Nicks is truly one of the best modern rockers we have. The quality of her music with Mac from the white album through Mirage, and as a solo artist, Bella Donna and The Wild Heart, was nothing short of amazing.
Her coke addiction started to affect the quality of her music on Rock A Little, and even more so on Tango In The Night, but then she temporarily came back with The Other Side Of The Mirror.
Then klonopin muffled her muse and her work became very pedestrian - Street Angel and Behind The Mask weren't nearly the quality of her previous work, and I feared her muse had left her.
But then "Sweet Girl" on The Dance showed promise. I think it's been long enough now that few of us remember what a "wow!" moment Trouble In Shangri-La was when it came out. It was truly a return to form, and it both outsold Street Angel by a factor of three and achieved overwhelmingly positive reviews.
In Your Dreams has gotten both better and worse reviews than Trouble In Shangri-La did. Some see In Your Dreams as being the first solo album where Nicks reached some Mac-in-their-prime levels, whereas others seem to feel that the album was more MOR than ROCK. I personally think both Trouble In Shangri-La and In Your Dreams are stellar albums.
Now we have 24 Karat Gold, which I think is Nicks' third consecutive excellent album. It is also the album that most closely resembles Bella Donna, which is why some (like Jondalar) are so enamored with it. I don't disagree with that - it IS an excellent album. I also think that the Trouble In Shangri-La/In Your Dreams/24 Karat Gold era has been more consistently excellent work than the Bella Donna/The Wild Heart/Rock A Little/The Other Side Of The Mirror era.
The BEST thing about 24 Karat Gold is that it's opened up for Nicks the possibility of quickly putting out a quality album to get her vast vault of work finally released.
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