The Other Side of the Mirror
 

Let's talk about this record. What are your thoughts? I love TOSOTM- it is a feel good album and it makes me beleive in magic when I hear the opening song with the lyric "well there is magic all around you if I do say so myself". I just can't help but smile when the album starts out! I really don't know why this record is just swept under the rug as if it doesn't exist. Even on Stevie's box set TOSOTM gets less songs then Street Angel I think! Anyways this is my favorite Stevie solo album. Does anyone rank it up there as one of their favorites? Did you like it when it first came out back in 89? How often do you listen to the album these days? What's your favorite song?

Just trying to get an interesting conversation started! :wavey:

It's not my favorite, but it ranks above Street Angel and Rock a Little. My favorites are Ooh my Love and Rooms on Fire.

I think it's pretty good, but i've only had it for 3 months. So i like Street Angel a little better still. Not much though. and i thought street angel was lame when i first got it. Cept for Kick It. My first favorite on OSOTM was Cry Wolf. Now i've come to appreciate the other songs (i'm not counting WLT or ROF because i had them from Timespace) but overall, it's a nice little album. Nothing super dynamic is on there, though, which bums me out. You know, nothing on there really gets my pants in a wad, like Edge, or Stand Back...but yeah, it's pretty good, and lyrically it's better than average, for sure, possibly very good - you know, CONSISTENTLY lyrically good...
Amber

The Other Side Of The Mirror is my favourite Stevie album, but I wouldn't say it's a feelgood album at all. I agree it starts out that way, and Rooms On Fire always lifts my mood, but on the whole I think it's a depressing album and Stevie's darkest. However I do think there's something magical about it (however corny that may sound :laugh: )

I find that Doing The Best I Can, Two Kinds Of Love, Ghosts, Alice, Cry Wolf, and Ooh My Love are all pretty depressing/full of despair. Whole Lotta Trouble and Long Way To Go are angry. I Still Miss Someone is wistful. Rooms on Fire, Juliet and Fire Burning are the only kinda cheerful songs.

I don't think there's one song on this album I dislike. I like Stevie's darker stuff so that's probably why this one's my favourite. Doing The Best I Can is one of the best songs by anyone ever.

It's pretty much never comes out of my cd player.

Nick

this album 2 me is fabulous, very mystical & i love the cover shot :p ~ i think it is 1 of her better wrks & i listen 2 it quite often, but then again when am i not listeneing 2 stevie/fm or something related?!?!?~ LOL!!! :lol: :laugh: :lol: ~

blessed be :xoxo: ~
jill

I bought the album, rather, tape when it first came out in May (or June) of 1989. I instantly loved it. I can't say that about RAL which is one of my least listened to albums of hers. With a few exceptions, RAL does not have that "Stevie" sound. And it wasn't cohesive, in my opinion. Now, OSOTM is one of the most cohesive albums of Stevie's solo career, IMO. I felt at the time that it was Stevie's finest. I mean, i really listened to that thing nonstop for the rest of that year (and maybe longer! i can't remember).

In March of 1989, i was 18 (almost 19) and had moved back to NY after being in CA for a year and a half and Chicago for 6 years before that. So, when this record came out, i was adjusting to the East Coast again. I was born just outside of Schenectady, NY and lived there the first 10 years of my life. My family was still up there. When i moved back (with my folks of course - i had no $$$ to stay in sunny CA which is what i really wanted....but NY was cool too) i just distinctly remember driving my '65 Malibu (which i purchased in CA and brought back with me....no rust!) all over and playing the tape in my car. I'd listen to it driving upstate to my family's for family events etc.

So, essentially, that's what i tie the album to. I always think back to that time and where i was working and living. And it's not a bad memory whatsoever.

I loved the entire album with the exceptions of Whole Lotta Trouble and I Still Miss Someone. I still skip over them. I probably didn't listen to OSOTM for a while and then started getting back into it a few years ago. For me, i seem to like certain records at certain times of the year. OSOTM has been a staple for me usually in July and August. Not sure why.

I saw her at SPAC in late August that year. I just remember telling people that I thought Stevie had stage fright cause she was sooooooo not like the previous solo tour. It was actually refreshing in a way at that time, although now i'd rather hear RAL bootlegs. There's more spontaneity, excitement, and unpredictability.

So, that's a little more info for you guys than you probably wanted to hear but i rarely get autobiographical around here.

And also, if i may be sensitive, let's try to avoid any record bashing here. This is an appreciation thread cause i said so! ;)

I just bought this a couple of months ago, and it's quickly becoming my favorite Stevie album. It's the one I've been listening to the most. I was never a fan of her cover of I Still Miss Someone, but I can tolerate it now. :)

I would agree that it's not a "feel-good" album, since most of the songs are about breaking up with somebody. And honestly, I wasn't expecting her to rock as much as she does on a couple of the songs here, like Ghosts and Long Way to Go.

Ooh My Love is a borderline masterpiece, I think. I love the part where she sort of raps the "There was a light that lighted the way to the chamber where they spent all their time" part...and then there's the keyboard part leading up to the "ooh my loves." Greatness.

I was in college when TOSOTM was released. I was deeply, deeply into my Stevie/FM worship at the time. I spent hours and hours creating mix tapes from all my LPs. CDs were a relatively new thing at the time, most people were still largely buying cassettes. I was a die hard LP buyer- no cassettes for me.

I bought the LP version of TOSOTM and was floored from day one (unlike Tango in the Night). I bought the “Rooms on Fire” 45rpm and cassette single. I bought the gatefold 12” single for “Long Way to Go”. I saw this HUGE poster for the “Two Kinds of Love” single in Tower records on Ventura Boulevard and wrangled my way into getting that poster from the management (I still have it, albeit, rolled up in my closet).

Being in college, I wasn’t making much money at the time. I spent almost $1,000.00 on front row center tickets for several shows- the highlight of which was at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. Stevie had a “special guest” show, with an altered set list. At the end of “Edge of Seventeen”, she did her customary (for that time) fan greet. She started at the left of the stage and slowly moved down the row. My friend had gotten split away from me in the crush, and was further up the row than I. She was able to reach her hands out and shake Stevie’s hands. Stevie kept moving down the row. I am 6’4” and generally many inches taller than most people around me. Stevie stopped right in front of me and took my face in her hands. She started talking to me, but with all the noise around I couldn’t hear what she was saying. She stood there with my face cupped in her hands for, I would say about 30-45 seconds. She let go of my and moved further down the line. I WAS FREEEEEEKED!!! I turned to look for my friend and she was looking right at me with her jaw dropped to the ground. It definitely was a high to remember.

The Other Side of the Mirror is very unique album for Stevie. Belladonna is an anthology of mostly overlooked songs from her early FM days. The Wild Heart is steeped in her songwriting partnership with Sandy Stewart. Rock A Little is a fragmented, broken hodgepodge of producers and styles, with some songs having no songwriting input from Stevie. TOSOTM was a departure. I would almost consider it a concept album. Most of the songs are about reexamining one’s life. Stevie had just turned 40 and had ended a ten year period of heavy cocaine and alcohol abuse. This album is definitely NOT a “feel-good” album.

The only songs from this album that I can’t handle are “Cry Wolf” and to a lesser extent “Fire Burning” and “Two Kinds of Love”- everything else is great. I even like the dreaded “I Still Miss Someone”.

The Other Side of the Mirror is Stevie’s best solo album. It is full of passionate songs, passionate singing, cohesive mental imagery and her voice was still in fine form.

Favorite song from this album: “Ooh, My Love”

Best lines from the album:

“In my distress...well I wanted someone to blame me
In my devastation...I wanted so to change
In my way...disaster was the only thing that I could depend on...”

“And the angel said, "Well you must have had a dream...
And you remember it..."Till the dream followed through...
Till the -- end of the dream...and the dream came true
When I want something...I get it
"You'd better go," he says, "Yes I think I better,"
Stop for a moment...I think you should think for a minute
Would you change your mind, at the very last minute
When I want something...I get it!”

“In the shadow of the castle walls
Wherever those walls were
In this land or in that land
Well the castles all seem to belong to her
And all this talk...about love and hate
And our separation way on down the line...
Well they just can't wait, can they?
No they just can't wait...”

“Let the crisis become a bridge...and cross that bridge tomorrow
Well let the time that goes between, baby...
Well let it let go of the sorrow”

(I still use this one as a life motto from day to day)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

very nice post.

:thumbsup:

A feel good album? :shrug:

It's one of my faves, though. I like every song but Ghosts and Two Kinds of Love, those two are unbearable. I'm not too keen on Cry Wolf, but it's better than those two.

My favorites are Long Way To Go, Doing the Best That I Can, Juliet, and Ooh My Love.

I guess one person's passion is another person's ... whatever (!). I'm not sure what "cohesive mental imagery" is exactly. I can't get into this album, although I like some of the songs, like "Ghosts." This album demonstrates once & for all that Stevie learned nothing from past arrangers & producers who served her so well. She turned the reins over to this guy named Rupert Hine, whose motto seems to be "If one Juno, one Prophet & one Oberheim sound good, then tripling them will triple the quality!" I appreciate the esteem in which many fans hold this album. Living in Sacramento at the time, I was getting ready to drive to Concord for Stevie's concert. It was a little after 5 PM & the earthquake hit. I called Concord Pavilion & learned the show was off. The next night, Stevie played Cal Expo Amphitheatre in Sacramento (where the state fair is held). Pretty good show, I guess, but I look back on it now & just don't have much to say about it. I went to the Mountain View Shoreline Amphitheatre show a few days later (& essentially saw the Cal Expo show all over again). People had been sending me tapes of other shows on the tour, & those sounded the same, too. The band that year, led by Carlos Rios, could have been backing a Vegas variety show, or a Celine Dion concert. The "rock" had gone out of "rock 'n' roll." Carlos & Co. turned "Edge of Seventeen" into a Depeche Mode dance number. Judgment was poor that year, let's say.

I thought the whole enterprise was getting stale at that time, but I bought the "Mirror" songbook & I will say that I have always enjoyed playing some of those songs on my own (when I don't have to contend with Rupert Hine's idea of an arrangement or a mix).

Always liked "Alice" live, by the way!! (maybe because it was a perfect melding of form & content)

Castles, magic, ghosts, stilettos, armour, shadows....

Granted, Rupert Hine's synth-orgy is not exactly the best way to produce a Stevie album. However, it was one production idea (versus the five or six from Rock A Little). I think this enabled the songs to have their own strength, for lack of a better term. There is a definite thread that runs throughout this entire album that makes for a very good listen.

I Couldn't agree with you more there. I was incredibly bummed when i learned Waddy wasn't in the band. This is one of the reasons i really don't listen to any of the live recordings from that tour. It just lacked punch. It was too polished and clean. Waddy always added that "rock" to her live music.

OMG! I've had nightmares about this scenario for years -- I finally get to meet my idol, and she's speaking a foreign language, or goes into the next room and the door closes and locks, etc. But I'm sure that the "touch of her hand" and the look in her eyes told you all you really needed to know... :)

Mirror for me is definitely a mood album - but I love it nonetheless. "Juliet", "Alice" and "Ooh My Love" are my favorites. And I love "I Still Miss Someone". I fell in love for the first time about 2 months after the album came out, and I "never got over those blue eyes" either... :distress:

Plus, a friend of mine was in London when the album came out, and she brought me back the UK LP, complete with the little Stevie hologram. I never ordered the hologram display stand that was advertised with the LP, and I wish I had -- unless you hold that sucker just right in perfect light, Stevie looks as though she's had a stroke. :rolleyes:

I think that album was a case of the material being so strong and heartfelt for some particular reason that even lackluster production didn't hinder it much. :wavey: