Quote:
Originally posted by face of glass
I know Johnny Stew, for instance, thinks that RAL is experimental. I don’t, unless it’s viewed against Stevie’s other solo albums. So much of the aspects of RAL are dictated by the mainstream that it certainly doesn’t sound atypical of its time. Go Insane is far more atypical to me. It’s right there besides Mister Heartbreak and Hounds Of Love in classic ‘80s studio experimentation, at least in my collection of music.
So if someone is going to look up on Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie as musical adventurers then I certainly won’t follow suit, as much as I love them. I look up to Buckingham for that and at the same time I thank him for not going over the top or totally inaccessible with his experiments.
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To be fair, I never said 'Rock A Little' was "experimental," only that it's quite different from the sound of 'Bella Donna' four years before it, and it just baffles me sometimes that Stevie gets chided for doing something different, when Lindsey is lauded for it.
Stevie isn't particularly musically adventurous... that's Lindsey's niche... but she's not exactly stuck in one sound either.
Each of her albums sounds rather different from whichever one directly preceeded it, but that seems to be more of a point of derision rather than praise.
Now, I can't say that each sound was the right choice, or that each approach was successful, but hey, she tried, and you'd think that would count for something in these discussions.
She could have very easily copied the sound of 'Bella Donna,' but she didn't. Granted, she didn't exactly take a left-turn, but she certainly moved on.
As far as 'RAL' sounding like other albums of the time, I still insist it doesn't really.
Certainly there are aspects of the "80s sound" in the sensibilities of 'RAL's production... drum overdubs, synthesizers, etc.... but pull out any mainstream Top 40 pop album from 1984/85/86, and find me songs that sound like "I Can't Wait" or "Sister Honey," for example.
No, I don't think it was experimental, per se, but I don't think Stevie and her producers looked at the latest Madonna and Wham singles and said, "Ok, let's cop this sound."
There's an edginess to 'Rock A Little,' that can't be found in other Top 40 fare from that timeframe, even if they share some of the same types of instrumentation.
For me, 'Rock A Little' is a natural progression from 'The Wild Heart,' rather than a reaction to the then-current sound.
And I know it's not a popular opinion (and I have to qualify this statement by saying that I love 'Go Insane,' so this isn't a criticism), but if most people listened to 'Go Insane' between 'The Wild Heart' and 'Rock A Little' (since it was released in the year between the two), I bet they'd cite 'Go Insane' as the most dated sounding of the three.
So, as with most of our conversations, this is a matter of preference and perception.
