1983 article I have never read before
 

"Pillow Talk" from the Village Voice

Very amusing article; sometimes critical and sometimes admiring, but a good read. I think I have read all of the articles about Stevie at the Blue Letter Archives, and this is not there.

Hey, great job in digging that up! Never saw that, as far as I remember. Its relaxed "Can you believe this?" bemusement & cynical eye are so typical of the opinions of critics at the time who reviewed her albums & concerts that it really brings me back to a Happy Place! I hope it gets added to the BLA.

That was a bit mean! Poor Princess Stevie! :)

interesting. some points I agree with, some I think are stretches of the imagination (but we are talking Stevie here)

at least the writer concedes that Stevie is 'da bomb'

Did they say that?!

Sometimes I get so tired of record reviewers acting as if they know what the meaning of a song is. Like this one-

"...'Nightbird' (a detailed description of her makeup)..."

Obviously, the reviewer didn't listen to the song more than once and certainly didn't take any time to digest the imagery. Then again, the year was 1983- the concept of what made "good music" at the time pretty much equaled ****.

Jeez that's ludicrous! About her makeup? Oy vez. She was probly steaming when she saw that.

Although I disagree with about 85% of what this writer says it's seriously one of the most well written pieces I've ever read about La Nicks. I enjoy this writer's style and frankness. So what do we think about this statement? Come on out chiffonheads!
I've always preferred Stevie's voice although Christine's may be technically better. No sh*t Lindsey is a better player than Stevie, she's never claimed to be one. She's a superior performer, lyricist, and overall artist IMO. Oh the best sense of style too. Go ahead, rip me a new a-hole if you must but no one can compare the loyal and devoted following of Stevie fans to the other memebers of the group. The numbers speak for themseleves.

I'm not a "chiffonhead", although I do prefer Stevie's music overall to that of Christine and Lindsey's.

I think Stevie is a "better" singer than Christine. Stevie has a more innate sense of harmony. Stevie has an incredibly distinctive and unique vocal instrument. Granted, she hasn't always taken very good care of it. Christine has a gorgeous voice. However, she can be pitchy- not saying that Stevie can't, just saying Christine is certainly not this "technical vocalist". Unfortunately, Christine's voice doesn't have many dimensions. It is was it is and that's about it.

I feel that musically, Stevie is the more creative of the three overall. Christine relies on many standard chord progressions and Lindsey's specialty is turning two chord and three chord songs into excellently produced product. Because Stevie is not a musician, she comes up with interesting musical landscapes. Granted, she has beaten the Am-G-Fmaj7 deal to within an inch of its life. However, her unique voice combined with her type of writing style bests Christine and Lindsey's offerings most of the time. When you throw her lyrical imagery in there she's definitely hard to beat.

I love both Christine and Lindsey, but there's just something about Stevie- "when she's good, she's really good"- kinda thing that pushes it to that unique greatness.

Her wild inconsistency in every aspect of her career is like a plague to that woman and how the public & the critics view her. If we were to sit here and discuss a woman whose career ended after The Wild Heart dropped, I'd be right alongside you and mimicking the application of "greatness" to her. Unfortunately, she went off on such a bumpy road shortly after that time that saying such things seem hollow when applied to her and her body of work as a whole. She'll forever be one of those artists, in my mind, who had a phenomenal ten year run (hers being especially remarkable) and then decided to castrate their career in as violent a manner as possible. Glimmers of the old artist still arise now and then ("Trouble In Shangri-La" and "Goodbye Baby" are prime examples), but the glory days have been over for twenty years and the time since then has done so much harm to her image, her music, and her creativity that reading all of those old articles & reviews make them seem more applicable to the Stevie of today instead of the Stevie they were originally written about.

Just my two cents.

He may have been referring to technique; but maybe he wasn't--maybe he was referring to more rarefied aspects of artistry (although it's difficult to think of anything having to do with Christine as rarefied).
Curious here: What does "overall" encompass? I assume performing, writing & singing, but if one person excels at one thing & another person excels at another thing--& each excels about equally--how does one get the "overall" honor over the other? What I'm getting at is that I think Stevie's audience accords a higher place to lyricwriting than to any other single aspect of artistry. It's kind of like dog show judging: do you judge the dog against the other dogs of different breeds, or do you judge the dog against the ideal dog--an abstraction--within its own breed? If the latter, I would say Lindsey's the greater "overall" artist because I think he's more innovative & impressive as an arranger & guitarist than Stevie is as a lyricist. But I want to know what you think!
Nobody should be ripping you a new anything. This is all just individual preference (who's a better performer, who's a better lyricist, who's a better singer) & writing about it.

I think Lindsey was the best performer, Stevie the best singer & Christine the best songwriter. So you can see that our preferences touch all bases.

Yeah, that time period didnt do too much for me either....

That was fun :laugh: agree with all of it. Though the author seems just as "all over the place" as stevie is... im sorry who wrote that again? :rolleyes:

:lol: Good on you Dissention... :xoxo: im so pleased to read those words on the forum as you speak a more honest truth rather than what a few dare to admit to even themselves let alone say out loud...

...to a few people on this forum i say to them "come in out the darkness" :nod:

I think your points are well taken, although I would add a lot more to your "glimmers" list, such as her reprise of "Silver Springs" from '97, and the majority of TISL (opening song through TFFT, plus FFG and Love Is).

I also think the general public has by and large forgotten about the 15 or so years of substandard work (ask anyone and they won't even know about Street Angel) and she has established an image of a rock and roll legend who looks and sounds quite good and still makes some quality music.