‘The Other Side of the Mirror’- likes and dislikes (what are yours?)
 

This album seems to get mixed reviews. Share your thoughts! Mine are below:

LIKES :thumbsup: :

- ‘Rooms on Fire’, ‘2 Kinds of Love’, ‘Ooh My Love’, ‘Doing The Best I Can’, ‘Real Tears’

- Great video for ‘Rooms’

- The Alice in Wonderland theme

- The cool mini hologram that came with the Brit release (and the bigger one you can order separately)

- Stevie gets her 1st hit single in Europe with ‘Rooms’

- nice tour book

- Stevie yelling at the security guards for roughing up her fans at one of the 1989 shows (“Don’t f*ck with my people, or I’m gonna get real f*ckin' angry!!!!”

- Nice covers for the '2 Kinds of Love' and 'Whole Lotta Trouble' singles


DISLIKES :distress: :

- ‘Cry Wolf’ (yawn - boring and not written by Stevie) ,’ Fire Burning’ (never liked this one), ‘Juliet’ (whassup with the talk-singing?!), ‘I Still Miss Someone’ (the Dolly Parton version is WAY better)

- Stevie’s ugly stage clothes for this tour (the hats, bustiers, platform sneakers, shoulder pads, etc.)

- Her klonopin addiction at this time (as seen in her zombie state of mind while on stage)

- No video for ‘2 Kinds of Love’

- To me, this album signaled the beginning of her career slump at the end of the 1980’s (when her 2 singles after ‘Rooms’ didn’t chart)

- Don't like the covers for the whole album, or for the 'Rooms' single.


Roland :)

Love:
Two Kinds of Love
Long Way To Go
Alice
Ooh My Love

Like:
Rooms on Fire
Whole Lotta Trouble
Doing The Best I Can

Dislike:
Fire Burning
Ghosts
Juliet
I Still Miss Someone

Once "Rooms On Fire" ends, I take out the CD...nothing else on the album is worth listening to. Should've just bought the CD single.

I like the general style of this album very much... sans the addition of Kenny G. Also, the Bob Dylan cover is horrific and uncalled for :laugh:.

I think I like Long Way To Go the most off this album. I listen to Rooms On Fire and DTBIC and even give Fire Burning a spin every once in awhile but don't listen to much else. And I do NOT like her hair and look on the cover. She looked so much better in the ROF video and shoot. So pretty. And I still want that red sparkle skirt she wore in the Rooms On Fire Top of the Pops performance. Another amazing outfit we never saw again.

Too much saxophone!

I like many of the songs.

I dislike the way Stevie's voice was recorded.

I liked many of the melodies (to me, this record's only true strength).
I disliked many of the lyrics.
I liked many of the layered vocals and harmonies.
I disliked the sound of the lead vocals.
I like Rooms on Fire for the lyrics.
I disliked Rooms on Fire for the singing.
I liked Bruce Hornsby's playing.
I hated the curly-haired soprano-sax-dude's playing.
I liked that it was recorded quickly.
I hated the victim-mentality of the record.

Dylan cover? :shrug: Think you're mistaking this for Street Angel...there's no Dylan cover on OSOTM, Louie. Although, she DID cover Johnny Cash on this one.

There are a lot of bad songs (lyrically) on this, but I enjoy the cheesy '80s keyboards quite a bit.

Likes:

- Rooms on Fire
- Ooh My Love
(the above are really the only two *good* songs on the album)

- Whole Lotta Trouble
- Alice
- Juliet

Dislikes:

- Two Kinds of Love (seriously atrocious)

Don't Mind:

- I Still Miss Someone
- Long Way to Go
- Ghosts

Could Take or Leave:

- Cry Wolf
- Fire Burning
- Doing the Best That I Can

Likes
Rooms on Fire, Juliet, Ooh My Love (decent)

Don't Mind
Alice (the song meanders but it's different, still not very good)

Dislikes
Everything else!

Despises
Two Kinds of Love, and what she did to Cry Wolf

Threw the album in the trash after 3 listens back in 1989. Was soooo disappointed

Dear God, my brain farts are getting the better of me lately :o. Can Alzheimers set in before 30?! :laugh:

My feelings are unchanged... I Still Miss Someone would NOT be missed by me! :p

Like:

Rooms on Fire
Long Way to Go (I prefer the Extended Remix though)
Ooh My Love
Alice
Juliet
Doing the Best I Can

I also like the cover image, and I LOVE the font. It's so faux-Gothic!


For me, TOSOTM isn't Stevie's worst album, but I think it is the patchiest and it doesn't seem to work as a coherent whole.
Having said that, I have a massive emotional connection to this album for a few reasons. (Doing the Best I Can was the first song I listened to after losing my virginity! :shocked: Yeah, it was that bad.)

Likes

Rooms and Fire
Long Way to Go
Ooh my love (only like this one sometimes)

Dislikes

Everything Else.

It was one for you...it was three for me...
 

Is this album overproduced? Yes! Does it reek of that late 80's Adult Contemporary sound? Totally! Is it my favorite Stevie Record? Hell no! However, it IS a Stevie record, so of course I've listened to each track a million times. The breakdown for me is...

PERFECT - "Rooms On Fire", "Ooh My Love" & "Doing The Best I Can (Escape From Berlin)"

GREAT - "Long Way To Go" & "Juliet"

JUST OKAY - "Two Kinds Of Love" , "Fire Burning" & "Ghosts"

BLEHHH - Everything else...

I was soooo irritated that they chose "Whole Lotta Trouble" as a single. I thought OML or DTBIC would've been better choices in my opinion.

All in all, it's got some good Stevie songs, and I pull it out and listen to it occasionally...but I have to really be in the mood. It's not like BD, WH or TISL, which I could listen to all the time.

I cannot see 1 positive thing about this album.....just bad.:shrug:

Mick

Alice, Rooms and thats about it.
To be honest with you - I havent even listened to the whole thing :laugh:

Likes:
-Rooms on Fire
-Long Way To Go
-Ooh My Love
-Ghosts
-Whole Lotta Trouble
-Fire Burning
-Alice
-Juliet
-Doing The Best I Can
-I love the cover photo despite her clown makeup
-I also love the vibe of the album when I am in a fantasy kind of mood

Dislikes:
-Cry Wolf
-I Still Miss Someone
-Sometimes, I just cannot listen to this album if I am not in the mood.

Likes:

"Long Way To Go" (my favorite song on that album BY FAR!!!!); "Doing The Best I Can (Escape From Berlin)"; "Rooms On Fire"; "Whole Lotta Trouble"

Dislikes:

"Two Kinds Of Love" (her voice and Bruce Hornsby's do NOT work well together); "I Still Miss Someone (Blue Eyes)"; "Ooh My Love"; "Alice"; "Ghosts".

I think this album hurt her reputation more than any other album. I agree. Street Angel is bad and blah. But this album reached lower depths. It hurt her career.

How did it hurt her career? She had a successful single and video in the US, plus her first #1 hit in Europe. This was the only album she toured in Europe for...theres a reason for that people. Lots of people b*tch that she doesn't tour Europe. It is because OSOTM was the only album that did anything in Europe. :shrug:

Great: Long Way to Go, Ooh My Love, Whole Lotta Trouble, Doing the Best that I Can, I Still Miss Someone (am I the only one who loves this reggae-inspired little treat?)

Good: Alice, Juliet

Junk: The rest, especially the actively disliked Rooms on Fire (a dull draggy pointless poorly arranged throwaway), Ghosts, Two Kinds of Love. Fire Burning and Cry Wolf are just forgettable songs and performances but not hatables.

I like it all. Standouts for me are 'Doing The Best That I Can' - 'Long Way To Go'-
'Ghosts'- 'Juliet'- 'Ooh My Love' and wait for it...'Cry Wolf'- SN's version helped me through a bad time, and I knew the Laura Branigan version of 'Cry Wolf' but SN nailed it for me. I love her vocal on it.
'If you start to stumble, if you start to crack, if you're feeling humble, don't look back'-- Stevie sings those words like someone who was living them at the time, I love it.
I think the whole album is about recovery from bad love affairs and bad decisions, maybe some bad drugs, and it sure all felt very real in 1989- maybe the album is about surviving the '80s. It wasn't easy to. And ending it with 'I Still Miss Someone' was an inspired choice, imo. After everything, it came down to that.
Emotionally, the album makes a lot of sense, if you happen to have been messed up! I think the lyrics throughout the cd are still among the best of her solo career.

Love:
Rooms on Fire
Long Way To Go
Whole Lotta Trouble
Ghosts

Like:
Doing The Best I Can

Hate:
All the other songs.
Her hair on the album cover. I like the dress, and everything else. But. The hair makes me criiinge.

Well, let's see .... I like the songs on the album, I guess .... for the most part .... good stuff ....

But I do not like the sound of her singing, I don't like the sound of her harmonizing, & I do not like the orchestrations or the way the album was engineered.

Rooms on Fire, for some reason, was a hit in Europe. The album did not do that great. It hurt her career becuase it recieved horrible reviews and sat on the used shelves for months. People bought it and then sold it back as quickly as possible. She sounded terrible, the synth production did not work and the songs were not strong at all. She truely became the Goat Voice on this album and it sounded as if she was spoiled rock star who wasn't really trying.

Nicks lost fans with Rock a Little. It was overproduced and there were only 5 really good songs on it. This album was supposed to be a comeback of sorts. Instead, it was a disaster. I don't think she should of released this album. That was really bad judgement. It showed just how bad Stevie could be, instead of showing what she could do.

I love Rooms On Fire.
I like Two Kinds Of Love, Whole Lotta Trouble, Long Way To Go,Ooh My Love and Ghosts.
Alice, Juliet, and Cry Wolf are okay.
The more I hear it, the more I don't like Fire Burning.
I can't stand I Still Miss Someone or Doing the Best That I Can (Escape From Berlin)

I love almost everything about this album and this era.
It was so magic, nice pop-rock songs. It was recorded in Europe, she toured Europe the only time this tour. It was great setlist on this tour too. And her style in the late 80´s.... it´s known that I love that. The song Rooms on Fire is great, also the video. And the video for Whole Lotta Trouble and that video live version is amazing too. It was really something very different, and nice!

I was really unimpressed with this CD when it came out. But as usual, many of the songs have grown on me over time. I loved Doing the Best I Can from the start. Rooms on Fire, not so much then but moreso now (and I do love the video). Whole Lotta Trouble is fun now (Have mercy!) ; hated it then.

OSOTM was supposed to be a comeback from RAL. Instead, it was even worse.

Likes
Rooms On Fire
Alice
Long Way To Go
Still Miss Someone (Blue Eyes)
Ooh My Love
Doing The Best That I Can (Escape From Berlin)
Fire Burning

Dislike
Cry Wolf
Rooms On Fire US Single photo---so scary.

For songs unmentioned, they are just OK.

I do love the back cover image!
http://rockalittle.com/nicksfix049s.jpg

^
They are both very good.
I Like Seven Wonders more
than Rooms On Fire, but
neither beat If Anyone Falls.

The Other Side Of The Mirror is Stevie's mood album, the one you can only listen to when your in that soft and adult contemporary mood, If you ever are :shrug:

I really like:

Rooms On Fire
Long Way To Go
Ooh My Love
Ghosts
Whole Lotta Trouble
Alice
Doing The Best That I Can (Escape From Berlin)

Juliet and Fire Burning are ok

The rest could have been left on the shelf.

I want to know why Love Don't Fail Me Now and Dial The Number didn't end up on this album? They would have been much better than the two covers!!!

She lost a lot of fans because of the RAL Tour, not the album. Bad reviews followed her all across America in 1986. I saw 5 RAL shows. One was excellent, the others were embarrasing.

Ral was an overproduced failure. You tell she was disintegrating. All her albums, seem to have sold half of the previous ones, except for TISL. Hopefully, she is on the up curve.

Well to me RAL is worse than Mirror. I like Mirror more than I like RAL.....I guess part of me will always love Mirror because this is when I started collecting Stevie/Mac stuff......so for me it was a big LP.....I think I did already have BD/WH/RAL before I got Mirror. Sure its different than the other LP's but I was more disappointed with RAL than Mirror. I think RAL is a very disconnected LP because of all the different producers /with all the stops and starts of the LP....its disjointed at least with Mirror she had one producer and maybe all don't like Mr Rupert Hine....at least to me its more cohesive an LP/CD than was RAL.....could they (RAL/Mirror) both be better.....sure (same for SA/TISL etc.....I'm sure we could all change all the solo lp's.......anyway)......some maybe minor changes others major changes. I think if RAL was MM LP that it started out with Jimmy Iovine it would've been much much better and more cohesive......but it is what it is. Now what I do love of Mirror is: Long Way To Go/Room's On Fire/Ghosts/Doing The Best That I Can/Whole Lotta Trouble/Cry Wolf/Ooh My Love/Fire Burning/Alice........OK songs......Juliet/Two Kinds Of Love/ Miss Someone ....isn't too bad....not sure about the carnivel music they used.....other than that I can live with this cd. I love LWTG when I'm mad and just want to scream. I've cried so many times when listening to Doing The Best That I Can......they are close to my heart.....I guess we are drawn to songs that have meaning to us in each of our lives.....some speak to us more than others.......I do agree that the LP cover photo could've been a better picture though. I do like the back picture as well. I also don't like the ROF single sleeve photo.....I'm sure Stevie had tons of outtakes thats why its a shame something else couldn't have been picked?? Guess we could say that about all the solo LP covers. I like the outtakes to TISL and the RAL that what was used...same for SA I haven't seen enough for BD or WH but well I do love WH the 3 Stevie's is cool ....and some of those outtakes are nice too.....I love the Blue Lamp pics I'd love more of those pictures to be released......its just a crime we don' t see more of them.....IMO anyway....but I can say that about the songs as well.......Anyway, just some thoughts........I have many thoughts......:shrug::D

On this album, once I get past Rooms on Fire and Long Way to Go, I wanna burn it. I absolutely hate that album.