Yup. I see a backlash coming on. Not sure Stevie said everything exactly as printed but she never should have taken the bait in the first place. She should have taken her own advice and kept her mouth shut. In the past she's been a lot more blunt in the foreign press but these days it only takes a minute for news to travel around the world in a flash. Even if she only said a few of these things it still comes off prudish and judgmental. Yes, I agree with what she supposedly said, but I disagree with her going public. The age comment is catty and smacks of somebody taking a whip to all the cradle robbers out there. Wonder what's got her riled up? Tee hee.

Yes and who's now famous for being OJ Simpson's mistress while he was married to Nicole and later beating up her husband Chuck Finley, pitcher for the Anaheim Angels (or he used to be).:rolleyes:

In my humble lil' ol' opinion, no one should be shocked. Now, don't get me wrong, I really like Madonna (not in a Stevie sort of way) but she has gone over the top more then once. THis is what she does for a living. If Madonna wants attention, she does something to get attention. She's a little more then a singer/songwriter, she is an entertainer. This stunt was done to entertain and get attention.

Maria

I agree....
 

with Stevie's sentiments entirely. Stevie isn't the only 'star' that has come out with this type of comment.

Last year Kelly Jones of the Stereophonics made a scathing attack on Kylie Minogue at the Brits when she won the International Artist gong. An 'artist' she isn't, she belongs in the same league as Britney and Christina, scantily dressed mediocre singers, using their assets to get by, with a huge marketing machine of major record label.

It is a sad fact these days that the music industry is NOT about real artistry but making the most out of the latest cash cows they have in the cattleshed, who will then be put out for slaughter when the hits dry up. Bands these days are nothing more than the cogs in the huge money making machine called the record company.

:wavey: :wavey:

Re: I agree....
 

Exactly. It's also part of the reason their sales are so crappy. They milk it for all it's worth and then it's on to the next thing instead of trying to build a base for the artist. They don't think about longevity anymore. It's just now, now, now.

This was a major publicity STUNT, not entertainment, Madonna is synonymous with notoriety...she will stop at nothing for attention. This is why she constantly has to reinvent herself showing that she will not stand the test of time as herself. It was unfortunate Britney wasn't bright enough to work it out, she was Madonna's prop in this stunt, this will come back to haunt her. Guess what? Madonna succeeded as nearly two weeks later we are still talking about her PR STUNT.......sad huh?

As for Madonna doing this for a living.....well I would question that, Madonna is a multi-million $ business. She doesn't need to work. However she desperately wants to hang onto her status as notorious pop icon so has to resort to ever more questionable tactics to do so.
Also when you consider this happened only a few days before her book launch it put her firmly back into the public eye in time for this launch. It truly smacks of STUNT.

Stevie's been riding on her 70's songs/clothing for going on 30 years...that's not longevity...that's redundance. She's a parody of herself circa 1975.

As much as I love her, she's really in no position to dish out career advice, especially considering she's as good as mute without a producer...and she desperately clung to her youth and figure in the 80's as both began to fade.

That said (fast foward), Stevie was most likely giving the paper an interview when they slipped into a conversation regarding the new breed of pop music, eventually landing them on the topic of Madonna's VMA kiss with Britney/Christina. The editors obviously found this the most interesting bit, hence nothing more in the piece but a poorly written and hella generic "bio".

I take it you didn't get the new TISL album then...it is anything but 70' 80' or 90's.....anyhow what band or solo artist isn't mute without a good producer....after all Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut made a damn good job of several FM albums...

I don't form opinions without having heard something.

Of course I have Trouble In Shangri-La. The only good songs on it are "Sorcerer", "Planets Of The Universe" and "Candlebright"....all ones that she demo'ed in the 70's. Oh...and the one Sheryl wrote and had produced into "Strong Enough Part 2" for Stevie.

She hasn't written a decent song since 1981's Bella Donna album... and actually I believe half of those were from the 70's too, so...

Of course this isn't necessary fact but merely your opinion

Pip

Did you guys miss my opening line in the second post? I consider myself a huge Stevie fan, that's why I feel comfortable in stating my opinion. I'm not bashing her, and fans that take it as such are being overly sensitive. Mizz Nicks seems to be having no problem dishing it these days, so who better than someone who has actually heard all of her songs to call it as they see it?

I've paid for each and every one of her CD's, best of's, boxed sets and some bootlegs both with and without Fleetwood Mac. I have listened to each multiple times over a span of two decades, and I didn't say that the stuff wasn't enjoyable, but surely you can see the difference between a piece like Beautiful Child versus one like Sister Honey. Oi. She even resorted to ghost writers/co-writers (the two are normally interchangable) from 85-up. I think she gets/takes too much credit and normally when her body of work is reviewed and she is referred to as a "legendary songwriter", you don't hear anything about songs from a post-81 release (save for the occasional nod given to Gyspy.)

I just found it hypocritical for her to knock her pop peers. She got breast implants, which bounced and protruded through her carefully layered clothing... In the 80's she leaped from the Lindsey sound to a pop/dance sound and adapted a phony, higher register, all for the sake of remaining a commercially viable sex symbol playing the pop/rock game, and in the process made her initial songs seem like svengali steered flukes...something she still, 3 decades later, has yet to disprove.

:wavey:

Actually I don't see it that way. I see a woman who always had a vision of what she wanted to be and stuck right with it. While others chased trends, Stevie was Stevie no matter what. The word is "icon."

Can someone explain to my why having plastic surgery would lessen one's credibilty as a performer?:confused:

Jimmy is that you?;) :D

I’m with you on this one. My personal opinion is that a lot of those ‘70s demos are great and very moving. So are the studio versions of them. But I think she lost some of her inspiration after The Wild Heart. What caused it is a mystery to me, but I’m just a monkey anyway. :)
The only demos of the later period that I like are the ones that are more arranged anyway.

Again, I agree. When she’s not working with Lindsey she tends to go very, very mainstream. It’s not that Lindsey doesn’t sometimes get mainstreamish himself, but he at least knows how to straddle the fence between the mainstream and the experimental. There’s similarity in his work, but when I first heard SYW I was very surprised by the way he had treated Stevie’s tunes. I do like RAL, OSOTM and TISL (haven’t yet found Street Angel) but the sound on those is very middle of the road. And the studio musicians add to this certain sterility. A lot of TISL sounds neutral to me because of those goddamn ProTools.

That’s right. Maybe “decent” is too harsh, I would use the word “good” myself, but the point is the same. I do realize that a lot of the fans are willing to lynch the one who has the guts to analyse her talent, but I feel like I have to speak up anyway.
What she writes these days and has written since the early ‘80s can be described as “the Nicksian drone”. And no, this doesn’t mean songs about men. That’s what her current demos sound like to me, unless they’re more arranged by other people. This means that she’s still milking those same old three chords to what it’s worth, just like she did during the ‘70s. However, this time there just isn’t that freshness anymore. If you write in a certain mode for a long time, you’re bound to run out of certain ideas, or at least your new efforts won’t be as memorable as the earlier ones. That’s what I think has happened to Stevie. Her way of writing hasn’t changed. She’s stated something like the following: all of her songs are extensions of previous ones and seem to capture only certain moods. I agree with that 100%.
So, why do I think that a lot of her songs on SYW are nearly as great as her best work? Simply because of Lindsey. If you look at what makes a song successful, it’s not the notes. The thing that matters the most is what chords are those notes against. Take something like the Beatles’ “Across The Universe”. The whole thing has a two or three note melody. If it didn’t have those rich chords and that tone colour backing it up, then no one would speak of it as a classic. Stevie writes usually with very basic chords. What a producer/arranger can do here is to make those chords richer. Lindsey’s the best for that job, but I do like the work that Jimmy Iovine, Rupert Hine and John Shanks did. They were trying to do the same thing that Lindsey did and while they didn’t succeed, they did come close, especially Iovine.

I do like some of her recent demos too, such as “Space Needle”. A lot of them just bore me though, with that drone going on. However, I don’t think an album of Stevie’s demos with no additional production work would do well at all. She needs help in certain things and I’m sure the fans accept that. Of course, if someone is actually willing to release an album like that, then it would be an interesting experiment. ;)
I wouldn’t put most of the credit on the producers’ shoulders either. I think fifty-fifty would be just right in this case. They can always hear in Stevie’s songs what someone untrained can not. A certain lyrical imagery can create a great arrangement in a producer’s head. I don’t think she’s untalented these days in songwriting, but I do think that certain people love those current demos because it’s Stevie singing them and she hasn’t changed her style. But I don’t think any of us can be truly objective in this matter. :)