DISCUSSION: Stevie's songs from Behind the Mask

[MacShadowsBall]

Here's the last discussion thread on Behind the Mask, focusing on Stevie's songs.

Songs up for discussion...
1. Love is Dangerous (w/Rick Vito)
2. Affairs of the Heart
3. Freedom
4. The Second Time (w/Rick Vito)

I plan on counting "Love is Dangerous" as collaboration and "The Second Time" as Stevie... :cool:

[TerraRhiannon]

I Love Freedom and Love is Dangerouss the most, although not a big fan of The Second Time. Love is Dangerous is pretty catchy if I do say so. Their pretty decent tunes from our girl, it will be hard to choose between Freedom and Love is Dangerous for me.

[louielouie2000]

Freedom is an all time fav for me. I just love the snarky boiling anger of it. It's a surprisingly strong vocal from Stevie for the time, too. I just can't say enough about how I really love this song.

All the others are just kinda "meh" to me, though. I like Love Is Dangerous... but there's a certain corny element to it that I can't quite place. I think it's just the general production of the song... much like the rest of the album, it is sloppily heavy handed. Affairs Of The Heart is definitely blah. The Second Time is nearly awesomely bad... but I really do respect the sentiment behind the song. The sentiments are extremely touching... the song itself is borderline painful to listen to.

[Matthew]

I love Freedom. I like Affairs Of The Heart very much. Love Is Dangerous is nice duet and The Second Time... just kind of music that I´m not big fan of, but it´s ok.

[LittleCharmer]

Freedom is by far the best IMO. Affairs of the Heart is alright but a bit.. cutesy for my liking. I do like LID but I have to be in the right mood to listen to it (which tbh is the case with most of BTM..). The Second Time can go and die in a corner somewhere. :)

[TerraRhiannon]

The Second Time can go and die in a corner somewhere. :)

Hahaha, yes. It doesn't do much for me neither

[chiliD]

All three ("Freedom", "Affairs Of The Heart" & "Love Is Dangerous") have grown on me over the years.

With my iPod playlists for this album omitting "The Second Time", I'm trying to forget it even ever existed in the first place. And considering it being at the very bottom of the list of Fleetwood Mac songs and considering how many Fleetwood Mac songs there are, I'm surprised it hasn't succumbed to the weight.

If I never hear the song, nor hear OF it ever again, it will be TOO SOON!!!

[TrueFaith77]

I have to admit to being moved by basically all of Stevie's ballads, so for me, even "The Second Time," despite it being the musical embodiment of the klonopin years, isn't THHHAAAAAT bad. Besides, I feel like it's part of the great Stevie-Lindsey story and that gets me all mushy inside!!!!

Of these tracks, Freedom and Love Is Dangerous are my favorites. Affairs of the Heart I can barely remember for some reason.

[chiliD]

...even "The Second Time," despite it being the musical embodiment of the klonopin years, isn't THHHAAAAAT bad. .

Oh, yes it is. Any "song" (using that term VERY LOOSELY) that incites me to want to shove ice picks in my ears, is THAAAAAAAAT bad.

Put it this way, I'd rather listen to the entire Yoko Ono catalogue than that.

:nod:

[TerraRhiannon]

I'd rather listen to the entire Yoko Ono catalogue than that.

:nod:

Okay, now we know he's serious. :lol: I don't know if I'd go to that extreme, but like I said the song is not my fav.

[Street_Dreamer]

Freedom is one of Stevie's top five songs all-time besides being one of the highlights of Behind The Mask.

Matt

[billwebster]

With BTM having been my first Fleetwood Mac album, these songs were my introduction to Stevie Nicks. From this perspective, "Affairs Of the Heart" comes across as a signature song of sorts, but "Freedom" is strong, too, but not quite as much. "The Second Time" has got a good vocal melody, but I don't care too much about the lyrics. "Love Is Dangerous" gets skipped so often that it's almost like it's not there.

BTM got me interested in checking out Stevie's next solo album at the time, "Street Angel", solely on the strengths of "Affairs" and "Freedom". "Gretta", "Docklands" and "Rose Garden" are my favourites from that album, which I consider better than "Trouble in Shangri-La" that suffers from some dubious production touches.
Here's hoping that Dave Stewart's production style does the best to Stevie's forthcoming songs. After all, it's been a while since she's released something new.

[holidayroad]

How 'The Second Time' ended up on any album when Stevie has so many other great unpublished songs is beyond me. If Stevie insisted on it, then I have no idea what she was thinking!!

[silvasprings]

I've always loved freedom but thought that it could have been harder edged. It needs more bass and more guitar. Other than that it's great, especially " cut's me like a knife" and the subsequent symbals clashing. I LOVE THAT! :lol:

I find Affairs of the Heart catchy but a little silly and corny.

Love Is Dangerous is also pretty cool and i thought that Stevie and Rick sounded pretty good together.

The Second Time is everything that i dislike about Klonopin Stevie, it's just a really weak song with a morbid vocal. That somehow the band thought would be another Landslide is beyond me. The mesage behind it is pretty though.

[Garbo]

I have really come to love Affairs of the Heart and its somehow become one of my favorite Stevie/FM tracks. It would've made a great single actually.. it compliments No Questions Asked quite well too in playlists. Love it!

[David]

I think SECOND TIME is the best song on this album. I wish it had a better lead vocal (Stevie logy & sort of fatigued), but it's a touching lyric onto which I was easily able to project my "interpretation," & the musical structure is all there. Love the use of the dominant 7ths as passing chords, or transitions.

Nice little acoustic guitar song with bad engineering & a bad production idea (the synthesizer lead & the doubled-up harmony vocal by Nicks herself when it should have been Billy or Rick).

I don't like the other two or three Nicks songs at all. The pretense is bull**** & the musical sludge all over the tracks is impossible to ignore. Even by 1990, I thought Nicks as a songwriter was just about dead. I was so sick of hearing about the alter-ego character walking down "long hallways" or wondering "how she would live & die" & so on. Stevie's songwriting formula was Line 1: cliche + Line 2: cliche + Line 3: two cliches + Line 4: back to one cliche + Line 5: make it three cliches + . . . . It took millions of fans to project all their neuroses onto her phony-baloney ABC Afterschool Special romantic melodrama, "The Teen Years: Well Into My 40s."

[HomerMcvie]

^^^Bravo, David!:thumbsup:

[iamnotafraid]

I don't like the other two or three Nicks songs at all. The pretense is bull**** & the musical sludge all over the tracks is impossible to ignore. Even by 1990, I thought Nicks as a songwriter was just about dead. I was so sick of hearing about the alter-ego character walking down "long hallways" or wondering "how she would live & die" & so on. Stevie's songwriting formula was Line 1: cliche + Line 2: cliche + Line 3: two cliches + Line 4: back to one cliche + Line 5: make it three cliches + . . . . It took millions of fans to project all their neuroses onto her phony-baloney ABC Afterschool Special romantic melodrama, "The Teen Years: Well Into My 40s."

Wow, the gloves are off, and I like it.

I think I'm a little Nicks (nixed) out right now.
If her new album isn't good she's going to fall
down my list. But hey, she and the rest of the
Mac had a pretty good run.

[chiliD]

I think SECOND TIME is the best song on this album. I wish it had a better lead vocal (Stevie logy & sort of fatigued), but it's a touching lyric onto which I was easily able to project my "interpretation," & the musical structure is all there. Love the use of the dominant 7ths as passing chords, or transitions.

Nice little acoustic guitar song with bad engineering & a bad production idea (the synthesizer lead & the doubled-up harmony vocal by Nicks herself when it should have been Billy or Rick).

I don't like the other two or three Nicks songs at all. The pretense is bull**** & the musical sludge all over the tracks is impossible to ignore. Even by 1990, I thought Nicks as a songwriter was just about dead. I was so sick of hearing about the alter-ego character walking down "long hallways" or wondering "how she would live & die" & so on. Stevie's songwriting formula was Line 1: cliche + Line 2: cliche + Line 3: two cliches + Line 4: back to one cliche + Line 5: make it three cliches + . . . . It took millions of fans to project all their neuroses onto her phony-baloney ABC Afterschool Special romantic melodrama, "The Teen Years: Well Into My 40s."

This....coming from someone who prefers Beethoven to rock. Serious lack of credibility...even from a self-professed (former?) Stevie Nicks fan.

Again...listen to Yoko, then to "The Second Time"...which will incite self-harm? I'd say the Nicks song.

[David]

This....coming from someone who prefers Beethoven to rock. Serious lack of credibility...even from a self-professed (former?) Stevie Nicks fan.

Again...listen to Yoko, then to "The Second Time"...which will incite self-harm? I'd say the Nicks song.I had no idea there was a chiffonhead in you screaming to get out. It's a bit of a shock, to say the least.

[chiliD]

I had no idea there was a chiffonhead in you screaming to get out. It's a bit of a shock, to say the least.

Yeah, sure, like Napoleon was Beethoven's BFF....NOT!!!!