Stevie Nicks survived abusive relationship with former bandmate Lindsey Buckingham, c

[David]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

The biggest reason she didn’t want to make another album with him is because she mostly didn’t enjoy making albums with him. Rumours wasn’t fun for her, Tusk, Mirage, TITN, and SYW weren’t fun for her. Why would the next one be fun?

This is the crux. She hates being in the studio with him. In fact, she may not be all that keen about being in the studio with the rest of them, either. My view is that, from the Seventies on, none of them accorded her much respect as a musician vocalist in the studio. You can see it in their faces as she's trying to explain something (in ditzy metaphors) or tell a story (in her airheaded elliptical style). It was a self-fulfilling prophecy: The more she gave suggestions about tracks or production, the more dismissive the others were. And the more dismissive they were, the more she pulled back—and made her own fun recording her own albums, where she could be the cute college girl once again, the center of attention in her circle of friends and session players.

Case in point: The are-you-kidding-me looks and eye rolls that the others all give her in the Village Recorder footage from recording Tusk.

Another case in point: Mick's words about Stevie in the 2 on the Town segment from 1982. He implied that she lacks studio discipline, instead preferring to emote spontaneously and use that track so that she doesn't have to go back over and over and retake. John of course is like that too, but I assume that John's bass parts come down to one or two takes anyway—not like Stevie's vocals, which can require days or weeks of repetition. And John's impatience with recording wasn't compounded with a ditzy personality, which can grate on the nerves of people in close confines with Stevie for extended periods.

Wanted to add: I've recorded with good friends in a studio before. By the end of a week, we hated each other.