Has Stevie's songwriting gone downhill?

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by face of glass
If someone starts telling me that Joni Mitchell’s guitar playing talent and singing technique both prevent her from exposing her psyche, then I would call that person seriously biased. In fact, you could also turn this completely around. What if she actually wanted to do something different for a change, what if her heart and psyche told her to do that? She wouldn’t be able to do it, because she has limited musical skills.

Certainly one can have a very honest and forthright writing style, and be a terrific guitarist, too... I just wanted to point out that there are certain things that make Stevie totally unique in the musical world, and I feel those natural talents are too precious to be altered.

Maybe becoming proficient on the guitar or the piano, would have expanded her horizons... but perhaps it may have bogged her down.
(For example, Madonna took guitar lessons a couple of years ago, and has become quite adept at playing... but can anyone say that her current songs are better than, say, the songs on 'Like A Prayer,' when she was relying more on instinct to write, rather than musical knowledge?)

She seriously limited her audience to a certain point, I believe.

Quite possible... but then, by the same token, Joni, Carole, Rickie Lee, etc., have never had the extended level of commercial success that Stevie has had.
So it's one of those "apples & oranges" kinds of things.

If her skills haven’t worsened in songwriting, then how come her post-‘70s material hasn’t been good enough for other performers? Why do they think “Landslide” is better than “When I See You Again”?

I'm not a good one to ask this, because I actually prefer "When I See You Again" to "Landslide."
The latter is an amazing song, of course, but the former moves me in such a major way, that I still feel that song hours after I've listened to it.
For me, that's definitely the sign of a truly incredible song.

At any rate... i don't really see people covering the later works of Dylan, or Springsteen, or Joni Mitchell, either.
And beyond "Go Your Own Way," the 'Rumours' tribute, and Camper Van Beethoven's cover of the 'Tusk' album... how many people have covered Lindsey's stuff?
So I don't really think that's any kind of indication that the appeal of Stevie's songs has dropped.
I think people just tend to cover songs they consider "classics" that have an appeal to the broadest audience possible... and "Landslide" is definitely a classic with broad appeal.

I feel Stevie is still a tremendous writer... and, in many ways, even better than she was before.
And I can say that, because I know that if she weren't, I would have lost interest years ago.

[dissention]

This is just what I think on why people don't cover much Stevie stuff:

IT IS NOT THEIR STYLE AND THEY'D LOOK RIDICULOUS DOING SO!

No one can cover a Stevie Nicks song and make it their own, be it an older song by Stevie or a newer one. Could you picture *anyone* covering Trouble In Shangri-La and molding it to their image and style? I think not. Same goes for RTTG or Rooms On Fire or No Spoken Word or Sable On Blonde or Outside the Rain...the list goes on and on. I can just see Christina Aguilera belting out "Never did I mean to imprison you...here in my garden, like I am in prison!!"

Other artists would just look ridiculous doing her material. Her old stuff hasn't even really been covered (with the exception of Landslide, a dance version of Edge of 17, Dreams, and Gold Dust Woman) by anyone else because no one could cover a song like Sisters of the Moon or Rhiannon and get away with it; they would look ridiculous. We all know how well Hole's version of GDW went over...like a lead-balloon. Just because someone doesn't cover another artist's music, it doesn't mean that the artist doesn't put out good material. Aimee Mann puts out amazing material, but NO ONE covers it at all. Lindsey, as Johnny pointed out, is one of the most amazing musicians but NO ONE covers his stuff. To deduce that Lindsey and Stevie don't put out good stuff because no one covers it is ludicrous to me.

[seeker007nmss]

Originally posted by dissention
This is just what I think on why people don't cover much Stevie stuff:

IT IS NOT THEIR STYLE AND THEY'D LOOK RIDICULOUS DOING SO!

No one can cover a Stevie Nicks song and make it their own, be it an older song by Stevie or a newer one.

Oh come on! You can't tell me that the Rod Stewart version of Stand Back isn't a keeper! LOL And who can forget the Rhianon Disco/club mix version? And the Waylon Jennings version of Rhianon.....what more can I say? (and when he teamed up with willie Nelson to do Gold Dust Women....)

Seriously, though, there are a few interesting interpretations of Stevie stuff out there. I like some of the Tori Amos covers, and there is a string quartet cd of rumours, that is kinda cool.

I think Landslide is the most covered. I know of several groups/artists that have tried it out. (Dixie Chick's weren't the first by any means)

My favorite use of Stevie songs still has to be The Lucy Lawless Skit on SNL. Cracks me up everytime.

[seeker007nmss]

Originally posted by face of glass

I don’t overlook them, or at least I like to think so myself. I have a significant amount of albums by Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Patti Smith, Rickie Lee Jones, Kate Bush, Bjork (if you can’t handle umlauts), etc. I enjoy them just as much as the cream of the male artists.

Just a side note, What ever happened to Kate? I have a bunch of her stuff, she seems to just have fallen off of the earth. Kinda sad. She is one I would like to see in concert soemtime (but since she won't/ralrely flies I doubt she will make it to the States anytime soon).

Just wondering if anyone knows.

[dissention]

Originally posted by seeker007nmss
Oh come on! You can't tell me that the Rod Stewart version of Stand Back isn't a keeper! LOL

I've never recovered from hearing that. Never.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
Certainly one can have a very honest and forthright writing style, and be a terrific guitarist, too... I just wanted to point out that there are certain things that make Stevie totally unique in the musical world, and I feel those natural talents are too precious to be altered.
Maybe becoming proficient on the guitar or the piano, would have expanded her horizons... but perhaps it may have bogged her down.

Actually I’m agreeing with this. Stevie does have limitations and it’s probably way too late to change her ways of writing at this point in her life. I still think she’s gone in the most important (for me) area of songwriting, the stuff you can put down as notes on paper. I find it a miracle that she did fine work in the ‘70s almost constantly despite her limitations.
However, if she diversified her style, the changes might not suite her in the end. It’s better for the producers to change her songs. There are things in Stevie’s style that just can’t be altered. I explained why I listen to her music just for certain occasions, for certain emotional states. She’s limited, yes. That’s why I’ll never put her on the ultimate songwriting pedestal. But there’s no one like Stevie in the end, and God knows what would happen if she tried to change the way I suggested.

Quite possible... but then, by the same token, Joni, Carole, Rickie Lee, etc., have never had the extended level of commercial success that Stevie has had.
So it's one of those "apples & oranges" kinds of things.

True. They all have a peak period that’s shorter than Stevie’s, but then again at least Carole and Joni both released more songs during that time than Stevie during a period of similar length. Joni received eight gold records between 1970-1978 and Carole King had seven. After that they obviously burnt out in the eyes of the public. Now, is Stevie burnt out too, because she couldn’t keep the eight million people that bought Bella Donna as her core audience all the way? It really doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what the public thinks in the end. If people would think that TISL equalled her earlier writing, they would have bought the album. But they seem to think she’s not on that level. I believe TISL received the right promotion, but people just didn’t buy it. Of course there is a gap in my theory, “Sorcerer” and “POTU” were promoted heavily after all. So it could be that I’m just wrong here.

Another point. If Stevie usually writes a lot of music then how come she doesn’t offer it to other people? She knows that some of her songs will stay in the can forever, so why doesn’t she offer these to others? I think it’s because she believes there wouldn’t be anything interesting to offer for other people. Hold on, Dissention, you will get your due soon.

I'm not a good one to ask this, because I actually prefer "When I See You Again" to "Landslide."
The latter is an amazing song, of course, but the former moves me in such a major way, that I still feel that song hours after I've listened to it.
For me, that's definitely the sign of a truly incredible song.

I like “When I See You Again” too, even though I consider it among her worst work within Fleetwood Mac. It’s very, very simple and that’s probably just the reason why it works. Lindsey obviously didn’t want to tamper with it (due to the circumstances), so he didn’t add any of his usual quirks in there, except for the guitar solo. Because he didn’t do that, it has a simplicity that no other Rumours line-up song has. But if there was any more of Stevie’s work this barebones on a Fleetwood Mac album, I would most likely skip those tracks.

At any rate... i don't really see people covering the later works of Dylan, or Springsteen, or Joni Mitchell, either.
And beyond "Go Your Own Way," the 'Rumours' tribute, and Camper Van Beethoven's cover of the 'Tusk' album... how many people have covered Lindsey's stuff?
So I don't really think that's any kind of indication that the appeal of Stevie's songs has dropped.
I think people just tend to cover songs they consider "classics" that have an appeal to the broadest audience possible... and "Landslide" is definitely a classic with broad appeal.

I did write a list of Dylan covers from his “regressive period” in this thread, but it obviously didn’t convince you. And I understand that, because it might be difficult to come up with another list for someone whose popularity is/has been worthy of Stevie’s success.
And I still think Lindsey has been ignored by the public after Rumours almost totally. We can’t really use him here, because his popularity hasn’t been even close to Stevie’s.
There is a good point your last paragraph. There’s this mentality: “it’s better to cover a good old song than make a bad new original”. And also, no matter how good work a writer can do these days, he/she still might be ignored because people think it’s not the same good old stuff anyway. I believe it’s also because rock’n’roll isn’t what it used to be in people’s eyes. Someone once said: “computer games are the new rock’n’roll”, and it might just be true. Nothing really new has been invented in rock since the ‘70s, or at least this new hasn’t had any wide success. If this is true, then it’s probably not Stevie who’s going downhill, it’s the entire rock’n’roll business. It’s dying a slow and painful death.
I still think Stevie hasn’t changed myself. But then again the rock’n’roll dinosaur likes what has gone before, because it can earn more money that way. The newer things, even by an old favourite, don’t really interest it.

Originally posted by dissention
This is just what I think on why people don't cover much Stevie stuff:

IT IS NOT THEIR STYLE AND THEY'D LOOK RIDICULOUS DOING SO!

No one can cover a Stevie Nicks song and make it their own, be it an older song by Stevie or a newer one. Could you picture *anyone* covering Trouble In Shangri-La and molding it to their image and style? I think not. Same goes for RTTG or Rooms On Fire or No Spoken Word or Sable On Blonde or Outside the Rain...the list goes on and on.

Other artists would just look ridiculous doing her material. Her old stuff hasn't even really been covered (with the exception of Landslide, a dance version of Edge of 17, Dreams, and Gold Dust Woman) by anyone else because no one could cover a song like Sisters of the Moon or Rhiannon and get away with it; they would look ridiculous. We all know how well Hole's version of GDW went over...like a lead-balloon. Just because someone doesn't cover another artist's music, it doesn't mean that the artist doesn't put out good material.
[/QUOTE]

Somehow I agree with this too. I said earlier, that with an “atmospheric artist” like Stevie, you have to take the lyrics, the voice, the arrangement and the notes on the paper all together to truly enjoy it. And this is why I think her own versions of her songs are always the definitive ones.
The thing is, if someone thought a particular Stevie song was great and wanted to cover it, then he/she would have to take out the lyrics, the arrangement and the voice. The chords and notes Stevie chose for the vocal melody would remain. How come then, if she’s such a great songwriter, it isn’t happening? Because I believe there wouldn’t be a good song left, if we’re speaking of her post-‘70s work. That’s her problem in the end. A Nickssong isn’t really that adaptable. You can’t change it like you can change a Bob Dylan song. And that’s why I won’t consider her “the greatest songwriter of all time”, although I think many of you do so. The elements of Stevie’s songs, I’m sure, feel very inseparable for many people and that’s why there simply isn’t that many covers of them. Does this then mean that her writing has gone down? Probably not. But it has become difficult for people to cover her songs. That also, can be seen as a sign of getting worse in songwriting.

To deduce that Lindsey and Stevie don't put out good stuff because no one covers it is ludicrous to me.

I didn’t want it to come off that way. I love SYW and I like TISL a lot. I was just trying to say that the foundations of Stevie’s songwriting don’t seem as fresh to me as they once were.

Originally posted by seeker007nmss
Just a side note, What ever happened to Kate? I have a bunch of her stuff, she seems to just have fallen off of the earth. Kinda sad. She is one I would like to see in concert soemtime (but since she won't/ralrely flies I doubt she will make it to the States anytime soon).

Kate was supposed to have a new album coming out this very month, but it’s obviously been pushed back. Pauseandplay.com still says it might come out this year, but I’m doubting it.
Kate tried touring in her earlier days (this is documented on the vinyl only “Kate Bush On Stage” EP). However, the experience of touring was obviously so bad for her that she stopped doing it. Unfortunately.

Whoah. A shorter post this time. Maybe I’m a bit tired of this debate, since I’m obviously starting to give in on some issues.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by face of glass
They all have a peak period that’s shorter than Stevie’s, but then again at least Carole and Joni both released more songs during that time than Stevie during a period of similar length. Joni received eight gold records between 1970-1978 and Carole King had seven. After that they obviously burnt out in the eyes of the public. Now, is Stevie burnt out too, because she couldn’t keep the eight million people that bought Bella Donna as her core audience all the way? It really doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what the public thinks in the end. If people would think that TISL equalled her earlier writing, they would have bought the album. But they seem to think she’s not on that level. I believe TISL received the right promotion, but people just didn’t buy it. Of course there is a gap in my theory, “Sorcerer” and “POTU” were promoted heavily after all. So it could be that I’m just wrong here.

'Trouble In Shangri-La' has sold 638,000 copies... which is nothing to sneeze at.
Certainly it's not in league with the millions of copies her first three albums sold, but by all accounts, it was far better than Warner Bros. had hoped it would do.

I don't really think it's fair to compare Stevie's current album sales with those of 20+ years ago.
There really isn't any major artist who's still selling as many albums now on a regular basis as they did 20 years ago, with Springsteen being probably the most notable exception.
(And, of course, a couple of "out-of-left-field" surprises, like Santana's 'Supernatural,' or Cher's 'Believe'... but their follow-up albums couldn't come close to the sales of the prior releases.)

The musical landscape has just changed way too much for Stevie to sell millions of albums these days. And, for that matter, Fleetwood Mac.... who arguably released one of their best albums ever this year.

Another point. If Stevie usually writes a lot of music then how come she doesn’t offer it to other people? She knows that some of her songs will stay in the can forever, so why doesn’t she offer these to others?

Well, "Leather And Lace" was originally written for Waylon Jennings & Jessi Colter... also, "If You Ever Did Believe" was given to Louise Goffin (Carole King's daughter), and "Sorcerer" to Marilyn Martin... long before Stevie recorded her own versions.
She also gave "You Like Me" to the Williams Brothers, and she's never released her own version of that one (much to my disappointment).

I tend to think, given that Stevie's songs are so intensely personal to her, and she's so protective of them, that perhaps she'd rather a song go unreleased, than run the risk of it being butchered by someone else.
But who knows?

[blinker12]

Stevie herself joins this debate in the "Sex, Drugs and Stevie Nicks" interview published a few days ago in the Australian Courier-Herald:

"[F]rom 1986 to 1993, I wrote nothing memorable, I did nothing memorable. I sat in my house and gained weight."

I think this is an incredibly honest self-assessment; if you look at her songs from those years, there's really almost nothing memorable. "Seven Wonders" is probably the best thing she recorded, and she didn't even write it.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
'Trouble In Shangri-La' has sold 638,000 copies... which is nothing to sneeze at.
Certainly it's not in league with the millions of copies her first three albums sold, but by all accounts, it was far better than Warner Bros. had hoped it would do.

I don't really think it's fair to compare Stevie's current album sales with those of 20+ years ago.
There really isn't any major artist who's still selling as many albums now on a regular basis as they did 20 years ago, with Springsteen being probably the most notable exception.
(And, of course, a couple of "out-of-left-field" surprises, like Santana's 'Supernatural,' or Cher's 'Believe'... but their follow-up albums couldn't come close to the sales of the prior releases.)

The musical landscape has just changed way too much for Stevie to sell millions of albums these days. And, for that matter, Fleetwood Mac.... who arguably released one of their best albums ever this year.

I do respect TISL’s sale figures. It’s pretty close the amount that Joni & Carole used to sell in the ‘70s (of a single album, I mean). Those days one sold a lot less than these days.
And no, I don’t think it’s fair to compare the sale figures of Bella Donna to those of Street Angel or TISL. The times have changed. I guess Madonna still sells a bit more than Stevie these days, but she’s had to resort to publicity stunts along the way. When she decided to go “spiritual” on Ray Of Light, even that was a publicity stunt, although nothing too shocking.
The thing I really respect in Stevie is that she hasn’t gone that far. She doesn’t need to kiss another woman in a Music Television gala (has she even attended these for a long time?). She’s always let the music come first. Although she has her image, it doesn’t come off as completely calculated.

The landscape has changed. Springsteen acts as a musical therapist for the US of A. Fleetwood Mac doesn’t do that. They still let the music come first, although the shows may be pre-planned etc. Even Santana and Cher didn’t really have too much of their old stylistics left when they “came back”. They went for a straight modernization. TISL sounds contemporary, but not by that much. Which is good as far as I’m concerned.

Thank you for that “list of covers”. I wasn’t aware of these.

I tend to think, given that Stevie's songs are so intensely personal to her, and she's so protective of them, that perhaps she'd rather a song go unreleased, than run the risk of it being butchered by someone else.
But who knows?

Probably you’re right. I bet she sits on her demos with a shotgun in her hand these days. Her songs tend to be private thoughts in the end, almost like diaries. But it also might be that she knows that her recent writing is more like poems than songs.

To summarize then:

I can’t really use the cover argument too efficiently. I still think that a Stevie song could be covered these days too, if someone liked the actual musical structures in it. I’m sure that in the ‘60s a lot of Bob Dylan fans thought that Bob’s songs just couldn’t be covered, that they would lose something, just like we think of Stevie’s songs. A phrase like “Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship, my senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip, my toes too numb to step, wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin' was thought to be only Dylan’s property. When the Byrds did their radical two-minute take on “Mr. Tambourine Man”, they shocked everybody. After that Bob’s songs were radically altered by a lot of people. Take Hendrix’s “All Along The Watchtower” or “Father Of Day, Father Of Night” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, for instance. However, you can’t do that with Stevie really. The ‘70s songs have been covered, but only probably because it’s seen as “the classic period”. No radical rearrangements though, although I can’t know for sure of Walter Egan’s “Sisters Of The Moon”. That’s Stevie’s biggest weakness in the end, only a skilled specialist could separate the lyrics and the music from post-Wild Heart work. When the musical structures weaken, only the hardcore fans are the most likely to remain interested, if the songs are not arranged/produced well.

That article “Sex, drugs and Stevie Nicks” is a fascinating read. She’s maybe a bit too blunt to herself when she says that she wrote nothing memorable from 1986 to 1993. Some of you might actually agree with this, but then again most of you think she’s recovered and her work these days equals “the classics”. I do not have any objective statements to back up my feelings in this, no one has. But I do think that if Stevie’s songwriting then and Stevie’s songwriting now was to be compared, then it would have to be done in the following way: release the ‘70s demos on an album with the barest of arrangements. Put the later demos on another album and release it at the same time. I do think that the album with the recent demos on them would flop. But there wouldn’t be complete objectivity then either. You might claim that the later demos are more modern and wouldn’t work if someone released them in the ‘70s climate, or that the ‘70s music would be out of touch with the times. However, I can’t think of any other way here.

In the end, it’s the Nicksian drone that remains. It’s never really changed in my opinion and I wouldn’t want to struggle to the point where I start hearing subtle differences. That’s the point I would become a hardcore fan. I’ve made clear why I won’t want to listen to Stevie’s demos that much unless she starts doing something that seems unusual for me too. In the end it doesn’t matter though. She hasn’t intended those for us to hear. She wants us to hear the studio recordings. And in that area I haven’t had any huge complaint. Those are the ones I’m always looking forward to hear, even when she’s in the rocking chair in her 80s singing into the studio mike and her voice has once again started to resemble the “When I See You Again” tone.

[after reading blinker12’s post]:

Originally posted by blinker12
I think this is an incredibly honest self-assessment; if you look at her songs from those years, there's really almost nothing memorable. "Seven Wonders" is probably the best thing she recorded, and she didn't even write it.

It may be so. However, her lyric writing has always remained strong, and in my opinion it didn’t really go down during those years.

[face of glass]

Oh, and just one other thing. I could compare hearing differences in Stevie's recent demos to hearing differences in Fleetwood Mac concerts these days. But that would be just being mean.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by blinker12
Stevie herself joins this debate in the "Sex, Drugs and Stevie Nicks" interview published a few days ago in the Australian Courier-Herald:

"[F]rom 1986 to 1993, I wrote nothing memorable, I did nothing memorable. I sat in my house and gained weight."

I think this is an incredibly honest self-assessment; if you look at her songs from those years, there's really almost nothing memorable. "Seven Wonders" is probably the best thing she recorded, and she didn't even write it.

It bothers me that she feels this way, and I'm hoping she's just generalizing... because in my opinion, she has some really great songs from that time period.
There are definitely some clunkers in there, but that whole era is not a complete wash, by any means.

[dissention]

Originally posted by Johnny Stew
It bothers me that she feels this way, and I'm hoping she's just generalizing... because in my opinion, she has some really great songs from that time period.
There are definitely some clunkers in there, but that whole era is not a complete wash, by any means.

I posted some of this in another thread, but I figured I'd post it here, too:

I think what she's saying is that when you put her work from '86-'93 up against her earlier work, it paled in comparison. And it does. Sister Honey doesn't compare to Edge of Seventeen, Listen To the Rain doesn't stack up with Sable On Blonde, Fire Burning doesn't match up with Storms quality-wise. Not everything was bad, but everything wasn't what it could've been.

You have to put yourself in Stevie's place. She's probably viewing it as 'Here I am, a songwriter who wrote masterpieces like Sara and Gold Dust Woman who degenerated into writing songs like WTTR...S and Love Is Like A River. Something was wrong.' While us fans might like such mediocre songs, the person who is going through the hardships and writing the songs may feel sad and discouraged because they know they could write better under different circumstances. Some might view a song like WISYA as a masterpiece, while Stevie might view it as garbage because she looks at it and thinks of what it could have been had she not had so many problems. It's like, if you were Van Gogh, got involved in some heavy stuff and you couldn't produce such wonderful work like before; the artist in you will feel awful and unsatisfied. I think it was pretty self-explanatory that she wasn't happy with that period in her career because she doesn't perform any of the songs from that period live anymore, also.

Just some thoughts.

[face of glass]

I think she's being too hard on herself. If she means her music, I might agree, if she means her lyrics, I won't. She still did some good songs during that period, even if they were mainly co-writes/ghost-writes.

Then again, even Lindsey looked back on Mirage with regret during the Tango In The Night interviews. I hope they won't be sorry about doing Say You Will.

And of course Lindsey always says of his current work that "it's the best work I've ever done". Wonder why he doesn't use other musician cliches like: "I'm just doing what I want and if someone likes it it's a bonus". But, no musician ever sells the latest works by saying it's a way to pay the alimonies of three kids or something like that.

[dissention]

Originally posted by face of glass
I think she's being too hard on herself.

See, I don't understand that.

I don't think she's being too hard on herself at all. She's the artist and the creative one and I think it's obvious as to why she feels this way. She wasn't as creative or confident in her abilities and it showed through in the music. She's acknowledged this and I'd be upset, too, if my baby, my love suffered because of mistakes I made in my life. That's just the way I feel, of course.

Her art was the one thing she had complete control over and when some of that control was taken away, it suffered. She is speaking form her heart when she says she's unhappy with her art during that era because it doesn't stack up.

PS: I don't think Lindsey ever said that Mirage was his best work. It stunk.

[face of glass]

Originally posted by dissention
Her art was the one thing she had complete control over and when some of that control was taken away, it suffered. She is speaking form her heart when she says she's unhappy with her art during that era because it doesn't stack up.

Well, I think she’s biased. And you are obviously too.

PS: I don't think Lindsey ever said that Mirage was his best work. It stunk.

I don’t think he badmouthed the album when it was released. Even Stevie said of Street Angel when she was promoting it: “I quite like this album”.

Note: Mirage rules, as the international laws have stated since 1982. Any negative comments about that album will be interpreted as foolhardy trolling.