Recent fondness for "Street Angel" period

ok....first of all, let me say that i don't want this to become a "Street Angel" bashing thread....so if you don't have anything nice to say about it then move on to the next thread!!! ; )

so, i bought this album (cd) when it first came out and obviously it wasn't Stevie's best work and i think that's because it lacks a certain cohesiveness and continuity. However, i still had my favorites which i'll disect in a minute...

anyway, recently this summer i have found myself really liking the album and i'm playing it constantly in the car....or, i should say, i'll play selected songs cause there's a few in there that i can't deal with...it's just kind of weird cause all of a sudden i don't think a lot of those songs are that bad and i'm wondering how the record got such a bad rap after all.

i always tend to link music to certain times and events in my life. So, maybe i have a fondness for the record cause i have a fondness for that period of time....i don't know....anyway, these are my favorites:

Blue Denim
Greta
Docklands
Love is Like a River
Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind
Kick It

I've also been warming up to the song "Street Angel"....i do like the line "a Charles Dickens character with your tophat and your scarves..."

I use to make fun of "Docklands" with all of its laundromat/brush your hair lines but i like the chorus and i especially love when Stevie sings "....iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii beg of you" towards the end...and also the lines "lost in a place where i was born without a hand to hold on to"....

"Blue Denim" is a great little rocker that i feel is probably the best song on the album and i wish she would reconsider doing it live again....i love the line"well yes i'm going away for a little while to remember how to feel..." i also love the dual vocals she does on that song especially the ending....

i love "Greta" too but i think i like the demo just a bit more....i love the change into "she's got her bags packed, and she's off to the valley where the sun meets the sea...."

"Love is Like a River" is great rocker and i instantly loved it....how can you not like that ending...."i think you're uptight lady!" i could play that part over and over again and usually do.

can't think of anything interesting to say about "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind" except that i think a little guitar instrumental would have worked in the middle of it after she sings "all i want to do is to be there with you"....

"Kick It" should have been released as a single....ok, my question is, what business did she have in Egypt???? hahaha....

alright, anyway "Unconditional Love" is ok but there's something in the chorus that i don't like....it's like the girls voices blend too much or something. also, the middle part where she goes "hey hey hey hey hey, my precious one" annoys me for some reason..."Jane" isn't a bad song but i can't get past the lyrics about the chimpanzee....otherwise, i think the melodies are good but i think the music could have been a little less polished.

So, that's my sort of dissertation of the album....i also found a bootleg audience recording from a show in NJ and i don't think she sounded that bad....why do we all bash her for this era? I think she had a lot of power back then, smoking or not....and her hair was really funky too.....at a few points in the tape i thought i was listening to a rock a little show....she seemed to hit a lot of high notes. i didn't get to go to her concert then cause a bad storm caused SPAC in Saratoga, NY to cancel the show....i'm kind of sorry now...oh well. at least there's bootlegs.



any thoughts? questions? comments? does anyone care?