How Stevie Is Right

[Nikolaj]

This addresses the question of a new cd, not the setlist issues...
Though many of us here on The Ledge have more inside knowledge and information about the state of the recording industry today than an average music fan, not many of us here are 60 year old women living inside of the business of selling cds in 2008- and Stevie is.
I seriously doubt that her intention was to insult her core fanbase, it just isn't logical, but for her to vent her frustration and concerns about her music being a viable product in the marketplace shows, to me, common sense and a very realistic, grounded business mindset that a survivor needs- Five or six examples follow; and while Stevie's commercial sales have been higher than these other 'old girls' she is very much in the same predicament:
1- Donna Summer. Summer has released a new cd in the past 3 weeks, 'Crayons'. In it's debut week in Billboard, Summer debuted at a very respectable #17. Sounds great- but the total SoundScan sales were 23,000 copies. (Roughly figuring, this is $240,000 in gross sales) In her second week, she has dropped down to #44. Realistically, unless she has a radio hit, this cd will not have a long shelf-life. (She's had a #1 dance hit from it, and a second dance song is in the top 10- but it hasn't translated to sales, at this point). The cost of production, promotion, distribution, likely haven't been recouped, yet. This cd was released 17 (!) years after her last album of all new material. In between, there have been numerous hits and live packages with the occassional maxi-single. Will her label rush her into the studio to record a follow-up? (Summer remains the only female singer to have had 3 consecutive double-albums hit #1- 'Live and More,' 'Bad Girls' and 'On The Radio')-- all in the 'Rumours' just prior to 'Bella Donna' eras..
2- Carly Simon released a new cd this spring. In her fifth week on the Billboard album chart, she is at #97 and falling fast, having sold less than 100,000 copies so far
3- Deborah Harry-- poor Debbie. Her cd released this year, as of this date, has not entered the Billboard Top 200. (Debbie in Blondie had a string of #1 hits very much in the same era of Stevie and Fleetwood Mac's best selling recordings).
4- Cyndi Lauper released a new cd less than 2 weeks ago. Her Billboard chart debut was #41, with about 12,000 copies sold.
5- Dolly Parton is faring best of these five women, with her 'Backwoods Barbie' selling 26,000 copies in the first week on Billboards album chart, and some 14 (i need to check) weeks later, she's still on the Country Album chart and has yet to hit the 200,000 units sold mark, though she may. She had high-profile appearences on 'American Idol' (which, sadly, translates to cd sales) and has been on tour, and the roughly $2 million gross sales likely wouldn't thrill a major record label, but Parton now self-records for her own record label, and likely sees this cd as a minor triumph, at age 62.
6- Janet Jackson, don't have the figures, but her record label was so disappointed with sales, last week she said the label no longer is promoting the cd nor will the label issue any further singles to radio-- Janet is all of 42, and has seen her recording career dip notably in recent years, (though she had a very long run for someone with such limited talent- sorry, just my opinion, there).

So, my point is, Stevie is playing a very hard game that many of her peers are struggling with. (I'd consider each of the above her peer with the exception of Janet Jackson).
Stevie has high self-esteem and wants her music to be successful. Granted, she has earned a mint off her catalogue and especially the music publishing, and she could afford to have a moderately successful release that wouldn't STRUGGLE to reach 100,000 copies sold, as it will be a struggle for Donna Summer, Carly Simon, Deb Harry and Cyndi Lauper.
It's a really tough business, and though i don't think Stevie is ALL about the money, she certainly enjoys having her music reach as wide an audience as possible- and from the sounds of things, she wasn't satisfied with the roughly 700,000 copies sold of 'Say You Will' with Fleetwood Mac or the 600,000+ copies of 'Trouble in Shangri La'
Vh1 doesn't even play music videos anymore, and without an outlet for music videos to recoup their huge costs, they're all but obsolete. I guess it's fortunate we got videos of 'Every Day' and 'Sorcerer' considering neither of them became hits.
I think she'd LOVE to have a new cd out- but with her previous mentions of I Tunes and her current ones of Starbucks, it seems she is trying to figure out how to not only
stay in the game, but win it. I give her credit for that, but count myself as a fan who just would like to see her in the game, it's been too long with no new music.
As frustrating as it may be for her fans, imagine the frustration Stevie must face, wanting to do her best and have it be received well.
I think it's humiliating that some fans are asking Liz Rosenberg to have Stevie issue an apology to her fans. Stevie was venting, and i don't think she meant for her comments to be taken as an insult to her fans. She knows she has great fans. Something, apparantly, slipped out when she was addressing the problems of releasing new music, but i seriously doubt she meant for it to hurt her fans.
Stevie HAS had a lot of her songs wind up on the Internet and has received no profit-- Had she chosen to release a box set of demos herself on the Internet, we all would have bought it. But, most of us DO have copies of 'The Dealer' and 'Forest of The Black Roses', 'At Last' and countless other songs.
So,i think it's really mean of certain fans to expect an apology from Stevie Nicks, when, in a way, she makes very good points, and the 5 or so singers i noted above support her statement that it is very hard for new music to succeed these days. This doesn't mean she shouldn't try, but if any one of these people emailing Liz Rosenberg have even one unreleased Stevie demo or song on their computers, Stevie Nicks just as rightfully could ask for an apology for that- so why try to humiliate her? Let's just hope she makes the songs commercially available to us, we know there's about a 100 of them (0r more!) and i think she's just trying, at 60, to figure out how to go about it, because there isn't a whole hell of a lot time left.
I think she should have a chat with Dolly Parton and find out how Dolly created her own label and distributing deals on her own terms