The worst of Stevie

[WildHearted]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

How did Beauty and the Beast get lumped into this. It's sophisticated. I would choose many other songs to lump with When I See You Again and Love Is. I'm sure that Lindsey and the other producer did they best could. If they were to change the songs to something interesting they should probably get writing credit.

In that case, Lindsey should get writing credit on anything interesting of Stevie's he's ever laid a hand on.

MOST of Stevie's songs are bland an uninteresting at their core... luckily they also tend to at least have a nice melody and decent lyrics. And then someone comes in with their magic wand and creates a cool arrangement around what would have been a boring song - like Dreams.


Anyway.... The Highwayman is flawless and no one will convince me otherwise.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by WildHearted

In that case, Lindsey should get writing credit on anything interesting of Stevie's he's ever laid a hand on.

MOST of Stevie's songs are bland an uninteresting at their core... luckily they also tend to at least have a nice melody and decent lyrics. And then someone comes in with their magic wand and creates a cool arrangement around what would have been a boring song - like Dreams.


Anyway.... The Highwayman is flawless and no one will convince me otherwise.

I dunno.... what I find most interesting about her demos is how compelling some of them are from the get-go, and yet when you hear some of the finished versions that have been muddled with by other people, producers, musicians and what not you think "what happened to that interesting song??"

[WildHearted]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

I dunno.... what I find most interesting about her demos is how compelling some of them are from the get-go, and yet when you hear some of the finished versions that have been muddled with by other people, producers, musicians and what not you think "what happened to that interesting song??"

Oh, it's very true that people can ruin her songs just as easily as they can make them great, by doing too much or taking it too far off course. I was responding to the insinuation that these songs started out bland and boring and that nothing could be done with them to save them. And I don't think that's necessarily true... well I mean, of course she's got some crappy songs that are just pretty bad all around - but I don't think it's because they were too bland to work with. A lot of her songs start out bland musically. Most of the time, in my mind, it has to do with them being simply too out-there and nonsensical and just all over the place... like Stevie to the 10th power.

I love her demos - some of the most played stuff on my iTunes - but most of the early ones have no real musical arrangement, it's just her plodding away at the piano (which sometimes is beautiful (planets of the universe needed to stay closer to that, imo), but often is just her playing the chords which is, yes, "bland"). It's her melody and lyrics and emotion that reaches you (or at least, that's what reaches me). Whether or not those things are conveyed in the final product depends on who gets their hand on the song.

So in short, I don't see that how her songs start out has any bearing on how they end up (so long as they've got decent lyrics and a good vocal melody - not trying to imply that The Goldfish and the Ladybug could be a masterpiece or something ). Everything else can be (and is) changed so much that it's silly to say there is nothing that can be done with it. For better or worse.

[MikeInNV]

Originally Posted by WildHearted

And I actually think what's the matter baby's would have been fine if it was just said once or twice, but the fact that the entire chorus is just "whats the matter baby" over and over again is what kills it.

No one has ever explained to me why the repetition of "what's the matter baby" makes for such a terrible chorus, but "hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me" is great pop music.

I'm not defending WISYA. I'm just one of the minority who doesn't understand all the fuss over "Hold Me."

[On Ice]

Not being anything remotely close to a songwriter myself, having been a fan of Stevie's writing and style since we became lucky enough to know who she is, I can say that she has written some truly wonderful songs that influenced many people after her in the music industry. Having heard a lot of her demos, the basic structure around the song is there before the production work begins. Where I think she has strayed off course from time to time and written some truly bad material, comes down to her staying in touch with one basic fact. That is if her writing is going to be made public and people are going to pay for it, it is the end listener who needs to have the satisfying experience, along with she herself. The songs that suffer have that theme of being too out of reach for the listener and the listener cannot relate to it. When we all compare her best and worst material, there is some difference of opinion but at the end of the day, the songs considered classic calibre material, such as Storms or Gold Dust Woman are clearly in a different stratosphere that That Made me Stronger or Silver Girl. I have learned over the years as a fan, that as much as I hated to admit it, my girl Stevie was not perfect and she was as deserving of criticism as the rest of us. I think it's ok for us to point out how dreadful some of her material is, because it is, but at the same time recognizing her rightful place in rock history.

[WildHearted]

Originally Posted by MikeInNV

No one has ever explained to me why the repetition of "what's the matter baby" makes for such a terrible chorus, but "hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me" is great pop music.

I'm not defending WISYA. I'm just one of the minority who doesn't understand all the fuss over "Hold Me."

Well, I love WISYA, so you don't have to defend it to me lol.

The only issues with "what's the matter baby" that I can think of have nothing to do with the actual lyric - it's just that she pronounces it weirdly, the vocal is terrible, and the melody doesn't really go anywhere. Maybe if it wasn't repeated so much, people would have been able to let those things go?

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by mitzo

It is the mystique that those songs carry that makes them superior to a lot of the poppy stuff. What made the woman in WISYA so desperately sad? What are the cryptic lyrics referring to? When she resorts to whispering and sobbing that one line, is she echoing something he said? Something they shared? To me the delivery of the song is a little work of art, a one-off performance of something so intimate, raw, and painful. Love Is is similar, with a weird partial conversation that leads to devastation, and the arrangement forebodes it, the echoing background vocals and slow drama, and the final segment of the song is heartbreaking. How can anyone resist the bizarre off-kilter beauty of these? Nobody else could conceive of songs like these, they are Stevie's special genius. They pull me in and keep me coming back.

I agree with you 100%. That's rare. You tend to have very different opinions of Stevie's work from my own. But this hit the nail.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by MikeInNV

No one has ever explained to me why the repetition of "what's the matter baby" makes for such a terrible chorus, but "hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me" is great pop music.

Right on.

[On Ice]

If we put what's the matter baby into the context of a conversation, it is a question being asked. It might have been a powerful lyric if she had followed up with an assumption such as " what's the matter baby, have you been sad/lonely/missing me" what ever, and maybe appearing 2 times max in the song.

On it's own, it sucks and sounds like she is nagging this baby person.

[WildHearted]

Originally Posted by On Ice

If we put what's the matter baby into the context of a conversation, it is a question being asked. It might have been a powerful lyric if she had followed up with an assumption such as " what's the matter baby, have you been sad/lonely/missing me" what ever, and maybe appearing 2 times max in the song.

On it's own, it sucks and sounds like she is nagging this baby person.

Kind of beside the point, I suppose, but I never saw it as Stevie asking someone what the matter is. She's wondering if someone will still care about her the next time she sees them - "will your great eyes still say, "What's the matter baby?"

[mitzo]

Originally Posted by Jondalar

I feel like I should quit posting because my last posts were so negative. And I know, there are people who just love when she farts. Her **** doesn't seem to stink. I"m sooo opinionated. Ugggg!

LOL Well, her worst work is banal and/or annoying, such as Blue Denim, Rose Garden, and much of her first solo album. I never said she was perfect, just that I adore her slow overwrought stuff that many like to trash. So yeah, her ****** indeed does stink.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by MikeInNV

No one has ever explained to me why the repetition of "what's the matter baby" makes for such a terrible chorus, but "hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me hold me" is great pop music.

I'm not defending WISYA. I'm just one of the minority who doesn't understand all the fuss over "Hold Me."

Well, how something is sung matters just as much as what's sung. It's not only the repetition. It's the unvarying drone of the question. If Hold Me was being chanted on and on and on in a monotone, it'd be a different story. But the words are a demand, a plea, a hope. High, low, fast, slow.

Hold Me has a complex, diverse melody. Many things going on at once and different things going on in different parts of the song. It boasts a beautiful arrangement and, I think, superb plush production.

WISYA is just a meandering nudge. But I wouldn't have thought to compare the two.

Michele

[mitzo]

But WISYA is subtle and mysterious and nuanced and plays with that repeated line, whereas Hold Me is bouncy generic pop.

Anyway, when I hear the first chords of Rooms on Fire, or when she starts in on a live version of Stand Back, I wish I had a baseball bat...

[MikeInNV]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Well, how something is sung matters just as much as what's sung.

I agree. It's just that the criticism of WISYA is so often reduced to the mere repetition of the lyrics, and I don't think that's fair. Maybe most people feel the same way you do but simply don't take the time to express their opinion in detail.

(But I still don't think "Hold Me" is all that.)

[rhiannondontgo]

Originally Posted by Macfanforever

Wow It looks like all of her mellow tunes are on the hate list here.

I happen to really like some of her slow songs... Beauty & The Beast, It's Only Love, The Highwayman, etc. In fact, I even enjoy The Second Time. lol. And my 2 fav Stevie/Mac songs are probably Storms and Beautiful Child, both of them being very slow too.
It's just a lot of the later slow songs (like Love's a Hard Game To Play or When I See You Again), are really simplistic and bland. In my opinion, the vocals are - (don't kill me) - kind of lazy and not that great. And we all know she can still sing. The proof's in Call On Me For Magic, Love Changes, It's Only Love, etc. But the musical arrangement and vocals in a lot of the other songs being mentioned in this thread are just boring.