Trouble in Shangri-La better than IYD and 24KG?
 

I've been listening to a lot of Stevie's catalogue on Spotify recently and I've noticed that I'm just blown away when a track from TISL comes on. The song writing, vocals, incredible backup vocals from Sheryl and the other girls and most of all, THE PRODUCTION. There are so many layers and effects which make the album memorable and just fantastic in my opinion.

I feel as though IYD and 24KG are missing something with Dave's production even though the songs themselves are fantastic. I feel as though if these songs were done in the TISL era then they would be better, and not because of Stevie's voice as I think it's still captivating and fabulous.

For me, TISL stands head and shoulders above IYD and 24KG but what do you guys think? I'm sure you'll have an opinion on this! :nod:

TISL had too many producers and about 5 good tracks but only one stands the test of time-the title track. John Shanks produced the best tracks and should have done the whole album. That made me stronger is a huge stinker. Blah album, wasted opportunity. I feel this thread is a joke.

With a few exceptions (Bombay Sapphires comes to mind), I find the production on TISL to be a bit ham fisted compared to IYD. It's just so derivative of it's era; very pop, one dimensional, blunt, and lacking in nuance. Stevie's vocals on TISL are flat, nasally, and unadventurous, too. I don't think TISL is a bad album, but when I contrast it with IYD, I just don't find any aspects of superiority.

Her half-hearted vocals ruined Too Far From Texas, which was a good song.

Agree. TISL isn't a bad album at all but Stevie gets lost in all its trappings. It does contain one of her absolute best solo moments - Fall From Grace. IYD topped TISL and 24K Gold topped IYD so she keeps getting better!!

The only songs on TISL that stand the test of time these days (for me, personally) are
Trouble In Shangri-La
Candlebright
Sorcerer
Planets
Bombay
Love Is

...and that's only half of the album. :distress: I used to be so enamored with this record, but it really is starting to sound like a product of its time, like so many of you have said. Originally, I thought that this record was still better than IYD but such is not the case anymore. However, I do think that in 15 years, IYD will also sound "dated" as well.

24KG, with it's sparse production, will NOT sound dated in the future, because each song already evokes an era of the past...which is what I love about that album the most. ATBW IS WILD HEART!!! Belle Fleur IS BELLA DONNA! Hard Advice IS TISL! Watch Chain IS RUMOURS! And 24KG is basically EVERYTHING I love about late 70's California Rock!

For me, 24KG trumps the last two albums, IMO.

This is exactly how I feel! That is why I cannot wait for her next album. 24K is one of the best albums she has ever done.

I love all 3.. I love Sheryl Crow been a part of it.Sorry guys that are not into Sheryl's tunes.

Also, in regards to TISL, I have to add that I really love the "wall of sound" version of "Thrown Down" much better than the lethargic "you wouldn't say that to Bob Dylan" version on SYW...and I also prefer TISL's "My Heart" rather than the IYD bonus track.

The funny thing is that, if those 2 songs had made the cut and maybe "Too Far From Texas" and "Love Changes" been left off, TISL would actually rank somewhat higher for me.

Entirely agreed re Thrown Down. I know a lot of people love TISL's My Heart, but I find it nearly unlistenable (especially the first few lines). The IYD version, though, is perfection.

THIS! Well said. :thumbsup:

TISL is certainly a Stevie rising like a Phoenix from the ashes that was Street Angel, but better than IYD or 24 Karat Gold? I think not.

TISL has some amazing stand-out songs (the title track, candlebright, planets, FFG) but it starts off so strongly and then meanders in the middle, the final three tracks are killer though.

IYD works so well as an album, her voice is in fine form, while I find it a little too nasal on TISL. It's so varied, every track is sweeping and lush. So many classics, for me anyway.

I'm not too familiar with 24KG as an album, but it has some of the most stunning tracks of Stevie's career - the title track alone gives me so much pleasure. ATBW is stunning, as are Lady (in all its raspy, ruined, bittersweet glory) Blue Water and Mabel Normand.

TISL contains several strong highlights but the stinkers? They REALLY stink. The only track on IYD that falls flat (for me) is Cheaper Than Free (and My Heart, to a lesser extent - I prefered the TISL demo) but even CTF has a certain amount of charm. While with 24KG I only dislike Carousel (and Cathouse Blues to a certain extent - she can't beat the innocent joy of the original demo). But TISL? That Made Me Stronger, Too Far From Texas, I Miss You... Yuck. While I love every day and love changes... I can get why people don't.

Long story short, TISL is better than Street Angel... And OSOTOM (and probably RAL too) but I still think IYD is the better album and I don't think it will eclipse 24KG.

Although it appears the majority of Stevie fans would disagree with you, I wanted to take the opportunity to say that I do agree with you.

I think TISL could have done without Everyday and That Made Me Stronger, and included Thrown Down and Space Needle, and it would have been a really great album, but I still consider it better than IYD and 24KG. I've often wondered if it's Dave's productions, but at least Stevie is enjoying herself and her recording these days.

So many dislike Love Changes, it's one of my favorites. @michelej1 solidified that for me in her interpretation of the song (immediately after the release of the Secret Love single):

I've always appreciated that post and that description, and I also really like the album version of Secret Love. I'm not saying IYD is completely lost on me, but I definitely appreciate TISL more so.

I think TISL is better than IYD but definitely not 24K. TISL isn't amazing but I like it a lot more than IYD which I just have never really been able to fully get into.

I like all her albums for their unique and distinct atmosphere. Each is a planet in Stevie's universe.

Bella Donna - Sun
Wild Heart - Neptune
Rock a Little - Mars
The Other Side of the Mirror -Venus
Street Angel - Uranus
Trouble in Shangria - Saturn
In Your Dreams - Jupiter
24 Karat Gold - Earth

:laugh::laugh::laugh:...because it's such a stinker?

And I would have placed "Wild Heart" as Venus...since it's basically the "love and romance" record. Just my opinion, though. These are all great! :nod:

You're right. The Other Side of the Mirror should be Neptune.

I like Street Angel, but Uranus just felt right!

I think Nasal In Shangri-La is her worst album, apart from Street Angel.
It can be divided into two - excellent and awful:

Excellent
Trouble In Shangri-La
Candlebright
Sorcerer
Planets
Bombay Sapphires
Fall From Grace
Love Is

Awful
All the rest of the songs

There's no other album with such a clear divide. Apart from the material, Stevie's voice is really rough and bland on most of the tracks - the only vocal variation we get is the falsetto notes in Sorcerer, apart from that it's the same rough, forced voice throughout.

Also I find the production a bit bland - there's nothing wrong with it, but at the same time there's nothing that stands out - it's a plateau of middling production with no personality. I wish Dave Stewart had produced the album, because even the great songs suffer a bit from this bland production.

Dave knows how to produce Stevie's material, with the right amount of light and shade, and you can clearly see in the documentary they worked hard to get the right sound of the In Your Dreams album - it's modern but also very boho and funky in some parts. TISL has the same pop and drums production in every song even though there was a multitude of producers.

So yes, you can clearly see I disagree with the OP - I think IYD and 24 Karat Gold are far superior albums and are my favourites outside of The Wild Heart and Bella Donna. 24KG in particular has such a smooth and beautiful production, and all the songs are top notch (apart from Hard Advice and I Don't Care which is far too long).

I think TISL had a very good start. The initial Sheryl Crow produced cuts had promise.

Imagine if she had not given Practical Magic two songs. Then If You Ever Did Believe and Crystal may have been on TISL.

If you Ever Did Believe
Crystal
Nomad/Candlebright
Sorcerer
Its Only Love
Fall From Grace



These were my favorites and with the addition of I Miss You I think make a damn near perfect album. I think she was trying too hard to have a Santana rebound like the one he had a year or two earlier. She did not need all that production.

Add in the extended uncut version of Love IS and i think 8 or 9 tracks would have been perfect for a "come back" album. Sometimes MORE is NOT better.

After these songs the vocals got worse with each producer she added. Too Far from Texas is horrid, Planets is so overproduced and dated I can hardly listen to it. My Heart had some good parts, but those certain notes just kill it.

Anyhow, hindsight is 20/20! And the nice thing about iTunes is I can make a custom Playlist and redo TISL to my own taste, include those tracks from Practical Magic, cut the ones I loathe (no Prixsie Fricks or Donald Duck sounding Macy Grey thanks!!)

IN You Dreams had moments of overproductions, but at LEAST, it had ONE producer and not the 5 or so from TISL. IT had a cohesive "sound" and her voice did not change from one song to the next. I think TISL was recorded over a three year period? And I think it was the period her voice went through the biggest chances since the mid 80's. SO it was jarring.

That would make Soundstage Sessions "Pluto". A planet, but not reaaaaally a Planet.

Interesting. I'd flip these. Venus is, after all, the planet of love, beauty, desire and relationships. All of the things that are attractive to us, by scent, sight, touch and feeling. The Wild Heart is Stevie's self-professed album about love, sex, and relationships.

Traditionally, Neptune rules over mental disorders, psychic abilities, addictions and escapism. Illusions and spirits are the domain of Neptune. Sound like The Other Side of the Mirror?

I haven't listened to TISL in its entirety in a very long time. I hate to badmouth it too much because I really loved it at the time of its release, but my gut feeling is that, no, it is not better than IYD or 24k. At all.

I would say that I really like the first five songs on it (I know people here hate Every Day, but I've always liked it), but it falls apart in the middle. IYD and 24k both hold up all the way through, despite them both having 1 or 2 songs I don't care for.

I think most of us hardcore fans start out REALLY enjoying her solo records when they first come out, but then after 6 months to a year, we get bored...start getting hyper critical, we pick out our staple favorites, our guilty pleasures, and tear down the rest.

It was easy to be hyper critical of 24KG from the get go, due to the fact that only 3 years had passed since her last solo record, whereas it had been 8 years in between SA and TISL, and a decade between TISL and IYD. It was easy to be forgiving (and even unintentionally have blinders on) whenever these two albums were released. We were all starved for new Stevie music. I remember thinking, "Yeah, That Made Me Stronger kind of has cheesy lyrics, but I guess the Sitar-esque guitar groove is pretty cool." or "I suppose the sentiment of Cheaper Than Free is sweet, so..."

Yeah, I can't stand those songs now.

TISL is my favorite Stevie album, and one of my favorite albums of all time. Every single track on TISL is a 5/5 to me, except Sorcerer.

TISL > IYD > 24k

I find the lyrics of That Made Me Stronger very empowering, haha.

really?? The production quality of her vocals on 24k is shameful. The cuts from one take to another are pasted together so blatantly obviously, it's like a five year old did them. You can hear complete differences in quality-- some she sounds all muffled and slurry and spitty and other parts her vocals are crisp and even a bit tinny. Frankenstein vocals made up of pieces from here and there stitched very badly together.

Dave should be shot for the sh&tty editing and production. Sounds cheaply slapped together.

I agree. The production was flat and the mixing poor on 24KG.

I personally love Shangri-La. It contains her best lyrics since TWH.

:thumbsup: Thumbs up for TISL from me. Whether it is better than her other recent albums, I don't really know.... But out of all her albums, it's the one I enjoy listening to the most, along with Bella Donna. It just has a certain sparkle to it :woohoo:

To these layman's ears, 24KG sounds criminally under produced. With the exceptions of the title track, "Belle Fleur", and the stunning "ATBW", every song sounded superior in its original demo form. I'm sure the truncated time frame played a part, but Dave did a much better job on IYD.

Despite some nasally vocals, TISL is on par with IYD, in my humble opinion.

I guess it's just a matter of perspective. Different strokes for different folks and what have you. I happen to relish the fact that 24KG is under produced. It was a welcomed change from the last two albums. Yes there are differences in crispness on different verses on certain songs, likely due to microphones and one take being recorded in Nashville and another take re-recorded in L.A. I can only really hear this on Mabel Normand and Watch Chain...but unless you are truly listening for those sorts of things, it's not blatantly obvious. And even after it was pointed out to me, it still did not affect my enjoyment of the songs.

I love the sparse instrumentation. I love that you can still hear a guitar reverb echo at the end of IYWML, as well as someone talking in the background at the end of Starshine (you need headphones and the volume way up to hear that one)...and of course the clapping at the end of Lady. It's like guerilla filmmaking. They were in a time crunch. The record, while still showcasing these "tiny" foibles and "mistakes", if you will, is still mixed and mastered extremely well. It all goes back to that time crunch - they didn't have time to give the songs to someone like Chris Lord-Alge to work on for 6 weeks. So they did it themselves, and I think they did a great job.

Now, I will agree with you there. Despite only really enjoying half of the songs, it really does have it's own certain "sound", or "SPARKLE" as you say. Somehow Crow, Shanks and that other guy (can't remember his name) managed to keep a cohesion (or predominant sound or magic) that runs like a thread through the entire record, so I'll give them that. Crow's "Sorcerer" effortlessly blends into Shank's "Planets" with such fluidity.

maybe YOU got bored after 6 months but don't speak for the rest of us. While I like some of Stevie's solo work more than others, I've never grown BORED with any of them.

I wasn't speaking for anyone in particular. I was just offering an opinion based on years and years of being a part of this forum and seeing people's opinions change over time. Their initial favorites (albums, songs) become their least favorites later on in time.

I guess I shouldn't have used the word "bored". I should've used the words "overly critical", as in after a lot of us hear the album front to back, back to front after a long period of time, we start to analyze, and pick things apart...again, going by reading posts from a lot of us, and noticing changing opinions. I too have never gotten bored with any of Stevie records, just disenchanted with certain songs and certain albums. Stevie's music is a lot of things, but never boring.

For me, personally, her music is cyclical. It comes in phases for me. A couple of years ago, I went through a huge RAL phase and listened to nothing but for a very long time. I'm going through an OSOTM phase right now, and enjoying having those songs back in my life. Songs that I hated in years past are now becoming my favorite, as I can truly understand where she was in her life in that time and how it now relates to my own circumstances as I get older. Whereas I couldn't relate to some songs when I was 16 years old, or even 25.

I wasn't complaining about this stuff... I don't mind that the songs overall are a little rawer and less polished than previous (and certainly far less so than IYD)... I get that she was trying to keep some of the charm of the demos because that's what's made them so beloved all these years.

What I do criticize though, is the quality of the recordings. If you were to play this next to even BD, it sounds tinny, cheap, flat, compressed. And sloppy. You can do quick and quality, it certainly is possible and lots of people do it every day. Raw is one thing, that adds a humanness to the songs; but the sound quality should be like it was done in a professional recording studio and not on a cheap tape recorder. YMMV.

I guess I just don't hear any of these things. Nothing sounds flat or cheap to me on this album. Just my opinion though. We can agree to disagree. :D

You speak for me. If everything was perfect (which is a very subject term), it would be a very boring world. I will listen to an album repeatedly until it sinks in. then I might not listen to it for months. It's never boring; I just burn out for a while. Then at some point, I'll reconnect with it again, finding different characteristics.

Trouble in Shangri La was never my favorite.i listened to it a lot initially to try and find things I liked about it, but it was a disappointment from the start. There are things I do like about it. I wish If You Ever Did Believe, Thrown Down and My Heart were on it.

TISL and IYD and 24KG have all been really good albums. TISL made such a splash because it was a real return to form for Stevie, her first album that improved on the previous ones. It was also her last Gold album, but we all know that has to do more with the times than the quality of the music.

If you can get past the coked-out haze that is RAL, the only really sub-par album that Nicks has done as a solo act is SA.

I will always love TISL. Being one of five people in the universe that likes That Made Me Stronger, I have never had a moment where I put on TISL and been disappointed. That being said, I think IYD is the best album of the three. When IYD first came out it took me a while to enjoy it and appreciate every aspect of it, but four years later I still find myself singing Everybody Loves You in the middle of my kitchen, humming My Heart in the checkout at the store, and blaring the album in my car. I don't know if it is because of the memories attached to the album or what, but for me IYD has remained oh so good after all these years.

I seem to be in the mintory. I adore TISL. Even the tracks that people aren't so keen on, I love. The whole thing from start to finish is, IMO, flawless.

IYD is fantastic, but doesn't quite hit the mark as well as TISL does for me.

I thought 24KG was pretty crap. The whole thing sounds rushed and half arsed.

I think TISL is a real album, album. Meaning, I think it sounds better as a whole, thematically, than if you take the songs apart and analyze them separately. The album does definitely have a mood of its own and collectively it's rhythmless, which I think helps make it timeless. I think if you listen to this group of Love Contemplation songs in context with one another it has a greater impact, because they all have a commonality.

I wouldn't say this is as true of IYD or 24K. Michele

This is exactly what I think. :nod: