era - but that track was a good pick to represent the post-Buckingham lineup, which wasn't exactly rich with gems.

Blue Lamp is all time

if you wiser you would get out

otm

You GO, girl

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AjarDaringAsiaticmouflon-max-1mb.gif

Happy birthday, fellow sister of the moon

https://giphy.com/gifs/abedder-gypsy-stevie-nicks-fleetwood-mac-buLmE2bSbOkEoC1zO

https://media.giphy.com/media/buLmE2bSbOkEoC1zO/giphy.gif

blame it on my wild heart

^^^ best fucking album ever, as I discovered about a month ago

I remember reading Details Magazine when it was still around and they did a Q&A with Stevie and the writer had the audacity to ask her about a rather explicit rumor (rumour?) that was going around at the time. I will paraphrase:

Interviewer: There's a rumor going around that you did so much coke that your nostrils are wrecked and you have an assistant blow coke into your asshole. (Yes, they came right out and asked her about this).

Nicks: (no response)

Interviewer: It must suck having those kinds of rumors about you.

I remember at the time finding it unreal they even asked, and more surprised she didn't storm out of the inteview.

well the magazine was called details

lol I remember it

My Stevie @Barbie has been with me now for several months. When Mattel came to me asking if I would like to have a Barbie made in the “Rumours” cover style I was very overwhelmed. Of course I questioned “would she look like me? Would she have my spirit? Would she have my heart…”… pic.twitter.com/JQXjF7XSMK

— Stevie Nicks (@StevieNicks) October 2, 2023

I guess there have been a few of these random Music Series Barbies, including Bowie:

https://www.billboard.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/David-Bowie-Barbie-hero.jpg?w=942&h=623&crop=1

Mid 70s yellow teeth coked up Bowie would have made a great Joker

Happy birthday, girl

https://i.imgur.com/kvPyPCA.gif

Aw hell yeah

STEVIE NICKS ON SNL WHAT A FUCKING LEGEND pic.twitter.com/c8uGAnh0cM

— stevie nicks manager (@kajolswife) October 13, 2024

She was pretty awesome.

I was skeptical but she brought it.

Although as it went on I was more and more distracted by the backing vocal track, clearly her, as pre recorded harmonies. It was like a wall of Stevies.

awesome

Still kind of ick to see Waddy up there

she's never ditching waddy.

Waddy looks like a skeleton dressed up as Bob Weir for Halloween

Official upload of full performance (much better sound):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1PpthYqJks

It's a big improvement on the record they actually released simply because Nicks is openly pissed off and lets it rip - a much better job of nailing the spirit of the song.

I was kinda underwhelmed

Extraordinary interview:

Is there internet on your iPhone

It isn’t connected, it’s just a camera.

I’m envious of that.

I hate it. About 10 years ago, Katy Perry was talking to me about the internet armies of all the girl singers, and how cruel and rancid they were. I said, “Well, I wouldn’t know because I’m not on the internet.” She said, “So, who are your rivals?” I just looked at her. It was my steely look. I said, “Katy, I don’t have rivals. I have friends. All the other women singers that I know are friends. Nobody’s competing. Get off the internet and you won’t have rivals either.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/stevie-nicks-fleetwood-mac-kamala-harris-new-music-1235140437/

the best <3

I love reading interviews with her. She's a very interesting person. Every time, I come away wishing I liked her music.

the best <3

Feeling this track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4R9bYZNd7qA

yeah good one, love that album.

“Rooms on fire” has been stuck in my head for weeks now, what a song

I was kinda underwhelmed

Agree. I saw her live early in the year and she was amazing, but the SNL stage (and the sound) is not very friendly to this kind of straight performance these days, I don't think. Also, as well intentioned as the new song is, it's pretty flat for me as a song. It's better than her awful pro-soldier song that she plays these days though.

“Rooms on fire” has been stuck in my head for weeks now, what a song

― brimstead,

and that song doesn't rhyme! It's the template for what Rupert Hine would do a few years later with Rush's "Ghost of a Chance."

She has said The Other Side of the Mirror is her peak; it happened between the coke rehab period and the Klonopin addiction.

I was blasting Rooms on Fire driving home from the Container Store this evening!

if I do say so myself

She has said The Other Side of the Mirror is her peak

this got me to finally check it out - I got obsessed with Rooms on Fire a few years ago but never got around to the LP. this is great.

The last two songs are wild.

Happy birthday, girl!

https://i.imgur.com/kvPyPCA.gif

HBD STEVIE

https://i0.wp.com/25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8ssenpkrI1qdvwefo1_500.gif

hb to the greatest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-VQ66lpC-0

^^^ oh my god I love this track, catchy motherfucker

yeah it’s a killer!

did you know where the phrase “edge of seventeen” came from? It was the way tom petty’s wife said “age of seventeen” in her thick southern accent when telling Stevie about how they met.