Street Angel - the original version

[drzubritsky]

Originally Posted by KarmaContestant

Oh Lord, how can anyone think that god-awful SA vocal on If You Were My Love is worthy of inclusion on an album is beyond me. It's terrible, truly. She sounds half awake and distracted by a pizza.

I personally love Street Angel (the song) but otherwise agree with your assessment, by and large. That part of the 90's was an odd time for music, with Salt & Pepa and Tori Amos and Ace of Bass toppng charts, I don't know that *anything* Stevie could have done would have sounded current.

For IYWML, it sounds like they were going for a slow jazzy lounge vibe with the arrangement, sort of like some of the tracks on kd lang's Ingenue. Stevie may have been trying for the same feel with her vocal. That type of feel is tricky to pull off in a pop song and neither the production nor Stevie's vocal are successful.

I actually think there could have been a scenario for Stevie to achieve a moderately successful comeback at that time, but it would have taken a lot of work and luck. Apart from Stevie's personal issues, the biggest problem was that she was viewed as unhip by most of the music-buying public. But new female acts were quite popular in 1993/1994, such as Tori Amos, Natalie Merchant, Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb, Hole, etc. Stevie's camp could have positioned her as the godmother of those acts, with some smart, strategic publicity and alignment with some of those artists.

Along with the careful market positioning, find a producer that could provide a current, fresh sound (without straying too far from Stevie's roots). Most of those then-hot female acts were not utilizing overly trendy arrangements and the production approach used by Sheryl or Lisa Loeb would have worked fine for Stevie. With this combination, and some more thoughtful song choices, SA might have been a successful project.

Of course, Stevie was in no shape to pull off such a maneuver in that era, so it would have been a moot point.