[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Can you believe it's been 30 years already. I can still remember the day I bought it. I was 19 and working at a grocery store. When the album came out, I drove to the mall and bought the cassette and listened to it in the car.
OSOTM does not get lots of love around here so I am probably in the minority who thinks its a fairly good album with many songs landing in the winner's circle. A few interesting stats on the album. It peaked at #10 album on the hot 100 in the USA. Rooms on fire (released 30 years ago tomorrow April 21, 1989) peaked at #16 both in the USA and UK and also reached #9 in Canada. My first impressions of the album were quite good because I was really worrying about Stevie during the RAL era. I thought OSOTM was a bounce back or step up from RAL. Her voice was strong and not coke fried out. She wrote most of the songs again and for the most part real instruments were used. The album does have a few 80s sound tricks but the album holds up today, something that IMHO RAL does not. Rooms on Fire got me really excited for the album's release because it was a great song and the video was really good. Its probably my favorite Stevie video. And lastly, for some reason Rooms on Fire made a personal connection to me. I understand and have lived through the love at first sight thing which is something very real and powerful. Its weird but its almost like I felt like I wrote the song. Most of the album's best songs are on the first side so first impressions were strong. Stevie's lyrics on this album are very personal. She does not hide things or beat around the bush. "High in my life, obsessive was my love." Many forget but Stevie ran away from Betty Ford. She did not complete the full stay. She even titled a track "Escape from Berlin." Lyrically speaking, OSOTM is my second favorite Stevie album after Bella Donna. Her songs were crafted very well right before klonopin turned out all the lights. I also admired Stevie's desire to do something a bit daring and going in another direction. Tom Petty did not sing a song with her this time for the first album. However, Tom was very busy working on his own solo career in 1988 so maybe he did not have the time. Although a Heartbreaker does work with her on the album. I have categorized the songs from Outstanding, Good, Average, and should have been dropped.

Outstanding:
Rooms on Fire
Long Way To Go - one of her best rockers. lyrics combining love and drug addition the way only Stevie could do
Ooh My Love - wow esp compared to the Tango demo
Doing the Best that I can - I love the hypnotic feel, captures the poet song perfectly


Good:

Ghosts - love the past, present and future Stevie almost like a Christmas Carol
Two Kinds of Love - took awhile but it grew on my - amazing lyrics and probably one of very few openly sexual songs about love and lust
Whole Lotta Trouble - its good but it could have been better with a slightly faster beat and started as track 1 on side 2


Average
Fire Burning - its catchy and amazing to think its really about Stevie's house on fire and what could she take and survive the fire
Other Side of the Mirror - used to not care for it but its catchy
Juliet - pretty good/average

Should have been dropped
Cry Wolf - Stevie had better songs, no need to put a Laura Brannigan song on the album. She does a pretty good job but just does not belong on the album
I still miss someone (Blue Eyes) - ok please Johnny Cash with a drum machine and merry go round keyboards ahhhh NO. Maybe this was Stevie's hidden Lindsey moment?

How the album could have been better? Let me count the ways. I would have added the song Mirror Mirror like the version she recorded a few years later in 1992. She also could have added Smile at You and Running through the Garden. I think her band at the time could have made them work.

As much as I liked the album, the tour was my least favorite of any Stevie tour. So glad she performed 5 songs from the album but I did not care for the songs she performed that year.

The album really is a glimpse into Stevie's life in the mid to late 80s. We get 2 songs about Joe Walsh: Long Way To Go which is about the booty call Joe called her right after RAL was finished. She took the first cut of the album to play it for him and he kept it...something that she says she still does not forgive him for. It was a long way to go to say goodbye again. The have fun, tell the world part is coded language for F*ck You Joe. Stevie does not swear in songs but it was a good metaphor. Stevie worked with Bruce Hornsby and Kenny G who were the hottest and biggest guys in 1988. Stevie fell in love with Songbird when she was on tour with the Mac in the fall of 1987 and heard the song on the radio. She sought him out to record with. Many don't like his contributions to the album. I think they fit in a whimsical kind of way on a magic album. I think Thousand Days could have been added to the album with Kenny G on sax.

So glad she got to put this album out before things got scary again. The night I saw her in the summer of 1989, I could tell something was wrong.


So what are your favorites (if any) from the album?

Like Docklands, Cry Wolf is a great song but Stevie can’t sing it. Her voice is like sandpaper on these well written songs and she doesn’t sound fully committed to them. Terrible vocal and production.