Who else *doesn't* like Stevie Nicks' songs?
 

First off: I'm not trying to start a flamewar, and I really hope that I don't offend anyone here, because that's not my intention. Everyone has different tastes. :)

That said, I have to say that I am not overly fond of most Stevie Nicks songs. Generally they strike me as very "plain" and uninspiring from a musical standpoint, boring, monotonous, and they feel like they go on forever. I do appreciate her lyrics; it's just that I'd rather read them in a book of poetry.

For instance, Tusk feels to me like it would be one cohesive musical work of art, if it weren't interrupted by endlessly droning songs like "Beautiful Child" and--again, no offense intended--"Sara". I do like many of her songs ("Gold Dust Woman" is one of my all-time favorites); it's just that her most popular songs among her fans are generally the ones I like the least.

I'm just curious to see if any other FM fans have the same opinion, because I have yet to encounter one who agrees with me. :p

I'm mainly a Christine fan but I do like Stevie's songs.

It's just that her voice grates on me after a while especially on SYW

Gail

Hmm, it was Billy's solo music that got me into Fleetwood Mac in the 1st place, and my 1st solo album of the others was Out Of the Cradle.
Strangely, I seem to like Stevie songs best that are not so popular on this board, like Docklands or Welcome To the Room Sara for example.
I have the feeling that Stevie's voice has gotten lower between the recordings of 'Street Angel' and 'Trouble in Shangri-La'. Or is it just the way she is being mic-ed in the studio?
Imho, her best 'Say You Will' song is probably Destiny Rules, but most of her Say You Will stuff I usually skip. I think that is because I can hear the tensions in the studio.

stevie...
 

nice disclaimer.
plain and uninspiring? that hurts my soul. they are anything but that.
see that makes no sense. BC and Sara drag on and on, but you like GDW? GDW infamously goes on and on. BC is one of Stevie's most beautiful songs, lyrically and musically.

maybe you need to re-evaluate your reasoning and provide more support and explanation so we can see exactly what it is that warrants your point.

I'm going to sort of agree with you - I don't like Stevie and haven't liked her for quite some time. However, it's not really her 'songs' that are the problem, though lyrically some do annoy me. However, I'm more so irritated by her deteriorated voice and range than anything else, especially since her softer songs - like "Beautiful Child" - are the songs I like best and still enjoy.

P.S.

Bill Webster - a big thumbs up to a fellow Billy fan. Stevie's music is what initially got me interested in Fleetwood Mac's music and Lindsey Buckingham is the one who turned interest into obsession, but these days Billy is my favorite.

Oh and Eclipse, it's Egan not Eagan. ;)

I hear a lot of these same kind of complaints by fans of other artists who have had changes in their voice; Streisand, etc. Maybe Stevie could have prevented it, maybe not. the thing that makes me sad to see someone be "irritated" or not like her for this reason is that a large part of the reason her voice, I believe, is the way it is (different, not deteriorated, by the way) is because she spent a good 10 years or more giving her heart and soul in performances of Rhiannon, GDW, SOTM and others. I just look back at her busting her ass on those songs to thousands of screaming fans and then years later...those same fans going "omg, she sounds like a dead goat" and I imagine what it must feel like for her. that's just me. it really makes the lyrics to SOTM so, so true.
that's nice of you to say and it's cool Stevie hooked you and gave you the opportunity to discover Lindsey and Billy

Yes, I agree that a lot of the change in her voice is due to years of performing, and just the aging process in general, but I think a huge part of it is the result of the 3 pack a day smoking habit she had for years, not to mention the cocaine abuse.

Egan
 

So is it the songs you're not actually fond of or her voice? By the sounds of it, it's her voice, since you can handle reading the lyrics...

I don't know, for me I think if it were her voice I would have a hard time listening to the group as a whole since with harmonies and solo songs on the albums, she's everywhere! There's no mistaken her voice even when it's mixed in on the harmonies she's right out there. Her voice has changed alot from back in the day with only remnants of what it used to be - but it's still a pretty powerfull voice - and when she wants she can still write a good lyric.

Ok, from the Buckingham Nicks days through Tusk, there were not too many straight male Stevie Nicks fans more intense than I:

I think Stevie was basically useless to Fleetwood Mac in the '80s and just should've just quit FMac outright after the Tusk tour ended (and Lindsey, too). Other than "Gypsy" on Mirage everything of hers within FMac post-Tusk was atrocious. (although a COUPLE of her background vocals on Tango... were pretty cool...the "tell me, tell me lies" part on "Little Lies" is really great). She did have a few (VERY few) high points (no pun intended) on her '80s solo albums, though (side 2 of Rock A Little & "Rooms On Fire" about cover it).

That's what interests me about her, too.

To me, her lyrics are beside the point (as are all the other lyrics by the other Fleetwood Macsters). I like or dislike tracks based on how Fleetwood Mac treats the songs. Although some of them have nice turns of phrase, I see no great verbal poetry in these Fleetwood Mac songs, but I do hear some good aural poetry in many of them: a lyricism & an inventiveness in the treatment of the song that encompasses arrangement, production & performance.

I agree that's Stevie did very little for Fleetwood Mac in the 80's and if I was in the band at the time I would have wanted to fire her for being so out of the loop and focussing on solo projects apart from 1 reason: She was the pretty face that the public had come to love and was a big star in her own right.
I do like her stuff on SYW though. Those are songs that grabbed me on first listen.
Why do you think Lindsey should have gone as well, Chilli? Similar reasons to Stevie? (i.e. focussing on solo project, song quality dropping)

TITN would have been much better if Stevie's songs had been replaced by more songs by Lindsey and Christine IMO. And Mirage is probably the same, though with the exception of 3 or 4 songs all 3 writers reach below average levels anyway, so it's not really fair to pick on Stevie. Apart from a couple of Lindsey's songs, Gypsy and WYWH none of those songs catch the ear. Just quite bland record, not bad, but unremarkable.

I came to Fleetwood Mac via Peter and Danny, and I never had strong feelings about Stevie one way or the other. I definitely don't have anything against her or her songs in general, and I like her 70s stuff including most of her Tusk songs. I'll also agree that her 80s Mac stuff was pretty redundant, but then I think Mac had entered the lazy phase by that time anyway.

She certainly has her share of duff songs though, for me - perhaps more than any other Macster. Her Tango stuff is fairly dire, and same goes for Behind the Mask - but I did like Billy's and Rick's stuff, so it's not that I dislike that era per se. I would also say there are many occasions when I'd rather hear Bekka Bramlett :sorry: Stevie's SYW stuff is patchy, in my humble opinion (just my opinion, of course :o ) - some I can listen to, some I generally don't.

I guess I could say that I like Stevie Nicks as an integral part of the late 70s Fleetwood Mac, but beyond that, I'm not really fussed. She's just another Macster to me, with great moments, and not-so-great moments.

Yeah, it IS her songs that draw me back to listen to SYW. (Well, except for "Running Through The Garden"...{blech!})

1) Came in together...go out together.

2) The flak he got from within the band for the (supposed) poor sales of Tusk. He basically, at that point, wasn't happy being in the band. (and his work on Mirage pretty much shows that)

3) Let him focus on his solo career full-time.

I've always sort of had this pet theory that some of his Mirage songs (especially Oh Diane) are an exaggeration/mockery of what "traditional" R&R songs sound like, and that they were a direct reaction to the flak he got for Tusk.

I personally like Lindsey's song's more, though I would have liked GOS instead.

Those are all fair points... I actually agree alot with point 3 especially. A full album of Lindsey's work is more to my liking than 3 or 4 songs on an album by him.

one thing you can say about Stevie is that she toured way more than the rest of the fab 5..... as a singer, i know i would be dying if I toured as much as Stevie Nicks

:laugh: I like your theory A LOT!!

:thumbsup: Thanks!

I would tend to disagree disagree with you, but that's ok. You are certainly antitled to your opinion.:nod:

**WARNING, SERVERE RANTING AHEAD**

I love, no..i ADORE stevie and always will. For me, Stevie's music from 1975-1982 was the height of Fleetwood Mac albums until Tango came out in which 2 of her songs SUCK MAJOR ASS (Welcome to the Room, Sara and When I see You Again) but she made up for that with OSOTM and BTM. "Sara" is my favourite song of all time. I love everything about it. It's so deep and meaningful and Stevie's vocal is one of her best. I agree that her voice isn't what it used to be and agree with Vicky that this is down to smoking but I still love her voice. I really can't imagine young Stevie's voice singing songs like "Trouble in Shangri-La", "Everyday" and "Thrown Down". She has writen these songs to suit her voice today and personally i think thats great.

**END RANT**

Basically, I love Stevie. Both solo and with FM. Always have, always will. She is and always will be the rock queen!!

Fine, but who's gonna hear it without the tag "Fleetwood Mac" attached to it? He was smart to stay with the band as long as he did in the sense that his music continued to reach a wide audience that way, on the other hand though, his long tenure in F.M. just about killed him emotionally and psychologically so, I guess he was screwed if he did and screwed if he didn't :shrug:.

He had a MUCH better chance of having the "Lindsey Buckingham" name become known in 1981, on the heels of the Tusk tour, than at any other time after that. "Trouble" was a decent hit, he could've built on that...if he'd have been able to follow it up fairly quickly, which, granted, isn't his strongsuit.

Yeah, I dont think fairly quickly is even in Lindsey's vocabulary.:lol:

lol from what i know there is a huge difference between them. How many studio albums has Lindsey actually done? I only know of 2 (Go Insane, Out of the Cradle) and don't like either of them. I am primarilly a Stevie Nicks fan and Fleetwood Mac take a backseat IMO. Although I do love Mac, I prefer Stevie solo.

Yeah, you're probably right. I'm thinking more of today I guess. I just wonder if he had really tried, could Lindsey have been as successful a solo artist as Stevie? Both Lindsey and Christine made a stab at solo careers that just kind of petered out in the long run. I wonder why Chris only put out one solo album? Was it due to poor sales?

I don't think that Lindsey's & Christine's solo careers (at that time) weren't actually solo "careers"...it was just a case of the band being on a hiatus of indetermined length.

Especially the case with Christine's 1984 solo album. I'm pretty sure was done ONLY because Fleetwood Mac didn't really exist at that moment (and the prospects of there BEING another Fleetwood Mac album was probably not such a sure thing) and she had songs that she needed to get out of her system.

No, I don't think Lindsey's solo career would've hit any kind of Nicksian heights, but I think he would've been more well known by name than he is even now...one reason is that he would've been touring to back his solo albums, which he didn't do until Out Of The Cradle.

No way. The answer's simple: His material doesn't delight as many record buyers as hers does.

This idea that, no matter what you sound like or write like, you can become a superstar as long as the marketing is behind you is misleading (because it's only true if you wrench it out of context). You could advertise a Satyajit Ray movie on the Disney Channel day & night for a solid year, but kids still aren't going to go see it. It doesn't give those kids anything they're interested in. "Law & Order" didn't give most listeners anything they were interested in (especially if they were expecting another "Go Your Own Way" from that song's composer).

Warner Brothers could have marketed "Law & Order" till Doomsday, & it would still not have been the smash that "Bella Donna" was.

Me too, even better in my opinion, I think you're spot on, carrie721. A VERY convincing sounding thought on the way he responded musically after his masterpiece.

From my childhood, I remember "Go Insane" being a huge hit on the radio and on MTV, but that's about it. Maybe people thought Lindsey was too weird :laugh:.

Radio play is sometimes misleading, I guess. Or your memory has faded (all our memories fade). I think a clearer picture of the popularity of "Go Insane" or "Law & Order" is found in the sales figures, which are very low for both albums--again, considering the artist was a member of Fleetwood Mac & the composer of songs like "Go Your Own Way" & "Tusk."

These were just not big hit albums ... certainly not anywhere near the scale of "Bella Donna" or "The Wild Heart" let alone any of the Fleetwood Mac albums from that era.

they could have given it away and it wouldn't have shipped as many units... he just wasn't mainstream on that album and thank God for that

I LOVE Bella Donna and Law and Order EQUALLY.
The difference? I'd gladly play BD if friends were over. The idiotic public GETS it. Law and Order........that's a personal one for me, and I'd only play it when I'm alone. People don't get it, and I'm sometimes glad that I DON'T have to share it with them.
Bella Donna- I love the classic SoCal instrumentation on it. It sounds like Stevie recorded with the Eagles. Purrfection.
Law and Order- LindseyBob is sooooooo far out there, it's like an aural acid trip. Give me another hit of it! It's hard to imagine that he WASN'T on something, making it. It's so freaking weird, I love it!!!:thumbsup:

So, I love them both, for completely different reasons. And agreed, LindseyBob isn't for the masses(nor, for their consumption, do I think he ever intended himself).

I dont think I would classify Stevie's music as plain, un-inspired or boring. There are some songs that are simple like Rose Garden, Landslide, The Second Time but I dont find them boring or un-inspired. They are for the most part acoustic ballads. Then we have her bombastic songs like The Nightmare, Whole Lotta Trouble. And we get her rockers like Edge, Nothing Ever Changes, Fall From Grace, Long Way To Go. And her simply beautiful songs like Beauty And The Beast, HAEWAFY, Beautiful Child, Bombay Sapphire.

Stevie for the most part always tries different styles and ususally hits the mark. Her attempts at country have always been very good like That's Alright, After The Glitter Fades, The Highwayman, Leather And Lace. These songs are more traditional country than anything we get from Urban, Hill or the others.

She has also attempted a funky R&B style with songs like Sister Honey, Love Changes (which I feel could have been a big hit had it been released as a single instead of Everyday), I Cant Wait, How Still My Love, Greta. Then of course there are her traditional pop hits which she has had many. Apart from Bella Donna her solo albums have always been an eclectic mix of material. So I feel it is safe to say that if you dont like her songs, her music is far from plain, boring and Un-inspired. She has for a "rocker" a very diverse body of work.

Songs I am not specifically fond of like Jane, Street Angel, IMO suffer more from a production standpoint than a vocal stand point.

As far as her voice I love it now as I did then. Its very rich. I feel she sings better live than Say You Will suggests. The only song on that disc that maybe could have used a better vocal is Running Through The Garden (though I LOVE that song, there is so much passion in that) On the Gold Dust Tour she was doing some excellent singing, as she has been doing with Petty. Yes she did abuse her voice in various ways but she still has it in spades. Her harmony singing on Insider at the Garden was stunning to say the least. And she kicked the **** out of I Need To Know and Stop Draggin My Heart Around.

What a great post, Angel69! :thumbsup: I totally agree with everything you said.

I think "Landslide" is one of Stevie's least simple songs she's ever written.

The only failing of "Running Through the Garden" is Lindsey's ****ty production. Stevie's vocal is utterly, stunningly, blistering.

I agree!

AND - she somewhat repeats that vocal on Smile at You, which IMO also suffers from LB's lack originality.

i agree too, i love this song... my problem with SYW is mostly LB.. and i'm more of an LB fan

As far as Landslide I was speaking in terms of the amount of production on it as opposed to something like Gypsy.

As for RTTG, I love that song though most people dont seem to like the vocal. I love her vocal on it, very powerful and passionate. That song has some great lyrics also.