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  #76  
Old 10-07-2014, 12:28 PM
loverly13 loverly13 is offline
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Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
The Los Angeles Times October 6, 2014, 2:04 PM

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...006-story.html

Now that young bands such as Haim and One Direction are reviving the polished pop-rock of Fleetwood Mac...


No one should ever use Fleetwood Mac and One Direction in the same sentence, let alone compare the two.
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  #77  
Old 10-07-2014, 01:04 PM
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New York Daily News by Jim Farber

'24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault,' music review

New Stevie Nicks collection holds both riches and rejects from Fleetwood Mac star's past

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS / Tuesday, October 7, 2014, 2:00 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...icle-1.1965210

Catchy music can obscure the meaning of a song just as surely as it can enhance it.

When a melody achieves perfection, it steals attention from the lyrical core.

That dynamic forms a key part of the puzzle of pop. But it has special relevance to the latest release from Stevie Nicks.

Unlike her beautifully pruned work with Fleetwood Mac, many songs on her latest solo work fray at the seams, or wander outside the confines of an ideal melody. The album does contains a few must-have highlights, but key parts feature lyrics that wobble awkwardly on their tunes. Yet those very flaws and indulgences wind up casting a clearer light on Nicks’ character, and concerns, than ever.

There’s good reason for the music’s wavering quality: The album is a collection of castoff songs from Nicks’ 45-year career. True, Nicks recorded all the music anew over the last year, but she wrote most of the material between 1969 and 1987. A few songs date from 1994-95.

Any Nicks-oholic will immediately notice her trademark lyrical tics. Words like “silver,” “dream” and “chains” keep turning up. She’s often left “alone in a room” or found standing “out in the rain.” There’s also her tendency to split her inner voice into a conversation between what “I said” and what “she said.” Nicks’ broader themes also hold — the tug between professional achievement and personal relationships, between the desire to connect and the need for free-range love.

The most finely formed songs use those themes to raise goosebumps. In the piquant “Hard Advice,” Nicks recounts the tough words from a friend who told her to quit pining for a famous musician who has already moved on. As with many Nicks songs, speculation on the boldfaced lover’s identity is very much encouraged.

“Lady” pushes further, with its grand melody and gripping lyrics that find Nicks wondering if her loneliness will one day devour her.

The sole cover — of Vanessa Carlton’s “Carousel” — both furthers the theme and breaks up the melodic familiarity.

Otherwise, the album meanders through songs of significant energy, but with middling tunes (the Tom Petty-esque “Starshine”), or with lyrics tha turn *verbose (the mess “Mabel Normand”).

If Lindsey Buckingham had his way, this stuff would surely have been sharpened. But there’s a happy consequence to his absence. We get pure Stevie — needier than some might find comfortable, but also unexpectedly wise. It’s too much for the casual listener but catnip for the devoted.

Stevie Nicks appears with Fleetwood Mac at the Garden Tuesday.
He gave 3 out of 5 stars.
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  #78  
Old 10-07-2014, 03:10 PM
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Stevie Nicks, ’24 Karat Gold – Songs From the Vault’ – Album Review
by Michael Gallucci October 7, 2014 2:16 PM

In a way, Stevie Nicks‘ ’24 Karat Gold – Songs From the Vault’ is the attic-cleaning job its title advertises. But in another way, it’s Nicks’ jump at beating the bootleggers who’ve circulated demo versions of the album’s songs online for years. Either way, it’s Nicks’ most personal and engaging record in years.
It’s also her most cohesive — somewhat odd considering that the tracks span decades in the life of the singer-songwriter, dating from when she was first starting out in 1969 to songs that were written during the height of Fleetwood Mac‘s chart-busting run in the ’70s.
Recorded in Nashville with a group of session vets, ’24 Karat Gold’ features new versions of songs that Nicks had accumulated but never released during her four-decade career. No surprise that several of them recall the tunes she wrote and sang on her first two albums with Fleetwood Mac, since they date from that era. A bigger surprise is how warm and spirited Nick still sounds.
The youthful jab in her voice that gave ‘Rhiannon’ and ‘Dreams’ such a lift back in the day has been replaced by worn-in tones that come from years of not-always-so-easy living. On songs like ‘Blue Water,’ ‘Hard Advice’ and ‘She Loves Him Still,’ Nicks weathers the storms of broken relationships, emotional turmoil and life detours.
Yet on the album’s best songs — the jumpy opener ‘Starshine,’ ‘The Dealer,’ the title track and the spare piano ballad ‘Lady’ — she comes on like it’s still 1978, goosing her voice and music to places they haven’t seen for a couple decades. The backing band doesn’t try to mimic Fleetwood Mac; it doesn’t attempt to steer into typical solo Nicks territory either. By playing these songs as Nicks envisioned them, along with tossing in some of their own professional acumen, they give ’24 Karat Gold”s 14 old songs new life.
Still, Nicks could have left some of these songs in the vault. At more than an hour, the album begins to sag near the end, when a handful of cuts start to sound like the castoffs they are. When it reworks the best tracks Nicks had tucked away, ’24 Karat Gold’ comes close to the material Nicks contributed to Fleetwood Mac during their prime. And it sure sounds a lot better than those scratchy demos passed around online.
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  #79  
Old 10-07-2014, 03:16 PM
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Well at Slant didn't hate it. Pretty thought it was a given.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/r...from-the-vault
3 out of 5 stars

Stevie Nicks
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault 3 out of 5

BY PAUL RICE ON OCTOBER 7, 2014
GO TO COMMENTS (0)
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is a glorified act of copyright protection. Stevie Nicks reportedly decided to revisit old demos when she was informed that they'd been bootlegged and uploaded to the Internet. This was no doubt a shock to the technophobic Nicks, who doesn't own a cellphone and communicates with fans via handwritten letters that are uploaded to her website by members of her team.
The material, written from 1969 through the '90s and newly recorded here, is significantly sharper than what was found on Nicks's last studio album, 2011's In Your Dreams. The new recordings mostly dispense with the awkward electronic flourishes (vocal distortion, canned synths) that have marred other recent Nicks-related recordings. "Starshine" is given an uptempo, straight-ahead rock treatment that recalls Nicks's collaborations with Tom Petty, while on "The Dealer" she almost perfectly embodies her '70s glory days with Fleetwood Mac. The latter finds Nicks looking back at a failed relationship, though it cleverly doubles as a longer-term survey of loves lost and reconciled, particularly with bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood. "If I'd known a little more, I'd have run away," she laments, but of course she didn't, and now she's on a sold-out tour with both of those men.
Old flames occupy much of the subject matter throughout the album, and even when Nicks isn't explicitly singing about herself, it's hard not to read autobiographical meanings into the songs. The silent-era comedienne Mabel Normand, who gets a tribute song here, is a character with whom Nicks clearly identifies, singing about her "quietly crying" heart underneath all her beauty and talent. And Nicks even tips her hat to friend Vanessa Carlton with a cover of the latter's "Carousel," adding little to it beyond some fairy-tale harpsichord, though there's poignancy in seeing Nicks return the favor of paving the way for Carlton's career with a song about how everything comes back again.
Unfortunately, 24 Karat is stuffed with too many stately piano-and-guitar ballads that return to the same theme of bygone romance. The one wild turn from that format is "Cathouse Blues," a slinky ode to Nicks's high-heeled strut that sounds like something you'd hear wafting from a sweaty bar on the Mississippi River. While not Nicks's first time fetishizing the South (see "New Orleans"), it's unfortunately so ill-suited to the California mystical dream-girl aesthetic that she's carefully cultivated over the years that it comes off as an unintended joke.
There's a fundamental paradox to Nicks's brand, which she once referred to in a moment of rare self-awareness as "the Stevie Nicks thing." Though she plays the perpetually tender, romantic, emotionally available, spurned woman, Nicks has always had an air of cool detachment that puts her at a remove from listeners. On songs like "The Dealer," "She Loves Him Still," and "Hard Advice," she re-spins the same old image of a Nicks who's gripped by long-ago love affairs with fellow musicians—"dreams to be sold," as she puts it on the title track—while her current life is kept somewhere out of view. The most illuminating moment is on "Lady," which reveals the deep chasm between the naďve woman who wrote it after moving to L.A. to become a rock star and the 66-year-old she is now, looking uncertainly over her empire. "What is to become of me?" she pleads with appropriate dramatic irony. Nick has always given us just enough snatches of insight to keep us wondering the very same thing.
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  #80  
Old 10-07-2014, 03:30 PM
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Stevie Nicks
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault 3 out of 5

BY PAUL RICE ON OCTOBER 7, 2014
GO TO COMMENTS (0)
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is a glorified act of copyright protection. Stevie Nicks reportedly decided to revisit old demos when she was informed that they'd been bootlegged and uploaded to the Internet.


I don't think this is accurate.
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  #81  
Old 10-07-2014, 08:46 PM
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The Courier-Journal by Jeffrey Lee Puckett, October 7, 2014

http://www.courier-journal.com/story...view/16873059/

Stevie Nicks, '24 Carat Gold — Songs From the Vault'

Stevie Nicks has been writing songs for 45 years, so it's no surprise that her files have grown thick with worthwhile half-finished tunes. There must be an entire box of songs about Lindsey Buckingham alone, and another filled with references to silver, gold and, um, Lindsey Buckingham.

The songs on "24 Carat Gold — Songs From the Vault" are new recordings of demos made between 1969 and 1987, with a couple of tracks from the 1990s and a Vanessa Carlton cover, which hardly seems necessary. There are a lot of decent songs on "24 Carat Gold" — perfectly pleasant — but there are very few true keepers.

"Lady" is as soul-baring as Nicks gets, with just her bleeding/bleating voice and a piano; it's a powerful take on loneliness. "Blue Water," which has been floating around the Internet for years, is a beautiful example of a classic Nicks technique in the use of nature as metaphor for the intensity of Nicks' love — plus there's a gypsy (speaking of which, the title track sounds like a lesser version of "Gypsy," the 1982 Fleetwood Mac hit).

There's only one truly awful song, and it's painful. "Cathouse Blues" is the kind of generic garbage that would likely be a career peak for a third-rate weekend blues band, but here it's just embarrassing.

Last edited by michelej1; 10-07-2014 at 08:48 PM..
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  #82  
Old 10-07-2014, 11:48 PM
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The Daily Mail ran an article about a week ago talking about all of the new albums being released this week, and 24KG was mentioned. The review said the highlight was Hard Advice (which they say is about Lindsey) lol

-----------------------------------------------------
Daily Mail - 2 October 2014

"Back on the road with Fleetwood Mac to mark the 35th anniversary of Rumours, the charismatic Nicks has been busy in her Nashville studio.
This is a new record, but most of its songs were written in the Seventies and Eighties, giving them the mesmerising feel of past hits Rhiannon and Landslide.
Opening track Starshine is a full-pelt, Mac-style rocker, but the highlight is Hard Advice, a heartfelt song of lingering love that is almost certainly about Stevie’s ex-boyfriend and bandmate Lindsey Buckingham."
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  #83  
Old 10-08-2014, 03:15 PM
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4.5 out of 5 stars!!!!!!!!!!!!

STEVIE NICKS MINES FOR ’24 KARAT GOLD’—ALBUM REVIEW
Reprise Records (2014)
October 8, 2014 by Tim Ferrar
Typically, when an artist digs into the “vault” for previously unreleased tracks, the result is a set of “B-sides” intended for only the most devoted of fans to enjoy. (After all, there’s a reason they were vaulted.) But when Stevie Nicks does it, apparently, it’s gold. More specifically, the aptly titled 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault, a brilliant late-career move that reminds us of the timeless impact the Fleetwood Mac singer has had, and continues to have, on the rock genre.

To be clear, the songs on 24 Karat Gold aren’t necessarily a set of rejects from earlier studio sessions; the “vault” is more along the lines of Stevie Nicks’ personal vault, songs from her personal files between 1969 and 1995, most written in the mid-70s during the peak of the Fleetwood Mac days, that for one reason or another never made it to record. Nicks describes the vibe in a statement on her website: “Each song is a love story…They represent my life, the secrets, the broken hearts. These songs are the memories – the 24 karat gold rings in the blue box.” In short, these are anything but B-sides: they’re great songs that have been aging like fine wine in the vault while other things were happening, waiting for their own time to be unveiled.

It would seem fate itself has a hand in determining when the right time is. It’s possible that if Nicks had had her way, most of these songs might never have seen the light of day. As it is, many fans will recognize them because they have been circulating on the Internet for some time. When Nicks discovered original bootlegs of the tracks on YouTube (“taken from my house or picked up or loaned out or whatever,” as she told Rolling Stone),she decided to release the tracks on her own terms.

In an added stroke of brilliance, Nicks opted not to use the original recorded demos of these songs, but instead decided to re-record them. Knowing she was pressed for time due to an upcoming Fleetwood Mac tour, she and producer Dave Stewart went to Nashville and recorded the tracks in three weeks, performing them live in the studio with session players. As an homage to the tracks themselves, Stewart kept the production simple, recording and producing them near to the style in which they would have been recorded back when they were written. Nicks’ unmistakable raspy voice is stellar over these tracks, her stream-of-consciousness lyricism and song structures just as fresh now as they were in the so-called heyday. The result is a high-quality, solid collection of rock songs that sound timeless rather than dated, reaffirming that Nicks is just as relevant to rock culture here in the twenty-teens as she was during the peak of Fleetwood Mac.

As to the tunes themselves, there’s a nice balance of diversity on the track list, ranging from all-out rock on “I Don’t Care” to the piano ballad “Lady” to the “Dreams”-like steady midtempo of “The Dealer.” Additional high moments include the blues-rocker “Hard Advice,” the cautionary tale of “Mabel Normand” (about a silent-film star whose cocaine addiction Nicks particularly relates to), and “Blue Water,” which tips its hat to Nashville with guest BGVs by Lady Antebellum. She even covers her own song “Carousel,” which Vanessa Carlton recorded in 2011.

And so, while other artists release their “B-side” records as “remember-whens” or time-fillers between albums, Stevie Nicks has mined her own vault for 24 Karat Gold and released an album that truly lives up to its name. As Nicks pointed out herself in a commentary on YouTube, “I don’t care if it’s a hit record—I want to make a great record.” In the process, she exceeded that goal: 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is easily her best release in years.

4.5 / 5 stars

http://mimo.recordingconnection.com/...review/969484/
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  #84  
Old 10-08-2014, 06:39 PM
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I'm happy with the positive reviews, typically ranging from 3 to 4 1/2 stars.

It's funny how contradictory some of the reviews are. For example: Cat House Blue is both celebrated and despised. It shows how music is a very subjective and personal art form.

Of all the art lovers that one gets to know, they all seem to love Stevie on some level. I want to say more, but I don't have an hour, I don't have fives minutes, I got to go.
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  #85  
Old 10-08-2014, 10:56 PM
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Originally Posted by saradorna View Post
Stevie Nicks
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault 3 out of 5

BY PAUL RICE ON OCTOBER 7, 2014
GO TO COMMENTS (0)
24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault is a glorified act of copyright protection. Stevie Nicks reportedly decided to revisit old demos when she was informed that they'd been bootlegged and uploaded to the Internet.


I don't think this is accurate.
It's ignorant. Enough said.
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  #86  
Old 10-09-2014, 01:53 PM
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The Daily Reveille Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 9:27 pm

Gerald Ducote

http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/rev...a4bcf6878.html


Grade: 70/100

With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Stevie Nicks has long been the go-to image for the empowerment of women in music. She fronted the popular rock band Fleetwood Mac for over three quarters of its 47-year existence, reaching critical and commercial success as a lead singer. In recent years, when she isn’t reviving tours with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks passes her time releasing solo material, appearing on the hit television shows “American Horror Story” and having impromptu jam sessions with HAIM.

Now, Nicks has returned with another solo endeavor. Her eighth release, “24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault” is a collection of previously unreleased demo tracks that have been redone and compiled into an album of “vault songs.”

Despite its name “24 Karat Gold” lacks luster. The problem lies not in Nicks’ performance of the songs, but in the songs themselves. It’s easy to believe these tracks were in the vault for a reason. The songs echo entirely too much of their original time: 1970s to late 1980s. Antiquated themes and poor lyricism make for an unfortunate combination where Nicks’ voice, though still quite distinguishable, comes off as tired and ageing.

The one true positive of this album would have to be Nicks’ cover of “Carousel,” which is originally a song by Vanessa Carlton. With a voice dubbing that softens Nicks’ harsher tone, “Carousel” comes as an easier relief to the multiple rockers that fill “24 Karat Gold.”

Though Nicks has cut a wide space in the history of rock music, “24 Karat Gold” is unable to match her legacy as one of the most talented singers in the last 50 years. Hopefully she can rally her abilities into another, better album or turn her attention toward music production for other on-the-rise artists whom she admires.

The one true fault with “24 Karat Gold” is not that it sounds unlike Stevie Nicks. On the contrary, it sounds like too much of Nicks. Her performance on the album comes off as overly produced with questionable mixing. As far as instrumentation, the guitar’s presence is forceful and old-fashioned, but not in a congenial fashion that soothes the listener.
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  #87  
Old 10-09-2014, 02:32 PM
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Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
The Daily Reveille Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 9:27 pm

Gerald Ducote

http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/rev...a4bcf6878.html


Grade: 70/100

With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Stevie Nicks has long been the go-to image for the empowerment of women in music. She fronted the popular rock band Fleetwood Mac for over three quarters of its 47-year existence, reaching critical and commercial success as a lead singer. In recent years, when she isn’t reviving tours with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks passes her time releasing solo material, appearing on the hit television shows “American Horror Story” and having impromptu jam sessions with HAIM.

Now, Nicks has returned with another solo endeavor. Her eighth release, “24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault” is a collection of previously unreleased demo tracks that have been redone and compiled into an album of “vault songs.”

Despite its name “24 Karat Gold” lacks luster. The problem lies not in Nicks’ performance of the songs, but in the songs themselves. It’s easy to believe these tracks were in the vault for a reason. The songs echo entirely too much of their original time: 1970s to late 1980s. Antiquated themes and poor lyricism make for an unfortunate combination where Nicks’ voice, though still quite distinguishable, comes off as tired and ageing.

The one true positive of this album would have to be Nicks’ cover of “Carousel,” which is originally a song by Vanessa Carlton. With a voice dubbing that softens Nicks’ harsher tone, “Carousel” comes as an easier relief to the multiple rockers that fill “24 Karat Gold.”

Though Nicks has cut a wide space in the history of rock music, “24 Karat Gold” is unable to match her legacy as one of the most talented singers in the last 50 years. Hopefully she can rally her abilities into another, better album or turn her attention toward music production for other on-the-rise artists whom she admires.

The one true fault with “24 Karat Gold” is not that it sounds unlike Stevie Nicks. On the contrary, it sounds like too much of Nicks. Her performance on the album comes off as overly produced with questionable mixing. As far as instrumentation, the guitar’s presence is forceful and old-fashioned, but not in a congenial fashion that soothes the listener.
The fact that he called this album, with clearly pared down production, "overproduced" says everything about his (in)ability to critique music.
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  #88  
Old 10-09-2014, 02:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
The Daily Reveille Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 9:27 pm

Gerald Ducote

http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/rev...a4bcf6878.html


Grade: 70/100

With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Stevie Nicks has long been the go-to image for the empowerment of women in music. She fronted the popular rock band Fleetwood Mac for over three quarters of its 47-year existence, reaching critical and commercial success as a lead singer. In recent years, when she isn’t reviving tours with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks passes her time releasing solo material, appearing on the hit television shows “American Horror Story” and having impromptu jam sessions with HAIM.

Now, Nicks has returned with another solo endeavor. Her eighth release, “24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault” is a collection of previously unreleased demo tracks that have been redone and compiled into an album of “vault songs.”

Despite its name “24 Karat Gold” lacks luster. The problem lies not in Nicks’ performance of the songs, but in the songs themselves. It’s easy to believe these tracks were in the vault for a reason. The songs echo entirely too much of their original time: 1970s to late 1980s. Antiquated themes and poor lyricism make for an unfortunate combination where Nicks’ voice, though still quite distinguishable, comes off as tired and ageing.

The one true positive of this album would have to be Nicks’ cover of “Carousel,” which is originally a song by Vanessa Carlton. With a voice dubbing that softens Nicks’ harsher tone, “Carousel” comes as an easier relief to the multiple rockers that fill “24 Karat Gold.”

Though Nicks has cut a wide space in the history of rock music, “24 Karat Gold” is unable to match her legacy as one of the most talented singers in the last 50 years. Hopefully she can rally her abilities into another, better album or turn her attention toward music production for other on-the-rise artists whom she admires.

The one true fault with “24 Karat Gold” is not that it sounds unlike Stevie Nicks. On the contrary, it sounds like too much of Nicks. Her performance on the album comes off as overly produced with questionable mixing. As far as instrumentation, the guitar’s presence is forceful and old-fashioned, but not in a congenial fashion that soothes the listener.
Student writers are so cute. Since when are guitars in rock music supposed to be soothing?
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  #89  
Old 10-09-2014, 02:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
The Daily Reveille Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 9:27 pm

Gerald Ducote

http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/rev...a4bcf6878.html


Grade: 70/100

With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Stevie Nicks has long been the go-to image for the empowerment of women in music. She fronted the popular rock band Fleetwood Mac for over three quarters of its 47-year existence, reaching critical and commercial success as a lead singer. In recent years, when she isn’t reviving tours with Fleetwood Mac, Nicks passes her time releasing solo material, appearing on the hit television shows “American Horror Story” and having impromptu jam sessions with HAIM.

Now, Nicks has returned with another solo endeavor. Her eighth release, “24 Karat Gold – Songs From The Vault” is a collection of previously unreleased demo tracks that have been redone and compiled into an album of “vault songs.”

Despite its name “24 Karat Gold” lacks luster. The problem lies not in Nicks’ performance of the songs, but in the songs themselves. It’s easy to believe these tracks were in the vault for a reason. The songs echo entirely too much of their original time: 1970s to late 1980s. Antiquated themes and poor lyricism make for an unfortunate combination where Nicks’ voice, though still quite distinguishable, comes off as tired and ageing.

The one true positive of this album would have to be Nicks’ cover of “Carousel,” which is originally a song by Vanessa Carlton. With a voice dubbing that softens Nicks’ harsher tone, “Carousel” comes as an easier relief to the multiple rockers that fill “24 Karat Gold.”

Though Nicks has cut a wide space in the history of rock music, “24 Karat Gold” is unable to match her legacy as one of the most talented singers in the last 50 years. Hopefully she can rally her abilities into another, better album or turn her attention toward music production for other on-the-rise artists whom she admires.

The one true fault with “24 Karat Gold” is not that it sounds unlike Stevie Nicks. On the contrary, it sounds like too much of Nicks. Her performance on the album comes off as overly produced with questionable mixing. As far as instrumentation, the guitar’s presence is forceful and old-fashioned, but not in a congenial fashion that soothes the listener.
He gave it a 7 out of 10 stars but doesn't like the album. The only song he really likes was written by Vanessa. Really??
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  #90  
Old 10-09-2014, 03:15 PM
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Originally Posted by michelej1 View Post
Her performance on the album comes off as overly produced with questionable mixing.


Whatever. Overproduced? Clearly, they've never listened to The Other Side Of The Mirror.
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