ONE MONTH of "24 Karat Gold"...

sorcerer999 · #1 11-02-2014, 12:49 AM

So it's been a month and two days since "24KG" was released...well, at least the vinyl version of the album. I'd consider most of you who frequently post here on the Stevie forum to be hardcore fans, so most of you have had it for that long.

We've already posted in the thread where we've ranked this new album against her other solo records as far as favorites to least favorites go, so there's no need to do anymore comparisons there...but I guess my question to all of you is, now that we've had a good month to let this album sink into our subconscious and our own personal "Stevie world", how does this album (and each song within, both collective and individual) FIT IN to your own PERSONAL "Stevie universe" in comparison to her other solo records and work with Fleetwood Mac?

Again, I'm not asking you to rank the album against her others, since we've already done that, but just curious as to how it fits into your own personal view of her career as a whole, as well as your own playlists and likes and dislikes in regards to what makes her music special to you in the first place. Am I making any sense, whatsoever?

I'll refrain from posting my own opinions until later because I'm basically interested in hearing everyone else's point of view, first and foremost.

Go!

Jondalar · #2 11-02-2014, 04:06 AM

I love the album. She is ending her career on high points. I'm thinking about her next solo album. Will she able to do another solo album? What would Foresaken Love, Maker of Birds or Night Gallery sound like with Dave as producer? Obviously he knows how to produce her but with the lack of sales I'm just hoping she is able to make another album.

mitzo · #3 11-02-2014, 09:02 AM

I think the album is remarkable and is probably her all-round best solo effort. It has a lot of moments where you have to smile for what might have been - meaning, if only her other solo work had been as consistent as this album.

Too bad. This is the album people needed to hear after The Dance comeback.

KarmaContestant · #4 11-02-2014, 12:33 PM

I love that 24 Karat Gold gave me two more songs for what I call my 'RAL collection'. That is, my playlist of songs written for, or during the time of, the Rock A Little album, like Thousand Days, Running Through The Garden, Mirror Mirror, etc..

I love that I don't hate the new songs - Hard Advice, Carousel, I Don't Care. I still feel that Carousel did not belong on this album, but it's a great track and has taken some personal meaning for me.

I love that there is only one track I don't like.

I love that the song 24 Karat Gold is so good. It fits right up into that upper echelon of what are to me, the greatest Stevie tracks.

I love that this album fills in so many gaps in the stories told through Stevie's music.

I love that Stevie loved making In Your Dreams enough to go back to the studio as soon as she could and record another album, and I hope that 24 Karat Gold was cathartic enough for her that she does it again at the soonest possible moment.

Jondalar · #5 11-02-2014, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mitzo

I think the album is remarkable and is probably her all-round best solo effort. It has a lot of moments where you have to smile for what might have been - meaning, if only her other solo work had been as consistent as this album.

Too bad. This is the album people needed to hear after The Dance comeback.

This what I keep thinking too - this is the album people needed to hear.

markolas · #6 11-02-2014, 03:03 PM

I think it's good...better than TISL, but not quite as good as IYD. There are some songs on it that I don't like and probably never will. The great songs that I'll put on playlists and rank with Stevie's best are:

The Dealer
Mabel Normand
Blue Water
24 Karat Gold
All the Beautiful Worlds
If You Were My Love

It's a very solid album (I only have the standard version), even with the couple of songs I don't much care for (Hard Advice, Carousel). Like Bella Donna, Rock a Little, and In Your Dreams, I can listen to it all the way through and not feel the urge to skip a song.

bombaysaffires · #7 11-02-2014, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markolas

I think it's good...better than TISL, but not quite as good as IYD. There are some songs on it that I don't like and probably never will. The great songs that I'll put on playlists and rank with Stevie's best are:

The Dealer
Mabel Normand
Blue Water
24 Karat Gold
All the Beautiful Worlds
If You Were My Love

It's a very solid album (I only have the standard version), even with the couple of songs I don't much care for (Hard Advice, Carousel). Like Bella Donna, Rock a Little, and In Your Dreams, I can listen to it all the way through and not feel the urge to skip a song.

Not me. I can listen to BD and RAL pretty much without ever skipping anything. I skip a lot of IYD and a lot here.

I don't skip:

24karat gold
mabel normand
watch chain

I sometimes skip:
belle fleur
starshine
lady
all the beautiful worlds
the dealer
i don't care
cathouse blues (skip most of the time but not always)

I always skip:
carousel
blue water (like the demo)
hard advice
if you were my love (love the demos)
she loves him still (love the demo)
twisted (prefer the box set version)

It's clear on many of these songs why they didn't make it onto an album long before now. I enjoy getting new stuff from her, but this is far, far, from being her best album ever. This isn't the album I would give to someone who knew nothing about her or that I would want to stand as sole testament to her legacy. This is very much an insider's collection.

tabruns · #8 11-02-2014, 05:57 PM

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.

SpyNote · #9 11-02-2014, 06:07 PM

I find this album to be the perfect hit of nostalgia for me. It doesn't sound current, but that's the charm of it. It sounds like it's from a different era, namely Bella Donna, and that's exactly what I want as a fan today. I don't want new and experimental, which is just jarring to my ears. I want more of the sound, the warm tones and harmonies, that I've grown to love and expect. So it's nice that Stevie's found a producer who will do exactly that: replicate her classic sound.

BLY · #10 11-02-2014, 09:12 PM

I Love this album. This is a great follow up to a classic (IYD) I'm so impressed with what Stevie is doing. I'm sure her contribution to the MAC album is going to be stellar.

sorcerer999 · #11 11-03-2014, 02:10 PM

Thanks to everyone for the great responses. It's been interesting, based on various posts from previous threads, as well as this one, to read that there is basically 75% praise, and about 25% indifference/dislike for this album.

I hope that more of you will respond to this thread. I enjoy all of your input.

In order to answer my own question, I guess I should first preface that Stevie Nicks has been the "be all and end all" to me in the world of Rock music since I was a wee child. Her music is everything to me. As someone who has suffered from depression, abandonment and homophobia ALL OF MY LIFE, her music (and her voice) has ALWAYS been my security blanket.

When she accepted her Billboard Music Award for songwriting back in 2001, she stated that, in her songwriting, she has always tried to "create little worlds" for all of us to come into, just for a little while. I thought that was the PERFECT statement, because THAT is what her songs have been to me, personally. When I'm sad, there's a world to go to. When I'm driven, there's another world to go to. When I'm angry, fascinated, in love, discouraged, etc, etc. You get the point. I am a music aficionado and I have a gazillion other favorite artists, but no one else does what her music does for me.

Sorry to be so longwinded...so to ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION, "24 Karat Gold" is like no other Stevie solo album. I've mentioned many times before that there IS no specific ERA here. The songs, all having been written in the past 4 decades, retain the spirit of the time period in which they were written...so many years in the future, when I hear one of them, I don't think I will say, "Oh this is TOTALLY from the 24KG era", like I do whenever I hear, say "Juliet" or "If I Were You" and think back to TOSOTM and RAL, respectively. "All The Beautiful Worlds" will always take me back to The Wild Heart, "Watch Chain" will make me think of Rumours/Tusk era, "Belle Fleur" and "IYWML" will ring with the best of Bella Donna and "24 Karat Gold" will ALWAYS take my musical "child soul" back to late 70's/early 80's classic rock. These songs already meld and flow extremely well in my personal (and very LONG) playlists. They were meant to be there.

And going back to the notion that this album doesn't have an "era" ~ BECAUSE of that, it really doesn't feel like a REAL Stevie Nicks record...and yet it doesn't feel like a compilation album, or "Lost Demo Greatest Hits" either. Much like how a lot of you have described "Night Gallery" or even "Mabel Normand" ~ to me, this album is a collection of "atmospheric moments" and "newly discovered paintings" that were MEANT to either be scattered throughout our own unique "Stevie worlds" or to be used as puzzle pieces to fit into (and make some sort of headway/progress) in the completion process of "all these beautiful worlds".

I apologize if none of this makes any sense whatsoever. It does to me...but I can imagine most of you reading this and scratching your heads and thinking, "what the hell is this guy talking about?"

teedeerocks · #12 11-09-2014, 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Not me. I can listen to BD and RAL pretty much without ever skipping anything. I skip a lot of IYD and a lot here.

I don't skip:

24karat gold
mabel normand
watch chain

I sometimes skip:
belle fleur
starshine
lady
all the beautiful worlds
the dealer
i don't care
cathouse blues (skip most of the time but not always)

I always skip:
carousel
blue water (like the demo)
hard advice
if you were my love (love the demos)
she loves him still (love the demo)
twisted (prefer the box set version)

It's clear on many of these songs why they didn't make it onto an album long before now. I enjoy getting new stuff from her, but this is far, far, from being her best album ever. This isn't the album I would give to someone who knew nothing about her or that I would want to stand as sole testament to her legacy. This is very much an insider's collection.

agree TOTALLY on last part.I think Stevie will be dissappointed with all-around sales.Not satisfying for "moi".....

StreetAngel86 · #13 11-08-2014, 06:00 PM

I have to admit, i listen to this album almost every day... a few songs here and there.
It has definitely grown on me.
However, besides Mabel Normand, there's no real song that i go to and MUST play first. Which is how I listen to all the other albums.
I still don't like I Don't Care but even Hard Advice has grown on me. and Blue Water (with the DUDE)

I sometimes skip She Loves Him Still/Twisted
I always skip I Don't Care
And very rarely ... but sometimes I skip All the Beautiful Worlds

Overall it's an album I can listen to all the time and just have playing without really concentrating.

Lady/Mabel Normand/the Dealer are still my absolute faves
but If You Were My Love has become a slight addiction

It's not my favorite album but it ties with Mirror as the album with the least amount of songs I religiously skip (both win at ONE)

sorcerer999 i totally agree with you. it doesn't feel like a real Stevie record and it doesn't really have an era either but it's not a compo.
i know everyone here loves the BD/WH/RAL trilogy and that's totally the vibe that this album conjures up. but also much more 70s as well... Belle Fleur reminds me of Lana Del Rey's West Coast a LOT.
whereas my favorite trilogy is RAL/Mirror/SA (yes i know, shut up) this album fits there too. which is why i think i like it as much as i do.
there are several songs that just scream SA to me ... (the good parts) the mood, her voice, the music. so even though these songs were all written much earlier than my fave "era" they don't feel out of place to my ears

Jondalar · #14 11-08-2014, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StreetAngel86

I have to admit, i listen to this album almost every day... a few songs here and there.
It has definitely grown on me.
However, besides Mabel Normand, there's no real song that i go to and MUST play first. Which is how I listen to all the other albums.
I still don't like I Don't Care but even Hard Advice has grown on me. and Blue Water (with the DUDE)

I sometimes skip She Loves Him Still/Twisted
I always skip I Don't Care
And very rarely ... but sometimes I skip All the Beautiful Worlds

Overall it's an album I can listen to all the time and just have playing without really concentrating.

Lady/Mabel Normand/the Dealer are still my absolute faves
but If You Were My Love has become a slight addiction

It's not my favorite album but it ties with Mirror as the album with the least amount of songs I religiously skip (both win at ONE)

sorcerer999 i totally agree with you. it doesn't feel like a real Stevie record and it doesn't really have an era either but it's not a compo.
i know everyone here loves the BD/WH/RAL trilogy and that's totally the vibe that this album conjures up. but also much more 70s as well... Belle Fleur reminds me of Lana Del Rey's West Coast a LOT.
whereas my favorite trilogy is RAL/Mirror/SA (yes i know, shut up) this album fits there too. which is why i think i like it as much as i do.
there are several songs that just scream SA to me ... (the good parts) the mood, her voice, the music. so even though these songs were all written much earlier than my fave "era" they don't feel out of place to my ears

I hardly think everybody loves Rock A Little.

mitzo · #15 11-08-2014, 08:17 PM

Compared to IYD 24KG wins hands down, to me. Dave did not cowrite the songs so they seem more purely Stevie, and there are a good batch of slower emotive numbers on 24KG. It is the only Stevie album on which I skip nothing, except the two bonus tracks on the deluxe version. 24KG I guess is not trying too hard, like many of her other albums, which are usually marred by cowrites and tracks which are overdesigned hard to be "hits.".