favorite album cover
 

Hey guys, I was thinkin this morning about what my favorite stevie album cover is... id definately have to go with Wild Heart. Idk. Her faces and everything is really "Stevie" to me.
Thoughts?

I went for Trouble in Shangri-La. Not my favourite album by any means, but I adore the cover. The font, the colours - everything about it just screams 'Stevie' to me, without ever seeming indulgent of self-parodic.

I too voted Trouble in Shangri-La, such a stunning beautiful cover.
Silversprings i enjoyed reading your take on both covers, you pretty much said what i was thinking..

I went with Rock A Little but TISL would be a close second. RAL is special because it symbolizes witchy Stevie and takes me back to 1985 and when that album came out. Just always loved it.

I wanted to vote fro TISL, but Bella Donna just edged out cause I love that dress.

'TISL' without a doubt! :thumbsup:

The outtakes are nice too (like the one of Stevie leaning against the arch with her face turned towards the ocean).

Can someone post this (and the other outtakes)?

I think I will, but due to poll limits, I'll limit it to just the Rumours era lineup (and if anyone throws a hissy fit about it, I'll explain why)

That's exactly what i said. I said no butt pain or hissy fits over it, but I should throw in that last part.

Trouble in Shangri-La. Beautiful.

I know it's a little obvious, but that Bella Donna cover is iconic. And she's looking damn hot in it.

TISL. Mainly because not only is it amazing looking and very "Shangri-la" but also because she was in her 50's when it was taken and it looks like 1981 Stevie from behind.

Best Cover
 

I also voted for "The Wild Heart" but the Bella Donna cover is quite iconic. OSOTM was just trashy, and SA looked cheap and unpolished.

As for TISL, the cover worked well, but that inside image of her sitting was very poor, way to much photoshopping to make her look young. CD covers have trended to be more about showing just a face CU or a body shot, and less so about being a piece of art. Will be interesting to see what Warners goes with on this new release.

I liked the cover and inside photos of TISL. But the so called out takes caused a stir with me when I first saw them on 7W. To me they looked fake to all hell and Photoshopped. I'm still trying to master the standing on sky high platform boots on my tip toes like that. :shocked: :shrug: but it wasn't until someone notified me that they were possibly stolen photos with lawyers looking into it that I kinda sorta thought they were real. I still can't get over how the hell she stood on the tips of her boots like that. It wasn't human.

Trouble in Shangri La is my pick. I think it's one of the best album covers of all time. Definitely the best to come out that year.

The Wild Heart is my runner up. Great album cover.

I also like Crystal Visions and Timespace.

album cover
 

Trouble in Shangri La is my pick. I think it's one of the best album covers of all time. Definitely the best to come out that year.

The Wild Heart is my runner up. Great album cover.

I also like Crystal Visions and Timespace.

Trouble In Shangri La. Not only is it my fav Stevie album cover, it's the most beautiful album cover and packaging/art of any album I can think of :nod:.

I voted Wild Heart.

I don't get all the love for TISL.
Stevie's got face and I want
to see it!

Bella Donna....with Trouble In Shangri-La as a VERY close second.

Street Angel got votes. :shocked:

You did on 6 other covers. I think she was going for something new but still wanted that full body shot of herself, so that was the inspiration for the cover of TISL I think. A different artistic approach.

Yes I know. She looked sickly and she was.

I don't get the Bella Donna votes. That cover is very blah.

Is there a way to see who voted for what after casting your vote? Now that I voted (for RAL) there's no link to 'see results' just only 'You have already voted in this poll'. So if you don't vote, you can read who voted for which cover, but after you have voted, it becomes secret?
I like it!

^ Thank You, TerraRhiannon. So obvious that I never would have thought of it, thank you for helping this most impaired Ledgie.
I just wanted to see who voted for what, seems all the teens and 20 somethings voted for TISL- as did Viv, a teen and 20-something in his heart and in his photographs of other males, forever (!)-
Is a joke ok, Viv? I mean it as a joke. Disclosure needed: Viv and I had words in a PM weeks ago which he graciously apologized first for, and I apologized back. I think we're ok. Happy Holidays, SirViv.
So, that out of the way, Viv recently wrote here on The Ledge- and I found it fascinating- that TISL doesn't even qualify as a SN solo album, for him. I loved the mystery in his statement, and it deserved a lot more attention! Now Viv thinks it's her best album cover, even if it doesn't qualify as a SN solo album, which fascinates me, too. Guess I'm easy to confuse (Terra's click on the number clarification) and fascinate tonight. And the cover and content are 2 different things, so I can understand liking one and not the other.
Viv, your TISL comment was just a provocative statement that didn't get explored a lot, which I mean as a compliment. NOW, I like Stevie from behind as well as anyone, and I get that she's running away from the 'trouble in shangri la' and the colors and fonts are pretty. Guess I just wanted her face.

I"m 41 and voted for TISL. To me, it's obviously the best cover and one of the best covers of all time.

^
That's good enough for me. It is a nicely packaged cd.

There is something so beautiful, and yet something so mysterious with the Bella Donna cover. It's something I can't put my finger on.

Bella Donna - Iconic image, powerful, simplistic, beautiful.
Wild Heart - Love the purply/pink colours, and how Stevie seems to be coming out of the darkness.
Rock A Little - She looks so skinny here, such a contrast with Wild Heart; Stevie at the height of her "witchyness"
OSOTM - I like the concept. However, her hair ruins the whole thing and makes her look cheap. Hair is that important to me :laugh:
Timespace - Hideous. I don't like it at all.
Street Angel - It's a massive pink BLOB (she blends in with the background awfully) with blonde hair. Looks awful and cheap. Not arty at all. the font is hideous.
TISL - Lovely. Captures Stevie at her most mystical. Love her wearing pink! The fonts used are gorgeous as well.
Crystal Visions - Love that photo of Stevie, her hat is TOO cute.

Gotta go with Wild Heart though. Bella Donna and TISL are very very close.

I like Bella Donna, Wild Heart, Rock A Little, and Timespace covers really. RE: RAL tho, I think I remember her saying somewhere that she was 105 lbs in that outfit. And I really do think people see colors differently because to me the outfit she wore on TISL is salmon-peach just like the one worn in Everyday video.

I don't go in for the pink-powder-puff mysticism on Stevie. I go for the hard-rawkin' mysticism of her younger days. So I like the Bella Donna front cover because that's the gal who rawks it. The only problem is the back cover, where Stevie looks Mongoloid. But redemption comes on the inside sleeve photo, with the rich woods & tapestries & the three hip ladies draping their thin, sleek bodies over the furniture & beckoning all to enter their dark realm.

On the second album, it looks like "Dumb & Dumber & Dumbest." Bad photography on her ol' face there--she looks like a psych ward patient. Plus, you can't even see the cool black cape with the hood because the backdrop is so dark. That was dumb--look at how beautifully lighted Worthington's covers are for Fleetwood Mac. The backdrops are bright & nondescript. You don't even notice them; your gaze is drawn right to the figures up front. Inside sleeve photos are quite nice, but it's a shame Sandy Stewart is in them. She doesn't get it. She probably thought that if you just look pouty & stupid, you can capture Stevie's or Sharon's aura.

On the third album, Stevie looks like a kewpie doll on a stick on the front cover. I really miss not having that chilling black cradle & its matching rocking chair. I don't even remember what's on the back cover.

The fourth album is grotesque. Did Worthington consult with a 12-year-old Stevie Nicks fan? Did he ask some poetic-minded but illiterate young chit in junior high school, "How do you see Stevie?"?

But I guess it goes with the crap on the album. It may be Stevie's most perfect amalgamation of shlock form & shlock content--true shlock art.

The fifth album--which one is that? I don't even remember. Timespace? Garish & female impersonatorish. These were Stevie's tackiest years. She seemed to be punishing herself for having grown so big & stodgy. She wallowed in her grotesquerie. (Think of the stupidly zonked way she replied to Jim Ladd backstage at the Whiskey in 1991: "Let me go--let me GO--LET ME GO!!" What a far cry from the totally hip rock babe of 1977.)

The sixth album . . . I'm lost. Street Angel? Powder-puff shlock all around. Bummer, too, because the music was back to being pretty good, & the live singing was certainly a hundred times better than it had been for about eight years.

The seventh album, Trouble in Shangri-La. Dumb dumb dumb, but at least it was carefully produced, with a hint of the old professionalism. Still, the ass is too fat on the front cover, & there is just too much of that calligraphy & all those dragons & twirlies & doilies & ****. Stevie's fans wouldn't know true mysticism (like the great German Romantic Novalis) if it bit them in the ass. But that's neither here nor there.

Has there been another album? I don't think so, right? No more covers to judge ... yet.

Stevie and her Image
 

The album covers have been build to focus on her persona, not her as a person. In fact, her entire public career is "conceived" to be this mystical goddess. Of course, her music is from the heart, and gave fuel to her whole image.

Having known many in the biz (but not her), I'd say the SA cover is closest to herself than any of the others. But that cover is really bland and the typography just awful. I actually didn't even care for the title either. It's way too "Dickerson" for a pop/rock album, unlike "Bella Donna" or "Wild Heart" which really conjures up a free spirit that is more associated with her type of rock music.

Any ideas or suggestions for the name of the new CD???

Not in the slightest.

My criticisms are aesthetic-judicial. All art is fair game for the critic. The notion of good form in criticism hinges on honesty & integrity, not on norms of social etiquette (which I fully support in the non-critical realm). I don't group myself with those fans-critics who won't appraise the artist's physical characteristics on album covers or onstage. Those characteristics are part of the whole, & the whole is an aesthetic construction, no matter how closely it reveals involuntary or uncontrollable personal shortcomings. My view is that it's both a critical fallacy & an existential one to assert that Stevie's looks are off-limits to the critic-fan: critical in not being truthful to your perspective--your vision--as observer; & existential in confusing art with life. What is presented on album covers or onstage is not life but literature, irrespective of the fact that so many fans use Stevie Nicks (the literary construct) as their way to become part of a powerful, cozy, convivially warm but imaginary relationship with an older sister or a sweet but dotty aunt. That has never been my practice.


I hate my thick shaggy hair & my short, stubby fingers.