Favourite Album Closer
 

Which song do you think is the best Album Closer?

1. The Highwayman
2. Beauty and the Beast
3. Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?
4. I Still Miss Someone (Blue Eyes)
5. Desert Angel
6. Jane
7. Love Is
8. Cheaper than Free

Before 24 KARAT GOLD's release, I would have gone with either "Has Anyone...." or "Love Is", but I've waited so long for "She Loves Him Still"....!

I love all of these, yes, Jane and Blue Eyes included. Highwayman, like most of BD, leaves me wondering WTF.

Love is! After I listen to "Fall From Grace" I immediately feel like I need to listen to "Love is". It's a nice calm and beautiful way to close the album.

I had a difficult time with this one, but I voted for HAEWAFY. Beauty and the Beast, Desert Angel, Blue Eyes and Love Is are my favorites as well.

Beauty and the Beast and She Loves Him Still are great closers and I thought BATB was the best for a long time, but I went with Love Is. I not only think Love Is is a great song, but it closes reminding us of the entire theme of the album. Love is imperfect, love is waiting, love is resignation, love is longing, love is beautiful, love is painful, love is.

Michele

agree with your logic, but that "corner of her MOOOOOUUUUUTTTHHHH" line just…….:distress:

kills the song for me. Love what it starts out as, and what it could have been like if the vocal was better.

I voted for BATB but had to think about Has Anyone…. but BATB won out because I think it was a really cool, ballsy move to close a rock/pop album with it.

I agree about Love Is. Even though BATB is one of my favourite songs of all time, I chose The Highwayman because to me, that song is the story of Stevie's life.. Her career, her loves, and her loss are foretold in that song. Save for the weird dragonfly acid trip, I love it. ;)

I picked Beauty and the Beast.I love that tune.I do love Has Anyone and Love is.
I always love her ballads probably any will work for me.

It was between Beauty, Highwayman and Has Anyone for me. Had to go with Highwayman. It is a well-written song.

I feel that Beauty and the Beast is better at midpoint in the set. Just because it's a dramatic song doesn't make it a good closer. Lyrically it lacks the personal intimacy which leaves an audience with an emotional sense of connection. Songs like Landslide or Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You have those qualities/I]. A song derived from an old movie theme doesn't carry weight of what Stevie represents. Close with a bang, or with ballad that is more emotionally relatable.

Though she inexplicably has never performed it, I always thought The Highway Man would be the quintessential closer. It's genuinely personal and it sums up her life and who she is. Has Anyone Ever Written has had it's time as closer- find something else!. Love Is was an inspired choice,but I agree the song doesn't enough teeth to it. In my fantasy, after Edge of 17, the lights all come up, and it becomes a big sing-a-long between the audience and Stevie singing It's Late. It speaks to the moment,leaving the audience in a more light-hearted mood.

Look at that clock, it's gotta be wrong. I hope this won't be our last date. It's late, we gotta get on home.

There's no way for me to choose. It's a three-way tie between "Beauty", "HAEWAFY" and "Love Is". I find it hard to choose between them.

Interesting. That's my absolute favorite part of the song. :D

Wow this poll makes me realize how much better Stevie's openers are to her closers. Picking between all her opening songs if like pulling teeth to decide they're all so incredible. I can't even chose a best opener between her 3 albums this century.

But this batch? I'll take has anyone ever... But now realize none of Stevie's albums end on a high note like MANY FM albums do ( why, show me a smile, GDW, So Afraid)


Also Stevie's solo ballads pale to her Mac ones. Storms beautiful child and crystal are all top 20 maybe some of them top 10 fleetwood Mac songs. Cant say one song in this poll makes my top 20 stevie solo sings.

I love the line, I just don't like the delivery. :sorry:

Geesh Love Is isn't even a good song. Bland, like alot of that album.

I can't remember any of the closers LOL.If "Nightbird" is one of them,maybe you could add that to the list-I love the feel of this song b/c it makes me feel like I'm being carried off on a feathered wing....

All Stevie's ballads are smack at the top of my favourite songs ever by anyone.

You got that right!I was chillin' and relaxin' getting into the beauty of the song ,and then it happened - that line:confused::eek: I mean there had to have been a better way for her to get that point across and to give the listener a visual other than to hand feed us the actual "events" in the song.I mean if she can translate highway traffic at night into "a diamond snake in a black sky",she can do anything:nod: And don't even get me started on the concert hand gestures ;) I love the song otherwise though! http://youtu.be/hfs4F90L8aA?t=3m26s

"Love Is" is the best album closer, imo. But Beauty and the Beast is by far one of my favorite songs ever so I had to vote for that one.

Taste is subjective, to me it's a beautiful rich album, not even close to being "bland". It's a musical journey, reminiscent of Loreena McKennitt's earlier work.

see, I don't mind the lyrics at all.

I just hate the way she bellows that line. I know what she was going for, and that she was trying to make the line powerful and epic and tragic…. but her voice on it…..sadly fits all those negative adjectives thrown at her over the years, like "braying".

It uses a sledgehammer when I think the line would be better served a little toned down. And if her producer had pushed for another take on the word MOUUUUUUUTTTTHHHH. It's like she was using her stage style on a record, and on a song that is very intimate. Too much Ethel Merman.

She does have a bunch of great ballads. More so than any other singer I can think of.

I wonder if the one vote for Desert Angel was accidental lol... Come forth!

That would be me. Given the songs listed, DA is the song I would always choose first.

And I think I Still Miss Someone is a great song, certainly head and shoulders above Desert Angel, Cheaper Than Free or Jane.

I'd give it some love, if I had a point to spare.

Michele

I really do love the song and was thrilled when I heard it at the close of one of her shows b/c I didn't expect it.But even live,I remember thinking to myself,"oh God - here comes that part".I don't even know why it bothers me:shrug:The whole song is written in classic Stevie style but I've gotten used to her obscure lyrics and I guess that part of the song is too literal for me and leaves nothing to the imagination or to ponder.And maybe the producer did suggest another take,but you know how our girl is - "what part of the word 'no' don't you get?":laugh:

I'm actually glad you did... I think that is one of her most underrated songs ever. It is BY FAR my favorite Stevie song of the 90's.

I guess I'm the only one for voted for Cheaper Than Free. :]:laugh: Somewhat corny lyrics aside, I love this song and never get tired of hearing it. It's the perfect closer to IYD!!

I think CTF is a good closer only because I can skip it. I usually don't skip over any tracks on a CD, but coming at the end like that ... it's just so easy.

Perfect placement to tempt me to do wrong.

Michele

I picked She still Loves Him. I love the sea reference at the end and it ties the whole album together for me.

Name 15 Stevie NIcks Ballads and then lets debate if they are ballads
 

Beautiful Child
Everybody Loves
Italian Summer
Storms
Landslide
Gold Dust Woman
Jane
She Loves Him STill
The Highwayman
If you were my loved…


ok, you guys name some more.

Sara
Gypsy (?)
HAEWAFY
BATB
Doing the Best That I Can
Desert Angel
LAHGTP
Love Is
Every Day (?)

The Second Time
It's Only Love
Goodbye Baby
Blue Water
Cheaper than Free
When I See You Again
Silver Springs
Crystal
Touched by an Angel

This is the first thing that I've written,...well, since yesterday.

I wasn't born in the desert (unless you call NY a desert), but I know how you feel. This is a song only Stevie can write. It's heart-felt, yet so esoteric.

But this is the first thing she's written since she wrote about freedom! *Insert Bald Eagle* Yesterday she wrote about The Kennedys. :D

The only thing about that song that makes me a little cringe-y is the "in the place the Indians call..."

I know "Native Americans" doesn't have that special ring to it, but I guess to be politically correct it should be changed.

Interestingly, some tribes still prefer the term "Indians."

I was living in Phoenix, Az. at the time Desert Angel was released. If you lived there you would truly understand the connection of this song to the beauty of the land. To me her saying this is the first song she has written since she wrote about Freedom could mean the song Freedom from BTM. "In a place the Indians call Paradise Valley." PV is a very beautiful, peaceful place nestled in between 2 mountains. The town of PV actually extends beyond that point but she was focusing on the part in which she and her nearby parents lived. Also back in 1991 I don't recall people being so politically correct with the term 'Native American,' the way that we are in this century.
Whenever I went to Camelback Mountain I pretty much always saw a shooting star or two. (Well look up it's a shooting star, well it's black as night, no stars) With its connection to the war, looking up at a shooting star could also mean to look up and see a firey missle zooming through the skies over Kuwait.

which album did Desert Angel close out?? I'm drawing a blank here.

Timespace, from 1991

As an ALBUM closer, I would have to choose Love Is.
However, as a SHOW closer, I would have to choose HAEWAFY.

Jamie

There. Jane gets a vote, giving all the "Stevie penned" album closers their due! :D