Sorry, but besides for Bella Donna and TISL, all of her solo efforts were met with *mostly* (not all) lukewarm reviews. They were viewed as definitely rocking, but flakey and dumb. Rock A Little was especially singled out as being gawd-awful. I especially loved Rolling Stone's view on I Sing For the Things.
And their take on SA was dead-on.
Here are some of my fave review quotes, even though I don't agree with all of them:
"In "Stand Back," she sings, "No one knows/How I feel/What I say/Unless you read between my lines." Well, whose fault is that?"
"It's hard to believe that the woman nominally responsible for such fine pieces of songcraft as "I Don't Want to Know" or even "Edge of Seventeen" could have concocted the inchoate ramblings that pervade this record [The Wild Heart]. Stanzas don't hang together, and choruses verge on the utterly meaningless..."
"Both the atmosphere and language of Bella Donna are so insular and self-enraptured that Stevie Nicks' sentiments seem as weightless as those of a pampered, pretty high-school girl."
"The real shame is that Stevie Nicks could make good records again, if she'd only follow her own advice and rock a little."
"On the rest of Rock a Little, she comes on like an AM-radio psychologist, dispensing stem but friendly advice, spinning little parables and probing deep feelings with incredibly vague language."
"As for a statement of purpose, "I Sing for the Things" ("that money can't buy," natch) is definitely postfeminist: "I'll take off my cape for you ... Anything you want me to do.... I'll sit at home and wait for you." Maybe it's just my taste, but the combined synths and steel guitars on that track achieve the consistency of curdled milk."
"Too often Nicks is stuck in a mid-tempo funk, bellowing about witches, gypsies and twisted love. Like her previous records, The Other Side of the Mirror shows Nicks can stand tall with the top rank of contemporary rockers, but she's not nearly consistent enough to sustain a whole album."
"Although Stevie Nicks' child-woman persona has served her well for 20 years, it's long overdue for the doe-eyed innocent to get tough. Her steadfast adherence to a fairy-tale world is endearing but frustrating."
"Refusing to spit and kick like Bonnie Raitt or Kim Gordon, she trembles instead, a little girl made helpless by uncaring men and her own isolation."
"Nowadays, singing more like a female Bon Jovi than the exuberant sprite she was in bygone Lindsey Buckingham/Richard Dashut years, Nicks flounders in gossamer and overpowering guitar licks, too entangled in her own fantasy to open her musical vision to the rest of us."