STEVIE NICKS IS GOING HER OWN WAY - Sunday Express Oct. 18, 2009

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

Stevie's solo career is mired in bad, cheesy production. In the past, Lindsey had mastered the pop form that Stevie aped in the 80s albums.

I don't know how you can say something like that without looking at all pop music in context. Face it: the 1980's was cheesy (especially 1984-onward). And in that vein, Rock a Little was an artifact of its time, whereas Wild Heart and Bella Donna were less so. And I don't know how you could possibly state that Stevie aped Lindsey when she was the first FM member to embrace that modern 80's sound in 1985. If anything, Lindsey was the one who aped Stevie with TITN in 1987. And TOSTM doesn't sound a thing like TITN- if anything in some ways it just picked up where RAL left off.

Now, Lindsey's approach has evolved. I think that's a good thing (even if it has evolved in ways that I don't personally prefer). As SYW proves, that evolution in sound also benefits Stevie's tracks.

Yes, Lindsey's approach has evolved... but in his case, I don't think evolution is necessarily a good thing. He has been on a musical journey, surely. But I think his style has become a bit too heavy-handed and forced. What I loved about albums like Rumours and Tusk was that they were rough yet effortlessly polished at the same time. And even when a song was very heavily produced, e.g., "Sara" or "You Make Loving Fun," there was something very warm and organic about it. In recent efforts, it seems like Lindsey was just digging through his electronic bag of tricks and trying to use every effect he can throw at a song. For me, the results are not "cutting edge" as much as they are cold and mechanical. Rather than complementing the songs, his production tends to overpower the songs. Yes, one could argue that perhaps the material on an album like SYW was so weak that it needed a lot of heavy-handed production. But on songs like "Smile at You," which was pretty great to begin with, I think he could have dialed back the vocoders and Pro Tools a notch and employed a simpler, sparser sonic field. Not to say that it was all bad- I think the production on "Destiny Rules" was perfect, as well as "Thrown Down." But two or three good songs out of ten (Stevie) songs is not a good batting average.