Stevie's Changing Voice

[SapphireSister]

So I’ve been thinking about this the last few days and wanted to see what you all thought. Between which 2 Stevie SOLO albums (not including Fleetwood Mac albums) do you think her voice changed the most? I’m going to have to say from Rock a Little to The Other Side of the Mirror for a number of reasons. First of all, as we all well know the RAL period was the peak of Stevie’s cocaine use and by the time she recorded TOSOTM the post-effects were obvious. Damage to the nostrils from prolonged cocaine abuse can strongly affect one’s vocal range and ability to hit certain notes. It can also directly affect the vocal chords which may have caused some permanent damage as a result of her snorting the drug. Even Stevie herself has acknowledged this in numerous interviews. Her voice was much less raspy and edgy on TOSOTM in comparison to RAL and she definitely went down an octave and could no longer hit many of the high notes she hit on RAL. I also think it’s possible that her age played a part. She was 37 when RAL was recorded and 41 when OSOTM was recorded although that’s not that huge of an age gap. On TOSOTM her voice is not only deeper but more mature and not as “rock and roll” or wailing and lacks the fluctuation and vulnerability she demonstrated on previous albums. Lastly, I would say that there is an obvious difference in her voice due to the fact that she was on heavy tranquilizers after she left the Betty Ford Clinic at the end of 1986. Of course this became most apparent during Street Angele but it’s obvious she was already feeling the effects of the benzos by 1989. In closing I would like to say that this thread is not about posing one album against the other. I’m not saying RAL is better than TOSOTM I’m just noting the differences in her voice (although I do prefer RAL if I had to say). Also, I love the changes in Stevie's voice and it's been a gift to hear all of the changes over the last 35 years! Thoughts?