Some questions that have been bugging me...
 

I let my friend borrow all my Fleetwood Mac albums from The White Album - Say You Will (apart from Behind the Mask and Time, I don't own those ones) and he asked me some questions about the band and Stevie that I just couldn't answer.

Now, this bugged me, since I love the band, but Stevie in particular, so I kinda wanna know too.

1) If she was the most popular member, why did Stevie always have the fewest songs on the album? Two on the White Album, Five on Tusk, Three on Mirage and Tango...

I couldn't answer that, although I did point out on Rumours that, if you look at it in a certain way, Stevie had the most songs on the album with 5/12 (Dreams, Silver Springs, The Chain, I Don't Want To Know, Gold Dust Woman)

2) What happened to Stevie's voice? The change in her voice from Tusk to Mirage was noticeable, and then from Mirage to Tango is even more noticeable.

I thought it was just the cocaine? But then he pointed out that others in the band were doing cocaine too, and Christine and Lindsey remained vocally consistent.

3) Why such a long break between albums in the 80s? Between 1975-1979 they made three albums, but they only made two albums in the 1980s. Was this because they hated each other or too busy with solo albums, or is there another reason?

1) Technically she got 3 songs on the '75-album, she wrote Crystal too. As for Mirage and TITN, she was very occupied with her sussesfull solo-career, she went straight from the BD-tour into the Mirage recordings. For the TITN recordings she was barely there, I think they may have started when she was still on her RAL-tour and after that she went straight to Betty Ford, she had to sort herself out first.

2) I think the coke did affect her voice but it was also the fact that in the mid-80's she was smoking 2 packs of Kool's a day, plus untrained singing, on the '76-tour she basically wrecked her voices with the Rhiannon-performances.

3) Solo careers, and I don't think it was hate but that after Mirage they had enough of eachother and needed to take a break of the band.

My answer is cigarettes. She has a classic smoker's rasp.

Yep. Smoking, drinking, and drugs. She started sounding like Janice Joplin.

First of all, why did you let your friend borrow all of your FM albums? You know you'll never get them back now! lol.

Excluding SYW since it's really 50/50, duets and collaborations (basically World Turning, The Chain)...A real general answer would be that Christine had seniority, Lindsey had more "power" and Stevie was kind of there as an accident. Remember, they wanted a guitar player - they did not necessarily need another singer/songwriter. So, I think for that reason they gave her as many songs as they could - given the circumstances. I don't think Stevie pushed any buttons about that because she knew she was lucky to be there. It's kind of ironic because even though Stevie had the fewest songs on each of the albums, she is the one most people think of and will remember.

Here's a few things to take into consideration also...Stevie is the songwriter on Crystal even though Lindsey sings. So, excluding the duet of World Turning between Chris and Lindsey, Lindsey has as many songs as Stevie on the White Album. Lindsey and Stevie have the same amount on Rumours. Actually, if you want to be technical, Stevie had more than Lindsey since Silver Springs was released as a b-side. There have been no other songs from L or C that were fully recorded but just not released on that album (that we know of).

Of course, Tusk was Lindsey's brainchild so he got the most. Christine only has one more than Stevie.

Not sure why Lindsey had 5 on Mirage and Tango. Chris had 4 and Stevie 3. Again, he is only singing on Hold Me and is not its songwriter.

Stevie did not sing correctly. She sang with her throat rather than her diaphragm. She also belted out a lot more than the others. Rhiannon in concert back in the day was a prime example. Constant touring, booze, drugs, aging, with no rest just took its toll on her singing voice. The hole in her nose since the mid-80's also has affected her voice thereafter.

Solo albums plus needing a break from the FM machine. They all lived in a bubble with each other apart from the rest of the world. Just them and their entourage for a good 5 years. Add in the soap opera element too. It's gotta give at some point.

They are often quite long (eg Sara 6:22 ).

Look at Tusk, she has the fewest songs, but add up the times and shes got her 3rd of the album.:D

1. Sometimes Stevie had fewer songs than Lindsey and Christine, but her songs were usually longer. On Tusk she only has 5 songs, but they occupy more space then Lindsey's nine songs.

2. Smoking and drugs can change your voice, but not that much. Stevie's voice changed because she wasn't singing properly until the '90s. I don't know the right term, but if you don't sing properly, lumps grow on your vocal chords. You can have them removed, but after a while they grow back. Other indicator was her thick vibrato. When you don't use your diaphragm you can't create a natural vibrato.

3. She was too busy with her solo career, and so were Lindsey and Christine. They even had trouble to get her in the studio for the Tango album.


P.S. Lindsey's voice changed too. :)

If we're talking in terms of songwriting, Stevie really only had two songs on Tango. "Seven Wonders' is a Sandy Stewart song. Stevie screwed up the words to one line ("on the way down to Emmeline"), which led to the "additional lyrics by Stevie Nicks" credit on the album's liner notes. But it's really Sandy's song; if Stevie had sung the words right in that one line, would there be any Stevie credit...

The thing about her voice...I think someone mentioned in another thread once that pot also has something to do with it. So, if thats true, it was the coke (and the subsequent hole in her nose), the cigarettes, destroying her vocal cords during performances night after night, and the pot she was still smoking up until as late as SYW and probably still does now that has caused her voice to change so dramatically. I've often wondered why she has never had any sort of surgery on her vocal cords to try and minimize some of the damage, but I guess if the problem would just return after a while as was mentioned, then maybe she didn't feel it was worth it. Still, you would think there would be some sort of procedure that could be done that would work better :shrug:

Oh my gosh CA Dreaming where in the world did you find your sig pic???? It's wonderful!

(Sorry for being so off topic, but it's probably the best recent picture I've seen of them together. They both look amazing and totally comfortable with each other)

That is what I was wondering myself. Is it photoshopped? Sorry to be off topic but it caught my eye.

Yes, it is absolutely stunning! I have not seen a pic that captures their relationship like this one does. They totally look like they're a married couple!!

I also noticed that.

If you listen to the white or Rumours album and compare it to TITN or Mirage you can definitely tell that his voice changed.
Sometimes when I listen to GYOW I can't actually believe that it is Lindsey on there as his voice sounds so different. Well to me it does.

With age comes loss of vocal flexibility for the majority of us. Lindsey & Stevie both lost pliancy--sadly, to a great degree. When you compare "Monday Morning" from Mobile August 1980 with any "Monday Morning" from the 2009 tour, you can immediately hear the difference between a (formerly) great rock singer with bounce & springiness & a croaker for whom every note requires a painful expulsion of a lungful of air. The exact same is true of Nicks, to my ears.

I prefer improperly singing Stevie to properly singing Stevie

Me too. Rhiannon, my absolutely favorite song of all time (especially when performed live), probably destroyed her vocal cords over the years. I study classical solo singing, and I believe that there's no use of singing perfect technically if you don't have "the thing".

Right. Proper technique revealed the true quality of the instrument, unfortunately.

well, the quality of the instrument after all the damage was done. It would have been great if she had taken such care in the beginning. As far as what she's doing now, I just always assumed that the reason for the the voice coach and trying to sing properly now wasn't so much to perfect the sound as it was to try and limit further damage.

right, which I neglected to write in my post.

And just as a note...

Though Stevie did have the fewest number of songs (5 to Christine's 6 to Lindsey's 9) on Tusk, the total running time of her songs is more than Christine's or Lindsey's, both of whom wrote a lot of short songs.

Kevin