IYD Press Reviews & Discussion

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by Livia

But perhaps even more remarkably, 34 years on from Rumours, Nicks is still capable of extracting emotional heft from her relationship with Mac comrade and former flame Lindsey Buckingham. "We cause each other such pain everywhere we go now / At home or on the stage," she sings on Everybody Loves You, sounding more throatily goat-like than ever. Yes, if In Your Dreams proves anything...

That's BS... That was one of the things that I LIKED about the album was how Dave's production "de-goated" her voice throughout the album.

Oh, and another case of "yes, I use lyrics over & over again" recycling.

"We cause each other such pain"...nice "borrow" from "Not Make Believe".

[tabruns]

Originally Posted by chiliD

That's BS... That was one of the things that I LIKED about the album was how Dave's production "de-goated" her voice throughout the album.

Oh, and another case of "yes, I use lyrics over & over again" recycling.

"We cause each other such pain"...nice "borrow" from "Not Make Believe".

I agree. Her voice on IYD sounds the smoothest its been since The Wild Heart.

Well this reviewer also totally misreads the Twilight phenom. It's aimed at middle aged women as well, which seems to totally escape him.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by michelej1

By Tom Malder, May 26, 2011, Village Soup
http://waldo.villagesoup.com/blog/bl...he-cars/402940

“Soldier’s Angel,” a highlight track that easily could have fit on Fleetwood Mac’s smash “Rumours” album. Mick Fleetwood himself contributes drums to the album. However, the core group that made the album was Nicks, Stewart, her longtime friend and musical director Waddy Wachtel and her girls, Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks.

Soldier's Angel fitting in on Rumours?? Egads, hardly. LIke the song, but can't ever imagine it fitting in on Rumours.

Also, this has been bugging me....Stevie refers to Soldier's Angel as her "most revered" song. Revered means respected, admired...by OTHERS. The song wasn't even public when she was writing the liner notes for this album, so who was revering it?? What she means is it is her most REVERENT or REVERENTIAL song, as in, it's her song that most honors another, i.e., that is serious and respectful towards the soldiers. Sorry to nitpick, but it's been driving me crazy.

[bombaysaffires]

Originally Posted by tabruns

I agree. Her voice on IYD sounds the smoothest its been since The Wild Heart.

I was most surprised at the lack of echo on her voice on this album. Usually she loves a pretty fair amount of echo on her vocals. I think it would have improved the sounds of her vocals on the opening verse of Wide Sargasso Sea immensely. YMMV.

[louielouie2000]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

I was most surprised at the lack of echo on her voice on this album. Usually she loves a pretty fair amount of echo on her vocals.

I noticed that as well. I actually think the lack of echo is part of what makes this album so effective, though. The album in many ways is very literal (for Stevie Nicks), and so I think dreamy echo sounds would be out of place. I think it's good they didn't alter Stevie's voice to death and hide it behind gimmicks for this album. Instead, they showcased her voice exactly how it is. Put it on the platter as the main event without any distractions. The lack of stereotypical Stevie touches such as echoed vocals is probably why the album has received such critical acclaim, too. In Your Dreams proves Stevie has remained much the same in many ways, yet she stripped away the cliche touches (such as liberal abuse of echo) which made her fodder for much of her career.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by bombaysaffires

Also, this has been bugging me....Stevie refers to Soldier's Angel as her "most revered" song. Revered means respected, admired...by OTHERS. The song wasn't even public when she was writing the liner notes for this album, so who was revering it?? What she means is it is her most REVERENT or REVERENTIAL song, as in, it's her song that most honors another, i.e., that is serious and respectful towards the soldiers. Sorry to nitpick, but it's been driving me crazy.

I think Stevie means that it is the song that she most revers.

I think the song does rever the soldiers, but I also think it is less reverent than Desert Angel and that it's purpose is to indict through tragedy. That's why I think she discusses it in terms of brutality and ominousness and not as a tribute.

Michele

[Jondalar]

Originally Posted by michelej1

I think Stevie means that it is the song that she most revers.

I think the song does rever the soldiers, but I also think it is less reverent than Desert Angel and that it's purpose is to indict through tragedy. That's why I think she discusses it in terms of brutality and ominousness and not as a tribute.

Michele

Desert Angel was an embarrassment. This song is good.

[Livia]

http://www.musicomh.com/albums/stevie-nicks_0611.htm

Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams
(Warner) UK release date: 27 June 2011

by Farah Ishaq

A lynchpin in Fleetwood Mac’s success, eight-time Grammy winner Stevie Nicks' status as a rock icon, a living legend, has never been in question. With a formidable reputation within and without the band and fiercely loyal fans who worship the ground she walks on, she's nonetheless kept diehard fans waiting a solid 10 years for a new album. Perhaps the time lapse is due to a mixed reaction from critics for 2001’s Trouble In Shangri-La effort; perhaps it's because the Mac have just finished up a blisteringly lengthy live reunion concert schedule.

Now that the band have - with the Unleashed world tour - put their past grievances to one side for the time being (a reunion in the studio is now optimistically touted), Nicks has been free to put her energies in creating new music on her own again. But Nicks is so synonymously wrapped up with the mighty Mac that it is a piece of track list mastery that new album In Your Dreams begins with Secret Love, an outtake originally demoed for the band's seminal Rumours LP.

It might be the shortest track on the album but it is a gentle reminder of what Nicks’ songwriting capabilities were and still are. After a decade away, it is a good vehicle for her uniquely dauntless vocal delivery to wash back over you. You can tell, however that it is an out-take from the 40 million-selling album: similar words, similar melodies, similar feel. But that is not to detract from the fact it is a very good song.

Combined with the second track, the Landslide-esque For What It’s Worth, it makes up a perfect duo to draw you in to the album. On some of what follows (My Heart, Italian Summer, Wide Sargasso Sea) the poetics of her anguished heart can get quite repetitive within the lyrics, and the music arrangements can be so laid back as to be barely there. In these moments it’s a good job Nicks’ voice is the main instrument here; to imagine the majority of these songs working for literally anybody else is hard.

Eurhythmics lynchpin and producer Dave Stewart has paired up with Nicks for this album, and there is some spark to the co-written tracks (the majority of the album’s 13 parts). But there is also a sense that the two of the them were having so much ‘fun’ – indicated by a barrage of tweets from the LA studio last year – that an unbiased ear might not have gone amiss in the final stages of editing.

There are some absolute gems here too though, and it is the sole writing credits on In Your Dreams that stand out. Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream), a modernised version of an older Nicks track, with cultural references to the Twilight film franchise, and Annabel Lee, a song based on words by Edgar Allen Poe, are both twinkly, brooding and quite beautiful. Soldier’s Angel, too, is revved out of reverie with a guitar cameo by Mac sparring partner and former beau Lindsey Buckingham.

Should the rumoured studio reunion of Fleetwood Mac occur in the near future, In Your Dreams is, despite what it lacks, a bold affair. At the grand age of 63, when most people in the normal world would be thinking of retiring, Nicks demonstrates that she still has much to contribute. Of course, Nicks is not most people and doesn’t reside in our world; she is still the stuff of rock star legend, even if the evidence here suggestions she's beginning to slow down. Those fiercely loyal fans will be very pleased with In Your Dreams, a pit stop in her canon of rock folklore.

[RockALittle250]

Originally Posted by Livia

http://www.musicomh.com/albums/stevie-nicks_0611.htm

Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams
(Warner) UK release date: 27 June 2011

by Farah Ishaq

A lynchpin in Fleetwood Mac’s success, eight-time Grammy winner Stevie Nicks' status as a rock icon, a living legend, has never been in question. With a formidable reputation within and without the band and fiercely loyal fans who worship the ground she walks on, she's nonetheless kept diehard fans waiting a solid 10 years for a new album. Perhaps the time lapse is due to a mixed reaction from critics for 2001’s Trouble In Shangri-La effort; perhaps it's because the Mac have just finished up a blisteringly lengthy live reunion concert schedule.

Now that the band have - with the Unleashed world tour - put their past grievances to one side for the time being (a reunion in the studio is now optimistically touted), Nicks has been free to put her energies in creating new music on her own again. But Nicks is so synonymously wrapped up with the mighty Mac that it is a piece of track list mastery that new album In Your Dreams begins with Secret Love, an outtake originally demoed for the band's seminal Rumours LP.

It might be the shortest track on the album but it is a gentle reminder of what Nicks’ songwriting capabilities were and still are. After a decade away, it is a good vehicle for her uniquely dauntless vocal delivery to wash back over you. You can tell, however that it is an out-take from the 40 million-selling album: similar words, similar melodies, similar feel. But that is not to detract from the fact it is a very good song.

Combined with the second track, the Landslide-esque For What It’s Worth, it makes up a perfect duo to draw you in to the album. On some of what follows (My Heart, Italian Summer, Wide Sargasso Sea) the poetics of her anguished heart can get quite repetitive within the lyrics, and the music arrangements can be so laid back as to be barely there. In these moments it’s a good job Nicks’ voice is the main instrument here; to imagine the majority of these songs working for literally anybody else is hard.

Eurhythmics lynchpin and producer Dave Stewart has paired up with Nicks for this album, and there is some spark to the co-written tracks (the majority of the album’s 13 parts). But there is also a sense that the two of the them were having so much ‘fun’ – indicated by a barrage of tweets from the LA studio last year – that an unbiased ear might not have gone amiss in the final stages of editing.

There are some absolute gems here too though, and it is the sole writing credits on In Your Dreams that stand out. Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream), a modernised version of an older Nicks track, with cultural references to the Twilight film franchise, and Annabel Lee, a song based on words by Edgar Allen Poe, are both twinkly, brooding and quite beautiful. Soldier’s Angel, too, is revved out of reverie with a guitar cameo by Mac sparring partner and former beau Lindsey Buckingham.

Should the rumoured studio reunion of Fleetwood Mac occur in the near future, In Your Dreams is, despite what it lacks, a bold affair. At the grand age of 63, when most people in the normal world would be thinking of retiring, Nicks demonstrates that she still has much to contribute. Of course, Nicks is not most people and doesn’t reside in our world; she is still the stuff of rock star legend, even if the evidence here suggestions she's beginning to slow down. Those fiercely loyal fans will be very pleased with In Your Dreams, a pit stop in her canon of rock folklore.

I guess they're trying to say her eight nominations should have been wins!

[Livia]

Ha, I didn't notice that. I did notice their love of the word "lynchpin." Someone needs a Thesaurus.

[Phil]

Jondalar:

Desert Angel was an embarrassment. This song is good.

Other way around mate...

[Livia]

CD: Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 23:10 Written by Adam Sweeting

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php...ams&Itemid=107

Dame Stevie taps into the 'Sleepy Hollow' vibe on her first album of new songs in a decade

It's been a decade since Stevie Nicks's last album of new songs, Trouble in Shangri-La, but In Your Dreams proves that there's creative life in the old girl yet. Fans of the wispy tunestrel will be pleased to hear that she hasn't strayed far from her familiar stomping grounds of melodious folk-rockism and tales of love and yearning, the focus (in fine Seventies style) fixing on the singer's emotional trials and torments. The voice that sang "Rhiannon" remains suitably ghostly, and even with an overlay of mild croakiness, it sounds pretty good for a 63-year-old. The disc is crammed with a phone-book's worth of LA session veterans, from Steve Ferrone to Waddy Wachtel, and there are appearances by Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood. The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell plays an assortment of instruments and co-wrote a couple of tracks, though not as many as Dave Stewart, who also co-produced the disc with Glenn Ballard.
The best songs work very well indeed. Nicks opens with "Secret Love", a sturdily pulsing piece blitzed by growling powerchords as she sings of "a timeless search for a love that might work". Vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars underpin the affecting "For What It's Worth" (no relation to the Stephen Stills one), while the pick of the bunch may be the title track, a scintillating blast of jangle-rock which harks back to the days when Nicks used to hang around with Tom Petty and his crew.
That's not all. Nicks, still festooned in hats, feathers and bodice-ripper gowns after all these years, channels Edgar Allan Poe in "Annabel Lee", runs with the Undead in "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)", and evokes vampire chronicler Anne Rice in "New Orleans".
Her only problem was knowing when to stop. In Your Dreams lasts half an hour longer than Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and the longer it goes on, the more you want to start pelting it with rotten fruit. "Everybody Loves You" is drab electro-pop, "Italian Summer" is cloying schmaltz, and "Ghosts Are Gone" should have been called "The Day the Music Died". It'll all boil down into a nice playlist though.

[BombaySapphire3]

NME review



Drippy ballads and gag-worthy soft rock






As the floaty-dress-loving gypsy queen of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks commands a war chest of guilty pleasures the size of a small nation.

We’ve all had a good drunken dance to ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ and ‘Little Lies’ in our time but, sadly, ‘In Your Dreams’ is little more than a soggy biscuit next to those veritable Turkish delights, and the presence of erstwhile bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood does little to help.

Featuring the likes of the mawkish and rather belated ode to ‘New Orleans’, it’s an album full of the sort of drippy ballads and droopy soft rock that should induce an involuntary gag reflex in anyone under the age of 45.

Tom Edwards


3 out of 10

[Macfanforever]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

NME review



Drippy ballads and gag-worthy soft rock






As the floaty-dress-loving gypsy queen of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks commands a war chest of guilty pleasures the size of a small nation.

We’ve all had a good drunken dance to ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ and ‘Little Lies’ in our time but, sadly, ‘In Your Dreams’ is little more than a soggy biscuit next to those veritable Turkish delights, and the presence of erstwhile bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood does little to help.

Featuring the likes of the mawkish and rather belated ode to ‘New Orleans’, it’s an album full of the sort of drippy ballads and droopy soft rock that should induce an involuntary gag reflex in anyone under the age of 45.

Tom Edwards


3 out of 10

Holy crap.I guess he does not like Stevie Nicks.

[LiquidDiamonds]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

NME review



Drippy ballads and gag-worthy soft rock






As the floaty-dress-loving gypsy queen of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks commands a war chest of guilty pleasures the size of a small nation.

We’ve all had a good drunken dance to ‘Edge Of Seventeen’ and ‘Little Lies’ in our time but, sadly, ‘In Your Dreams’ is little more than a soggy biscuit next to those veritable Turkish delights, and the presence of erstwhile bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood does little to help.

Featuring the likes of the mawkish and rather belated ode to ‘New Orleans’, it’s an album full of the sort of drippy ballads and droopy soft rock that should induce an involuntary gag reflex in anyone under the age of 45.

Tom Edwards


3 out of 10

I can't take any reviewer who says " floaty-dress" seriously.