1983 article I have never read before
 

"Pillow Talk" from the Village Voice

Very amusing article; sometimes critical and sometimes admiring, but a good read. I think I have read all of the articles about Stevie at the Blue Letter Archives, and this is not there.

Hey, great job in digging that up! Never saw that, as far as I remember. Its relaxed "Can you believe this?" bemusement & cynical eye are so typical of the opinions of critics at the time who reviewed her albums & concerts that it really brings me back to a Happy Place! I hope it gets added to the BLA.

That was a bit mean! Poor Princess Stevie! :)

interesting. some points I agree with, some I think are stretches of the imagination (but we are talking Stevie here)

at least the writer concedes that Stevie is 'da bomb'

Did they say that?!

Sometimes I get so tired of record reviewers acting as if they know what the meaning of a song is. Like this one-

"...'Nightbird' (a detailed description of her makeup)..."

Obviously, the reviewer didn't listen to the song more than once and certainly didn't take any time to digest the imagery. Then again, the year was 1983- the concept of what made "good music" at the time pretty much equaled ****.

Jeez that's ludicrous! About her makeup? Oy vez. She was probly steaming when she saw that.

Although I disagree with about 85% of what this writer says it's seriously one of the most well written pieces I've ever read about La Nicks. I enjoy this writer's style and frankness. So what do we think about this statement? Come on out chiffonheads!
I've always preferred Stevie's voice although Christine's may be technically better. No sh*t Lindsey is a better player than Stevie, she's never claimed to be one. She's a superior performer, lyricist, and overall artist IMO. Oh the best sense of style too. Go ahead, rip me a new a-hole if you must but no one can compare the loyal and devoted following of Stevie fans to the other memebers of the group. The numbers speak for themseleves.

I'm not a "chiffonhead", although I do prefer Stevie's music overall to that of Christine and Lindsey's.

I think Stevie is a "better" singer than Christine. Stevie has a more innate sense of harmony. Stevie has an incredibly distinctive and unique vocal instrument. Granted, she hasn't always taken very good care of it. Christine has a gorgeous voice. However, she can be pitchy- not saying that Stevie can't, just saying Christine is certainly not this "technical vocalist". Unfortunately, Christine's voice doesn't have many dimensions. It is was it is and that's about it.

I feel that musically, Stevie is the more creative of the three overall. Christine relies on many standard chord progressions and Lindsey's specialty is turning two chord and three chord songs into excellently produced product. Because Stevie is not a musician, she comes up with interesting musical landscapes. Granted, she has beaten the Am-G-Fmaj7 deal to within an inch of its life. However, her unique voice combined with her type of writing style bests Christine and Lindsey's offerings most of the time. When you throw her lyrical imagery in there she's definitely hard to beat.

I love both Christine and Lindsey, but there's just something about Stevie- "when she's good, she's really good"- kinda thing that pushes it to that unique greatness.

Her wild inconsistency in every aspect of her career is like a plague to that woman and how the public & the critics view her. If we were to sit here and discuss a woman whose career ended after The Wild Heart dropped, I'd be right alongside you and mimicking the application of "greatness" to her. Unfortunately, she went off on such a bumpy road shortly after that time that saying such things seem hollow when applied to her and her body of work as a whole. She'll forever be one of those artists, in my mind, who had a phenomenal ten year run (hers being especially remarkable) and then decided to castrate their career in as violent a manner as possible. Glimmers of the old artist still arise now and then ("Trouble In Shangri-La" and "Goodbye Baby" are prime examples), but the glory days have been over for twenty years and the time since then has done so much harm to her image, her music, and her creativity that reading all of those old articles & reviews make them seem more applicable to the Stevie of today instead of the Stevie they were originally written about.

Just my two cents.

He may have been referring to technique; but maybe he wasn't--maybe he was referring to more rarefied aspects of artistry (although it's difficult to think of anything having to do with Christine as rarefied).
Curious here: What does "overall" encompass? I assume performing, writing & singing, but if one person excels at one thing & another person excels at another thing--& each excels about equally--how does one get the "overall" honor over the other? What I'm getting at is that I think Stevie's audience accords a higher place to lyricwriting than to any other single aspect of artistry. It's kind of like dog show judging: do you judge the dog against the other dogs of different breeds, or do you judge the dog against the ideal dog--an abstraction--within its own breed? If the latter, I would say Lindsey's the greater "overall" artist because I think he's more innovative & impressive as an arranger & guitarist than Stevie is as a lyricist. But I want to know what you think!
Nobody should be ripping you a new anything. This is all just individual preference (who's a better performer, who's a better lyricist, who's a better singer) & writing about it.

I think Lindsey was the best performer, Stevie the best singer & Christine the best songwriter. So you can see that our preferences touch all bases.

Yeah, that time period didnt do too much for me either....

That was fun :laugh: agree with all of it. Though the author seems just as "all over the place" as stevie is... im sorry who wrote that again? :rolleyes:

:lol: Good on you Dissention... :xoxo: im so pleased to read those words on the forum as you speak a more honest truth rather than what a few dare to admit to even themselves let alone say out loud...

...to a few people on this forum i say to them "come in out the darkness" :nod:

I think your points are well taken, although I would add a lot more to your "glimmers" list, such as her reprise of "Silver Springs" from '97, and the majority of TISL (opening song through TFFT, plus FFG and Love Is).

I also think the general public has by and large forgotten about the 15 or so years of substandard work (ask anyone and they won't even know about Street Angel) and she has established an image of a rock and roll legend who looks and sounds quite good and still makes some quality music.

Did it ever occur to you that people may really dig those post-83 15 years and think the stuff before it was just okay - or that The Dance/TISL/SYW period and thereafter was the superlative part of her career - that all of her stuff connected with them. I mean to each their own and statements like "you speak a more honest truth rather than what a few dare to admit to even themselves let alone say out loud" take no heed of that. That statement serves only to enflame an argument and to insult peoples' taste, which is subjective. I mean to each their own - right?

Personally, I think one of La Nicks' best live vocal time periods was the SA tour, even if that was not that great of a time in her life. I also think she was very, very good on The Enchanted tour (Sleeping Angel anyone) - On the other hand, I also think many of the WH period's live vocals were not very good - same with Mirage - though the look and the passion were most certainly there and many of these shows were vocally brilliant. But, who am I to tell someone else that they are being dishonest if they disagree with me :rolleyes:

Yet, that whole "Stevie's fans are delusional" argument and will never say a bad word against her gets played once again :rolleyes:

Yes, please!!

You, me, or the song ;) :angel:

yeah...I'm picking up what you're putting down. I found Janis' post rather odd as well; but I have noticed that pattern in her posts. I also don't understand the argument that Stevie's career has been over for 20 years or whatever...I have found things about every stage of Stevie's career that I love and cherish and also things that I shudder at (with the exception of a couple where I think they are flawless ;) ). Neither of which are in such abundance that I say "well, her career's over" or "that tour was ****"...

I agree. She's so different in Rumours-era to the crazy eighties to now and everything in between, and there's always something to like, different strong points or whatever. I find it _very_ hard to start thinking "I like this era better than that era" or whatever.

Me too. I mean, to me, there are parts of the Tusk tour that she is so flat on that I shudder. But, it was a cool tour nonetheless. I think her worst tour overall was probably TISL. To me, she vocally did not deliver even before she got sick. But, I still enjoyed the three shows I went to, etc.

I actually love Stevie's recent stuff (TISL and SYW). Is it as good as her late 1970s product? No... but then, not much by any current artist is.

True, although Neil Diamond has sure demonstrated that it's possible.

That's true! I love his new album, and I'd love to see Stevie work with Rick Rubin (as we discussed in another thread).

I should have used the word overall entertainer as opposed to artist. And by this I mean she's the whole package even if one person is a better player and another person has a better voice (although I prefer Stevie's voice over Christine's, lets assume this for arguments sake). Stevie has created a public persona, almost her on genre if you will with the whole witchy, gypsy, fairy thing she has going on. She has the power to captivate audiences and has devout, almost cult following to go along with her vocal, performance, and songwriting skills. Stevie has said her life is entertaining, while Christine would rather stay home at her castle in England and write songs on the piano instead of doing another FM album. Lindsey would rather tinker behind the sound board for years at a time than hit the road for a solo tour. Hopefully that explains where I'm coming from.

It's all subjective. I think "Love Is" an enormous turd of a maudlin song, but I also think "It's Only Love" is one of the greatest songs she's ever recorded. It all depends on what you're looking for when you listen to her.

I wouldn't go that far. A "legend" is what they call you when you stop selling albums. She started to repair herself quite a bit with the Mac reunion, but releases like "Every Day" & "Say You Will" as singles, and performances like "Sorcerer" on the Radio Music Awards & the ones she's been doing to promote new projects, are doing absolutely nothing to further the image of a "rock and roll legend" who is still producing "quality music." It seems as if she's resting on her laurels after reviving her career. If she's not raping "Landslide" for the millionth time, she's turning in something bland. As usual, and as I said in my previous post, she's wildly inconsistent.

Part of the problem is that she seems to have taken a backwards step musically. The music itself is typical adult contemporary sludge, for the most part, that one expects from artists of her age, containing no real imagination and lacking the warmth and urgency of her earlier stuff. Does she really offer anything of real value to music these days? I assume the typical answer I will get is that she adds class, heart, and something unique, all of which are true. But she really has no ideas that are fresh or interesting these days.

^^^

See, I think Everyday was a good song and she sold the shiitte out of it on the Rosie show. I also think SYW was one of the coolest songs she ever wrote, though the production and performance of it was IMO weak. I totally realted to the song SYW and love it and think it enhances her status as a legend. So, to each their own :cool:

I love the way Stevie said "until they kicked it off the record" on the Rosie show. I consider it one of my supreme Stevie moments of all time. Does anyone have a sound clip of that?

Maybe i should explain better in my posts and read through what i type before i post.... :nod: Yes jason i am rather odd, im not good at saying what im thinking. Im not very clear and therefore get misinterpretted rather often.

Strandinthewind: i should of carefully selected what i was agreeing with. I dont believe stevie's only enjoyable work was done within a ten year timeframe. What i do agree with dissention about is that I do believe that we rarely see any passion for her work, and that yes only glimmers of the old artist arise every now and then. I should of been more specific

Now i believe that in regards to stevie's on stage voice and overall performance that her best came out for the WWD 81 tour, the dance, and enchanted/storeytellers era. That absolutely kicked some arse! Some sensational stuff, and i do also believe that her voice had the most strength and consistency for the late 90's performances.

Um what haven't i covered.... once again im not reading through my post :laugh:

That was an interesting and funny read...

The thing that strikes me occasionally when reading a reviewers remarks, especially when they start to pick apart the lyrics trying to decode/understand the text - is that you need to know all about Stevie's personal life, or have a sense of what she was doing or going through. All the tabloid kind of stuff, the drugs, the men she's been with - the whole nine yards. You need to know a little bit about this if you are ever going to possibly understand what she's writing about, really.... Without that bit of knowledge, I think you'd be lost. From an outsiders point of view, if it's too complicated to get right from the start, I think they move on... Her on stage crazy persona coupled with what was written about her probably drew a lot of people in. Once you understood her life, you understood (somewhat) what she's writing about...

That's my take.

Then she's not a very good writer.

Yes, but the "Nightbird" parenthetical remark was probably just a joke, an impatient bit of sarcasm, a jab at what the writer perceived to be a lyrically asinine song.

It was a funny comment that couldn't possibly have been meant literally.

That's exactly what the writer was saying. That the other two were "better" but somehow Stevie drew the large crowds. That persona overshadowed the talents of the others. You seem to be making the point that whoever has the largest number of fans is the "best" one. But that couldn't be. You're not that dumb.

No, I think she's a good writer, but I think regarding her early work, you do need to know a little bit about the woman and her life to really get beneath what she's saying. I guess on one hand she says enough in her songs that makes sense so that you can draw your own conclusions, but to truly understand the lyrics a little more, knowing her life would help.

I will admit, when I read that I laughed then thought.. Huh, is it!? I had to try and think about the lyrics for a split second - it had been awhile.

There's nothing to "assume" there...you just stated fact. :shrug:

Not if you are strong enough to lift Chris' KX88....;)

It's not a matter of being dumb, it's called a personal opinion. Whether or not she is the most or least talented is irrelevant - I simply like her better and to me she is the "best" and obviously a lot of people agree with me. That's my point.

Actually that's an opinion. I don't see the confusion.

I can understand what you mean here...I suppose because she can't exactly rely on a specific instrument to really help her paint her "musical landscapes", as you said, then she does usually come up with interesting and unique patterns in her music. However, I believe Chris has both her and Lindsey beat when it comes to musical arranging. They each brought there own strengths to the group, and I believe that musicality was Christine's area of expertise. Where as Stevie built her music around her lyrics...I think Christine built her lyrics around her music, which is probably why Christine's songs were more "popular" and "radio friendly" because she had such a gift for coming up with wonderful melodic hooks.

:lol:

It was a joke, relax. I was saying that, you saying that Christine was the better voice was fact...(cause I happen to think she does have the better voice.) ;)