The Upside

[jwd]

Stevie cuts short her solo tour for Bella Donna. Was this because she was needed to record with FM again on Mirage? She just had experienced one of the most successful solo outings for a woman in rock at the time and FM decides to do another record. What does she do....well of course go back with FM, the band that she really does love.

Nothing is going on between then and Tango....Stevie has released RAL and touring for that and on a crash course with cocaine addiction. What was it that brought FM back together...Christine doing a soundtrack to a movie and gets the boys in the band to help out. Hey this sounds really great....maybe we could give it one more shot!!! Oh and we have to get that "ditzy" blonde chick Stevie so we make sure we sell a few million. Hope she's available...I'm sure she's not BUSY right now!


I think Stevie always wanted to be in FM first and foremost. Seemed to me the other members of FM were the ones who made the call on when to do their next project, regardless of what Stevie was doing at the time. She didn't have to do it, she didn't need to do it; she probably shouldn't have done it based on her schedule and her physical condition.....but she did because she did care......and nothing you can say can change my mind!


Joe

[tommer]

Originally posted by chiliD
...and thanks for bringing us "Welcome To The Room...Sara" when we could've had "If I Were You" or "No Spoken Word", etc, etc.

i challenge anyone to stick a gun to my head and kick me in the balls and i will STILL claim Welcome To The Room...Sara to be very close to being stevie's best record ever.

[jwd]

HI LORI!!!

Doing just fine.....Hope all is well with you too!

Johnny Stew(Brian) and I are coming over for dinner tomorrow night...what we havin' Mommie?


Joe

[EnchantedStorms]

Correct me if I'm wrong...but wasn't it the record company's idea to release Enchanted? Seems like I remember hearing Stevie say that in some tv interview, or something...?


~~Angela~~

[Rumours]

"The above situation is a "case in point". Once she started off on her solo career in 1981, she has seemed to place more priority on her solo career than she did with the band."
**Not in agreeance here. She was using big gaps between times when the Mac decided to release something to get more of her music out there, instead of letting it sit in a vault somewhere--plain and simple.

"She's kept the better songs for herself, she's seemed to save her best performances (both live & in studio) for herself, etc. "
**I don't think this is the case at all.....I love Stevie's solo stuff and seeing her solo, but first and foremost, nothing gets me more than Fleetwood Mac and Stevie's songs with Fleetwood Mac.....I think over-all, people recognize much more and enjoy much more her big songs with the Mac over her big songs in her solo career.

"Like we as Fleetwood Mac fans are just supposed to fall over backwards that she decided to show up for a couple of weeks (and not consecutively) to the Tango sessions??"
**She had already done her album and was doing her tour. It's not like Fleetwood Mac said "ok, we're going back in to the studio and doing another album, let's go" and Stevie said "oh no thanks, not right now, I'm going to go record an album of my own instead and do a subsequent tour.....oh and go into rehab just for the hell of it too after that....I'll call you when the time is right for me, then we'll record together".........She was using down time with them to do her own thing.......you could say to this, why did they decide to record when they knew she wasn't available to join them???? They waited FIVE years....what was another few months????

"and thanks for bringing us "Welcome To The Room...Sara" when we could've had "If I Were You" or "No Spoken Word", etc, etc."
**I ADORE No Spoken Word, and If I Were You is also a very good song......but Welcome To The Room....Sara is nothing to sneeze at either.......autobiographical of what her life was like at that point.

"And, since 1997, the same is true...the whole "Dance" reunion was INTENDED to be the catapult for Lindsey's solo album, but who reaped the benefit? Stevie and her "Enchanted" box. Stole the limelight again."
**So totally not true......let's remember here that Stevie was under contract with Modern to release one more album before she could leave them......which was the Enchanted Box set........but she was planning to do this before The Dance happened AND she specifically asked Lindsey (and I would imagine the other members as well) if the Mac reunion was going to happen......to make up their minds......she was on board with them first......if their thing wasn't going to happen, THEN she was going to move on with her thing--what would become the Enchanted box set. It was THEIR choice. The Mac came first........subsequently resulted in The Dance.....then she went ahead with her project. Lindsey could have done the same, but we STILL have not seen a release. Where is Stevie to blame for this??? Is she suddenly holding "Gift of Screws" hostage with an evil grin on her face??? I think not.
But how is, basically saying, count me in if we're going to do a Fleetwood Mac thing and I will put my solo project back on the shelf if we're going to do this, and pick back up with my solo project after the Mac thing is done, putting her solo career before Fleetwood Mac????

Stephanie

[greatdarkwing]

Let's say *****to please the Stevie bashing crowd****** that Stevie stole the limelight......then where was Lindsey between 1998 and 2001???? He could've easily released 'GOS' in that time period......In my opinion, I don't think 'GOS' was ever ready....Like I said, there was AT LEAST a 3 year time-frame that he could've released the album......

~Alex

JUST MY OPINION

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by chiliD
thanks for bringing us "Welcome To The Room...Sara" when we could've had "If I Were You" or "No Spoken Word", etc, etc.

Is it really reasonable to blame Stevie for using "If I Were You" or "No Spoken Word" (or *any* song that someone deems to be stronger than those she contributed to 'Tango') on her solo album, at a time when a new Mac album was merely a possibility?

Was she really supposed to say, "well, ok, since Fleetwood Mac might record again someday, I should save this one, and that one, and oh, I better save that one too."

When Fleetwood Mac decided to record a new album in the middle of 1985, Lindsey could mine the album he was working on, and give over to Fleetwood Mac the songs he felt were the best, because his album was a work in progress.
Stevie's album was a done deal by that time.

(By the way, Lindsey wrote "Soul Drifter" during the recording sessions for 'Tango In The Night'... while the band was in the other room, in fact.
So, by the "Stevie saved the best songs for herself" logic, was Lindsey wrong for saving "Soul Drifter" for *his* solo album, since it's a stronger song than "Family Man"?)


Another thing to consider... even if Stevie *had* saved "If I Were You," for example, it doesn't mean that Fleetwood Mac would have definitely recorded it.

It seems to me she has given Fleetwood Mac first dibs on many great songs over the years ("Think About It," "Sorcerer," "If You Ever Did Believe," "Beauty And The Beast," "Smile At You," "If You Were My Love," etc., etc., etc.), and they passed over them again and again.
It's obvious that Fleetwood Mac chooses the songs they want to use for their albums, and not necessarily the songs that *we* might feel they should have chosen.

Personally, I feel that "When I See You Again" IS one of Stevie's greatest songs. It's been a personal favorite of mine for years... and I can easily say that I prefer it over "No Spoken Word."
So, more than anything, it's a matter of "you can't please all the people all of the time."

Now, I'm not someone who feels that everyone should adore every single thing Stevie Nicks has ever done, sung, said, or written... but this current wave of "Stevie is the Anti-Christ" sentiments really boggles my mind.

Do people honestly feel that she should have never recorded an album of her own, and spent the rest of her career sitting next to a phone waiting for Fleetwood Mac to call?
Letting dozens upon dozens of songs just stack up, but never daring to use them in case Fleetwood Mac wanted to maybe record them someday?

Sounds pretty ridiculous to me.


Johnny Stew

[Johnny Stew]

And CarneVaca... I'm not trying to nit-pick, or anything, but I don't think that 'Out Of The Cradle' suffered from a lack of promotion.

The record company released no less than three singles from the album, and filmed videos for every single one of them... Billboard Magazine did two features on Lindsey... and he appeared on Leno, Letterman (twice, if I recall correctly), Live With Regis & Kathy Lee, ABC In Concert, VH-1, and PBS (just naming the ones that come to mind)... not to mention the tour.

There were also print ads (in magazines such as Rolling Stone), and promo flats for displays in record stores.

'Out Of The Cradle' did not deserve to fizzle out at #128 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart... it's a brilliant album, and deserved so much more... but I really don't know what more could have been done to promote it.


(Again, I'm not trying to be nit-picky... and i'm definitely not picking on you, CV... but I should also add that "Family Man" charted at #90 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. If you're going to compare the two, I don't really think it can be considered a bigger "hit" than "Seven Wonders," which peaked at #19.)



Johnny Stew

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by Lori
sheesh, Brian, I do hope you know that I knew that was French

I knew you knew (Sounds like a 'Three's Company' kinda sentence!)... I just reiterated that it's a French phrase.


Johnny Stew

[chiliD]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
Do people honestly feel that she should have never recorded an album of her own, and spent the rest of her career sitting next to a phone waiting for Fleetwood Mac to call?

Not the "rest of her career", but for as long as she's a member of Fleetwood Mac, that's what she should've done. Granted this is all hindsight & what if, etc, etc, etc, but I think BOTH Lindsey & Stevie should've outright quit after the Tusk tour, let Fleetwood Mac find replacements then. I really think that we would've seen more music out of them all if that'd happened. And, that's NOT saying that either or both of them wouldn't have found their way back into the band at some point SOONER than 1997, as well.

"Stevie is the Anti-Christ"??? Maybe I skimmed over too many posts, but I don't get THAT from this thread, at all! And, is definitely not MY view.

Ok, why don't we start a Mick discussion on how he f***d up Fleetwood Mac's career by mismanaging the band on the Tusk tour...leading to each member of Fleetwood Mac having their OWN managers and how it probably takes more heated negotiations than the baseball owners/players union to get anything accomplished??

[CarneVaca]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew

(Again, I'm not trying to be nit-picky... and i'm definitely not picking on you, CV... but I should also add that "Family Man" charted at #90 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart. If you're going to compare the two, I don't really think it can be considered a bigger "hit" than "Seven Wonders," which peaked at #19.)

I think we've had a similar exchange before when I made the point that even though a song may hit the top 10 on the charts it may just as quickly disappear not to be heard again. This charts game you like to use proves very little. How many Grateful Dead songs actually were singles? Yet you may turn on a classic radio station and hear plenty of dead. Same goes for Led Zeppelin. Fleetwood Mac, even. Did Landslide chart before 1997? I don't think it was released as a single, yet it got plenty of radio play. That goes for Silver Springs. I would occasionally hear it on the radio before it was ever included in The Chain box or The Dance. Even Go Your Own Way and Tusk didn't chart very high, as I recall. Yet it would be fair to say that Go Your Own Way is Fleetwood Mac's signature song.

The other point I would make is that there are regional differences. Where I was living at the time, Family Man was played on the radio constantly for months. And as I said before, Seven Wonders was here today, gone tomorrow.

[Johnny Stew]

CarneVaca... I thoroughly agree that a high ranking on the Billboard charts doesn't inherently imply that a song is great.

The only reason I brought up the subject of chart placements, was the fact that you said "Family Man" was a bigger hit than "Seven Wonders."
Charting at #90 compared to #19 does not a "bigger hit" make... that's all I was trying to say.


(For the record, "Go Your Own Way" peaked at #10, and "Tusk" peaked at #8... all discussions of song quality aside, both *can* be considered "big hits.")


And you're right, it does make a difference what region you live in, as far how much a song gets played.

When "Little Lies" was released as the third single from 'Tango In The Night,' "Seven Wonders" was still being played to death around here (the Pittsburgh area).
"Big Love" was a bigger "hit" on the charts, but it didn't seem to get as much airplay (I only heard it once on the radio, in fact, before I bought the album) as "Seven Wonders"... but neither got anywhere near the amount of airplay that "Little Lies" did around here.

In 1990, "Affairs Of The Heart" received WAY more airplay around here than "Skies The Limit," and it wasn't even released as a single. ("Freedom" was also played a few times around here)

To this day, Stevie's songs seem to play more often on our local stations than Lindsey's or even Christine's.
If I hear a Mac, or Mac-related tune, more often than not I hear "Dreams," "Rhiannon," "Landslide," "Silver Springs" (The Dance version), "Gold Dust Woman", "Gypsy," "Edge Of Seventeen," and "Stand Back"
"The Chain" gets played a lot too.
Then on occasion I hear "Go Your Own Way," "Don't Stop," "World Turning," "Over My Head," "You Make Loving Fun," and "Everywhere."

To top it off, we have one local DJ who almost always says, "and that was Stevie Nicks & Fleetwood Mac with ____"... even if it's one of Christine or Lindsey's songs!


Johnny Stew

[chiliD]

Let's also not forget that the actual chart position isn't relative to total units sold...a song that only got to #15 conceivably could've sold MORE units than a song that reached #8...it's all relative to what else is on the charts at any particular moment.

[tommer]

generally speaking- yes,
but a situation in which a record that's peaking at #90 sells more units than a record that's peaking at #19 is HIGHLY unlikely.

[CarneVaca]

I didn't know Go Your Own Way and Tusk charted that high. I honestly thought they had languished at the bottom of the Top 40 somewhere. I suppose I could just go to the relevant section of this site to avoid such misconceptions. Then again, nah.

I'm so out of it when it comes to what's on the radio anymore. I'm going by what I used to hear 10 years ago. Interestingly, when I turned on the car radio by mistake to a classical radio station just last weekend, the opening bars of Go Your Own Way spilled out of my speakers, so I turned it up. By the way, volume buttons on the steering wheel are the way to go!

I'd say Dreams and Edge of Seventeen still get a fair amount of play around here (New York metro) too. And The Chain of course. Interestingly, Stand on the Rock got played for a while in the Boston market (where I was living then, and I don't mean the chicken place).