Some Street Angel love

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by Neal

Fixed that for ya...

Agreed!

[TheWILDheart]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

Yes, there are turds... but every single Stevie solo album has them.

"Bella Donna" and "The Wild Heart" don't.

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

Street Angel has Jane, In Your Dreams has Cheaper Than Free, Rock A Little has The Nightmare, The Other Side Of The Mirror has I Still Miss Someone, Trouble In Shangri-La is perfect.

Fixed.

I adore both "Sister Honey" and "Love Changes". I wouldn't change a damn thing about TISL.

I think the turds issue is that "Street Angel" had more than a few. Whilst there may be 1 track on a Stevie album that you're less keen on, SA has plenty that divide opinions. "Jane" and "Just Like A Woman" are widely regarded as being...well...crap. "Unconditional Love" and "Greta" get a lot of hate too (I love "Greta", btw!). "Destiny" gets stick for being over half of old lyrics, not just a line or 2. "Docklands" has that laundromatt line.

Other things that take critique are the lazy cover art, the (at times) flat vocals and Stevie's entire attitude at the time and in hindsight.

I wish she had more fire in her to fight Glynn Johns, because there's really nothing wrong with a lot of the songs, they're just so poorly presented. The stuff I love from SA I really love - Blue Denim, Love is like a River, Greta, Street Angel etc. But the stuff I dislike (Uncondtional Love, Jane, Just Like A Woman, Docklands) I consider the worst of her career.

[wheart]

I love the cover but agree that the b/w poster would have worked much better. She looks fierce in that pic! I remember the first time I played SA...yes, it didn't thrill me but I loved it nonetheless. I probably play it the least out of all my Stevie albums due to her flat vocals and boring production but some of the highlights for me are:

Blue Denim
Destiny ( the only decent vocal on the record)
Love is Like a River
Unconditional Love ( I love the melody)
Street Angel ( a great song! I wish she'd play it live. It could be a major atmospheric moment on stage)

[sorcerer999]

Originally Posted by TheWILDheart

"Bella Donna" and "The Wild Heart" don't.

Respectfully disagree. The Wild Heart has "I Will Run To You" which is a wrist cutter, in my opinion. I don't think it flows well with the rest of the album and Stevie's vocals are lazy. It's also just kind of a boring song. That still doesn't change The Wild Heart from being my personal favorite, though.

Bella Donna is perfect, but still not my fav.

Going back to the original topic, though. I also dig Street Angel, though admittedly not my favorite. I must be in the minority because "Greta" is my favorite off this record and most of you guys seem to despise it. It puts me in a good mood and is a great "driving" song and, lyrically, it's so catchy.

"I bet she says just how many art lovers can one get to know?"

[wheart]

Originally Posted by sorcerer999

Respectfully disagree. The Wild Heart has "I Will Run To You" which is a wrist cutter, in my opinion. I don't think it flows well with the rest of the album and Stevie's vocals are lazy. It's also just kind of a boring song. That still doesn't change The Wild Heart from being my personal favorite, though.

Bella Donna is perfect, but still not my fav.

Going back to the original topic, though. I also dig Street Angel, though admittedly not my favorite. I must be in the minority because "Greta" is my favorite off this record and most of you guys seem to despise it. It puts me in a good mood and is a great "driving" song and, lyrically, it's so catchy.

"I bet she says just how many art lovers can one get to know?"

I forgot to add Greta to my list. It is a great song and I love the lyrics.

[mitzo]

I also found it disappointing when released, with some shockingly poor songs. To me the memorable ones are:

Kick It
Jane (I know, but it is just so .... sweet, somehow)
Greta
MLWCYM

I have always been embarrassed by the lyrics of Blue Denim but the song would be excellent if it were just hummed or something.

Destiny would be gorgeous if it were not for the god-awful production, the jerky snare-drum-driven horrendousness of it, my God.

Listen to the Rain is great fun but again marred by dreadful lyric missteps.

Unconditional Love is marred by grating vocal "harmonies" that kill the prettiness of the song overall

Docklands is well done but a mysterious song choice, in the bad sense of mysterious

The trash to me include:

Love Is Like a River - a hot mess of random lyrics and meandering shouted tunelessness
Street Angel - how to make Stevie sound like a comatose walrus stuck in an empty oil drum
Rose Garden - I cannot understand the love for this feeble song badly sung and ever so badly produced. A horrifically boring cringer.
Just Like a Woman - don't try to imitate Dylan. Just don't.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by TheWILDheart

"Bella Donna" and "The Wild Heart" don't.

Um..I beg to differ. Gate and Garden.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by TheWILDheart

I think the turds issue is that "Street Angel" had more than a few. Whilst there may be 1 track on a Stevie album that you're less keen on, SA has plenty that divide opinions. "Jane" and "Just Like A Woman" are widely regarded as being...well...crap. "Unconditional Love" and "Greta" get a lot of hate too (I love "Greta", btw!). "Destiny" gets stick for being over half of old lyrics, not just a line or 2. "Docklands" has that laundromatt line.


I wish she had more fire in her to fight Glynn Johns, because there's really nothing wrong with a lot of the songs, they're just so poorly presented. The stuff I love from SA I really love - Blue Denim, Love is like a River, Greta, Street Angel etc. But the stuff I dislike (Uncondtional Love, Jane, Just Like A Woman, Docklands) I consider the worst of her career.

See that's intersting, because I'm not a Bob Dylan fan but I love Stevie's cover of Just Like A Woman. It fits her so well, I'd believe it if Bob said he wrote it about Stevie while having a vision of the future.

Greta is absolutely sublime, to my ears.

Destiny isn't bad, but Stevie should have used it on The Wild Heart. Her vamping at the end of the WH version is great. I feel that Enchanted and Destiny would have been great paired together as the opening and closing tracks of The Wild Heart.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by wheart

Street Angel ( a great song! I wish she'd play it live. It could be a major atmospheric moment on stage)

I totally agree. I'd love this song to be in her live sets! I imagine it drawn out and slightly weird, much like Gold Dust Woman.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by sorcerer999

"I bet she says just how many art lovers can one get to know?"

Years ago, a friend of mine was told by a guy she was dating that she looked like a Boticelli, body-wise. She was, of course, mortified by that 'compliment' and would bring it up everytime we listened to Greta.

[PenguinHead]

I have to agree that Bella Donna is her most consistent album. And despite my criticisms, I actually like all of her songs to varying degrees. She could sing the phone book, and I'd listen, and I'd buy it.

There are songs people skip; songs their ears can't stand to hear. I'm not that hard-lined. Call it unconditional love (though not one of my favorites).

[MikeInNV]

I was always baffled by the "Greta" hate. It's pretty easy for me to single that one out as my favorite from the album.

Regarding "Just Like a Woman," I will never forget reading two reviews shortly after the album's release. One said that the album was fantastic with the exception of the horrible cover of the Bob Dylan song. The other said the album was terrible, with "Just Like a Woman" being the only redeeming track. You know what they say about opinions.

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

I totally agree. I'd love this song to be in her live sets! I imagine it drawn out and slightly weird, much like Gold Dust Woman.

I imagine a different senario: Flash back to the Street Angel tour. She opens the show very dramatically, singing the first verse/chorus of Street Angel, then busts into a rocking song.

[BlueLight]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Destiny isn't bad, but Stevie should have used it on The Wild Heart. Her vamping at the end of the WH version is great. I feel that Enchanted and Destiny would have been great paired together as the opening and closing tracks of The Wild Heart.

Right?! The end of the WH version of Destiny is perfection - a real shame she didn't include it as a bookend to The Wild Heart. It's hard for me to listen to the SA version, largely because of how great the original track was.

[StreetAngel86]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Interestingly, I think Stevie misunderstood the original song, and thought Docklands was Darklands. I've seen it written in her handwriting as Darklands. And..it makes sense. Give me your hand - come in out of the darkness. It's quite a statement about her own life at the time, and the heaviness she must have felt, especially after the 1992 Clinton innauguration where she last saw Lindsey. And those years she spent ordering takeout from the deli down the street, sitting at home, doing nothing. I'm sure in retrospect, she was indeed in the Darklands.

that is my laptop wallpaper

yah i have seen her Darklands mistake as well
reminds me of Shadowlands
but i think she knew what it really was called
because of her love of all things English
and the Dickensian imagery in Street Angel
maybe she was imaging the literal Docklands in dickensian times
coz why would a laundromat be in (near) the woods?