Street Angel - the original version

[Phil]

I agree, Chris Lord-Alge could have salvaged the album better than Thom Panunzio. Such a wasted opportunity.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by Phil

English singer-songwriter Charlie Dore's second album was produced by Glyn Johns, but she ended up re-recording the album with another producer, with Johns' version never being released.

all these comments, the common thread seems like this guy has a real problem with women artists. is he some sort of macho misogynist jerk?

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

all these comments, the common thread seems like this guy has a real problem with women artists. is he some sort of macho misogynist jerk?

I'm not sure it's just women. Even The Eagles -- who at first were awestruck to be working with Glyn on their 1st two albums (even though Glyn initially passed.) They wanted Glyn because he had produced so many records that they loved the sound & sonics of, but they too ended up feeling that Glyn was a control freak, not open to any of their input in the studio, so they ended up parting ways and it really opened up their sound. Apparently Glyn feels like he has a signature sound and is a bit of a totalitarian in the studio. He even made The Eagles fly to London to record. The surprising fact is that Stevie even agreed to work with him having to had known that his reputation preceded him. I think she & her team envisioned that Glyn could get her back to the stripped-down "Bella Donna" sounding classic record that began her career so successfully. Unfortunately, it backfired for many reasons - Stevie being zonked out on Klono & Prozac, as well as not having the same caliber of songwriting she had earlier in her career.

I never really understood "Street Angel"- the song or the even liked the title, I know it's about a homeless gypsy, etc., but I never found it believable, it's far-fetched, even for a Stevie song. I've grown to like the song, but it wouldn't even register in my top 40 Stevie songs, and I do not believe it was ultimately worthy of inclusion or even esp., as the title a Stevie album. And ultimately that's the real problem with this record -- it's missing a strong anchor, some direction, it just hangs, and is aimless. It needs one killer title song, or two - and then drop "Jane", "Docklands"(love the song, just not for Stevie), "Just Like A Woman" (horrible cover) & finally kick off "Unconditional Love", unless it's arranged as the acoustic beauty of the demo w/some re-arrangement of the chorus. Add in a killer title song, "Inspiration", and "If You Were My Love." This album is hard -- because it's kind of a mess. The Chris Lord-Alge production of "Thousand Days" & "Mirror, Mirror" really does not fit the style of this body of material. Those songs (the production) resonate too slick and are even more early 90's adult-contemporary sounding - exactly what Stevie did not need back then. Chris is a great mixer, but they obviously didn't think he had the chops to produce an entire project, otherwise Stevie would have hired him.

[KarmaContestant]

Originally Posted by Christopher

I never really understood "Street Angel"- the song or the even liked the title, I know it's about a homeless gypsy, etc., but I never found it believable, it's far-fetched, even for a Stevie song. I've grown to like the song, but it wouldn't even register in my top 40 Stevie songs, and I do not believe it was ultimately worthy of inclusion or even esp., as the title a Stevie album. And ultimately that's the real problem with this record, It's missing a strong anchor, some direction, it just hangs, and is aimless. It needs one killer title song - and then drop "Jane", "Docklands"(love the song, just not for Stevie), "Just Like A Woman" (horrible cover) & finally kick off "Unconditional Love" unless it's re-arranged as the acoustic demo sounds. Add in one killer title song, "Inspiration", and "If You Were My Love." This album is hard... because it's kind of a mess. The Chris Lord-Alge production on "Thousand Days" & "Mirror, Mirror" does not fit with the rest of this material. Those songs sound too slick and are even more early 90's adult-contemporary sounding. Exactly what Stevie did not need back then. Chris is a great mixer, but they obviously didn't think he had the chops to produce an entire project, otherwise Stevie would have hired him.

Oh Lord, how can anyone think that god-awful SA vocal on If You Were My Love is worthy of inclusion on an album is beyond me. It's terrible, truly. She sounds half awake and distracted by a pizza.

I personally love Street Angel (the song) but otherwise agree with your assessment, by and large. That part of the 90's was an odd time for music, with Salt & Pepa and Tori Amos and Ace of Bass toppng charts, I don't know that *anything* Stevie could have done would have sounded current.

[Oooh Missionary]

Originally Posted by Christopher

The Chris Lord-Alge production on "Thousand Days" & "Mirror, Mirror" does not fit with the rest of this material. Those songs sound too slick and are even more early 90's adult-contemporary sounding. Exactly what Stevie did not need back then. Chris is a great mixer, but they obviously didn't think he had the chops to produce an entire project, otherwise Stevie would have hired him.

Yeah, I certainly wasn't suggesting he PRODUCE the album. I just find it odd that he didn't remix all of the tracks before it was released.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Oh Lord, how can anyone think that god-awful SA vocal on If You Were My Love is worthy of inclusion on an album is beyond me. It's terrible, truly. She sounds half awake and distracted by a pizza.

Lol. I've grown to appreciate that version of "If You Were My Love" for various reasons -- but, yeah, Stevie sounds like she'd rather be anywhere than in the studio right then.

I've often imagined that recording "IYWML" with Glyn Johns' oddball pseudo-calypso arrangement was the very moment Stevie realized she had hit bottom. lol

[Christopher]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Oh Lord, how can anyone think that god-awful SA vocal on If You Were My Love is worthy of inclusion on an album is beyond me. It's terrible, truly. She sounds half awake and distracted by a pizza.

I personally love Street Angel (the song) but otherwise agree with your assessment, by and large. That part of the 90's was an odd time for music, with Salt & Pepa and Tori Amos and Ace of Bass toppng charts, I don't know that *anything* Stevie could have done would have sounded current.

Yes, it was a sleepy vocal, but for me it somehow worked with that slinky, jazzy arrangement & IMO it is 100 x's more enjoyable than "Just Like A Woman." Ultimately, IYWMY (SA Version) is a guilty pleasure. But it's still not as snoozy as the dreadful vocal on "Playing In God'd Garden!"

Like I said, ultimately "Street Angel" suffered from not having a couple of killer songs."Greta" , "Blue Denim", & "Kick It" were nice, but there were no epic songs, no killer Stevie moments, just glimpses of what could've been. Stevie seemed to be suffering from writers block and any clear direction. I feel like she combed through her vaults - armed with a few older early 80's demo's, WH & RAL demos, and one OSOTM demo (Docklands) for good measure, and prayed that Sandy Stewart would deliver a hit song. "Unconditional Love" is the worst song she EVER gave to Stevie. The WORST!

I don't entirely buy that Stevie couldn't have had a modest hit at this stage in her career. If she had her sh*t together & worked with the right people it could have happened. I look to Melissa Etheridge's "Come To My Window", as a good example from that time period of what could have been. Concrete Blonde had released the gorgeous "Mexican Moon", and 4-non Blondes were riding high with "What's Up". There was a lot of good female acoustic/rock going on at this time.

[vivfox]

Originally Posted by Christopher

Like I said, ultimately "Street Angel" suffered from not having a couple of killer songs."Greta" , "Blue Denim", & "Kick It" were nice, "Unconditional Love" is the worst song she EVER gave to Stevie. The WORST!

Kick It was on TISL.

Unconditional Love is one of my favorite tracks on SA.

[Oooh Missionary]

Originally Posted by vivfox

Kick It was on TISL.

Um.

[Oooh Missionary]

Originally Posted by Christopher

Like I said, ultimately "Street Angel" suffered from not having a couple of killer songs."Greta" , "Blue Denim", & "Kick It" were nice, but there were no epic songs, no killer Stevie moments, just glimpses of what could've been.

I completely agree with you on this. The three you named are the three highlights for me and I even have a love-hate thing with them. For instance, putting together a retrospective of her stuff, they just pale by everything on either side of them.

Even isolating them is problematic... I tried compiling a spruced up version of the album (for portability purposes) and just stalled out.

1. Blue Denim (Chris Lord-Alge Remix)
2. Greta
3. Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind (Chris Lord-Alge Remix)
4. Somebody Stand By Me*
5. Kick It
6. Love Is Like A River
7. Thousand Days

...and then I just got stuck because I don't really want to hear anything else from the album. I just haphazardly threw everything else from the era on to fill out the disc.

* In early '95 it was such a relief to hear her perform "Somebody Stand By Me", a well written song with a strong vocal performance. It was the first time in years that it felt like she really meant the words she was singing. The sentiment fit where she was in her life at that moment and it's a shame it didn't go out as a single release to soften the negative impact Street Angel had.

[TheWILDheart]

Originally Posted by vivfox

Kick It was on TISL.

Unconditional Love is one of my favorite tracks on SA.

I really cannot abide "Unconditional Love" - one of the only songs of Stevie's I really hate.

and "Kick It" was on Street Angel

[Oooh Missionary]

I still can't believe there's an "Unconditional Love" music video hiding somewhere and that it was going to be the lead single from the album.

I MEAN, HONESTLY.

[TheWILDheart]

Originally Posted by Oooh Missionary

I still can't believe there's an "Unconditional Love" music video hiding somewhere and that it was going to be the lead single from the album.

I MEAN, HONESTLY.

There's some stills from the UL music video in the Enchanted booklet. And as far as I know, the video was set to the original Glyn Johns mix.

[vivfox]

Originally Posted by Oooh Missionary

Um.

Wow! That took me by surprise. The thing is, is that I never cared for the last 4 SA tracks. So they just didn't exist as far as I was concerned. I loved 4 songs from TISL and didn't enjoy the rest of it and after all these years I could have sworn Kick It was a TISL track.

[Oooh Missionary]

I definitely like TISL more than SA but, yeah, there is some fluff there too.

Not to derail the thread, but "That Made Me Stronger" was such a disappointment. That little opening riff was nice and then the lyrics start pouring out and it just goes to hell from there.

Anyway, at least even the worst stuff on TISL was mixed well!