Recent fondness for "Street Angel" period

ok....first of all, let me say that i don't want this to become a "Street Angel" bashing thread....so if you don't have anything nice to say about it then move on to the next thread!!! ; )

so, i bought this album (cd) when it first came out and obviously it wasn't Stevie's best work and i think that's because it lacks a certain cohesiveness and continuity. However, i still had my favorites which i'll disect in a minute...

anyway, recently this summer i have found myself really liking the album and i'm playing it constantly in the car....or, i should say, i'll play selected songs cause there's a few in there that i can't deal with...it's just kind of weird cause all of a sudden i don't think a lot of those songs are that bad and i'm wondering how the record got such a bad rap after all.

i always tend to link music to certain times and events in my life. So, maybe i have a fondness for the record cause i have a fondness for that period of time....i don't know....anyway, these are my favorites:

Blue Denim
Greta
Docklands
Love is Like a River
Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind
Kick It

I've also been warming up to the song "Street Angel"....i do like the line "a Charles Dickens character with your tophat and your scarves..."

I use to make fun of "Docklands" with all of its laundromat/brush your hair lines but i like the chorus and i especially love when Stevie sings "....iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii beg of you" towards the end...and also the lines "lost in a place where i was born without a hand to hold on to"....

"Blue Denim" is a great little rocker that i feel is probably the best song on the album and i wish she would reconsider doing it live again....i love the line"well yes i'm going away for a little while to remember how to feel..." i also love the dual vocals she does on that song especially the ending....

i love "Greta" too but i think i like the demo just a bit more....i love the change into "she's got her bags packed, and she's off to the valley where the sun meets the sea...."

"Love is Like a River" is great rocker and i instantly loved it....how can you not like that ending...."i think you're uptight lady!" i could play that part over and over again and usually do.

can't think of anything interesting to say about "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind" except that i think a little guitar instrumental would have worked in the middle of it after she sings "all i want to do is to be there with you"....

"Kick It" should have been released as a single....ok, my question is, what business did she have in Egypt???? hahaha....

alright, anyway "Unconditional Love" is ok but there's something in the chorus that i don't like....it's like the girls voices blend too much or something. also, the middle part where she goes "hey hey hey hey hey, my precious one" annoys me for some reason..."Jane" isn't a bad song but i can't get past the lyrics about the chimpanzee....otherwise, i think the melodies are good but i think the music could have been a little less polished.

So, that's my sort of dissertation of the album....i also found a bootleg audience recording from a show in NJ and i don't think she sounded that bad....why do we all bash her for this era? I think she had a lot of power back then, smoking or not....and her hair was really funky too.....at a few points in the tape i thought i was listening to a rock a little show....she seemed to hit a lot of high notes. i didn't get to go to her concert then cause a bad storm caused SPAC in Saratoga, NY to cancel the show....i'm kind of sorry now...oh well. at least there's bootlegs.



any thoughts? questions? comments? does anyone care?

[strandinthewind]

I really like almost all of Street Angel except for Docklands. I think people at this time tend to somewhat confuse Stevie's weight with the quality of her voice. For example, although I am sure that one exists and unlike the RAL period, she sounded great in every recording I have heard of the Street Angel concerts and she sounded great when I saw her live in Atlanta. So, I conclude people thought well, she is fat - so she can't sing. Also, she totally rocked and danced around in the Atlanta show despite her weight. Actually, she moved around so much I kind of thought she was dancing so much in an effort to lose weight. Finally, God's Garden is just great. Why o why did she take it off and stick Docklands on there. You really cannot blame the Klonopin because I read an interview where she came out of rehab, realized she did not like the record, and then tried to fix it but stopped not because of time, but becasue she said she had to just let it go. Thus, I say if she had time to try to fix it, she could have booted Docklands for God's Garden.

Also, I know it is often ridiculed, but I think Jane is one of her prettiest songs ever.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by joe
"Kick It" should have been released as a single....ok, my question is, what business did she have in Egypt????

I have absolutely no idea if this is what Stevie was referring to, but I remember reading quite some time ago, about a religious sect which believes during "the end days," that certain people around the world will make their way to Egypt, where they'll all be returned to the Heavens in a mass exodus.

[TwoTricky]

I bought this CD when it first came out and I wasn't too crazy about it....I'm still not all that crazy about it, but I promise I won't bash

I absolutely love "Greta"...(Tricky sings off key) "Another lady...another time...another heartbroken state of mind..."

Ahem...moving on...

Street Angel reminds me of Mick Fleetwood (I'm not sure if she wrote it for him or not, but he always comes to my mind) and it's a sweet song....(could've done without David Crosby but what'dya gonna do)

I prefer the 'rocking' of Listen to the Rain rather than Love is Like A River...

Stevie: "You used to call me wicked"
Girls: 'WICKED!!'

Stevie: "I used to call you friend"
Girls: 'FRIEND!!!'

The way the Girls just MAGNIFIED everything Stevie said (I near jumped out of my skin the first listen) and the fact that "love is like a river" is mentioned over and over and over and over...(borderline bashing....sorry )

I LOVE Rose Garden...such a sweet simple country song...I was going thru a rough time in my marriage then (luckily we worked it out) but that song always hit home and I quickly identified with it....to this day it still touches me and is a very special song...sometimes things aren't so 'rosey' no matter how perfect they seem.

Kick It...I could take it....it's not bad....

The whole chimp thing though


All in all....it's no Wild Heart, but it's not bad to listen to in the background once in a blue moon

Originally posted by TwoTricky
I LOVE Rose Garden...such a sweet simple country song...I was going thru a rough time in my marriage then (luckily we worked it out) but that song always hit home and I quickly identified with it....to this day it still touches me and is a very special song...sometimes things aren't so 'rosey' no matter how perfect they seem.

oh yeah, i knew there was another song i forgot....i liked it in the beginning but i like it even more now. it just goes to show you how songs can benefit from their simplicity.

Originally posted by strandinthewind
Also, she totally rocked and danced around in the Atlanta show despite her weight. Actually, she moved around so much I kind of thought she was dancing so much in an effort to lose weight....You really cannot blame the Klonopin

you know, it doesn't make sense....the clips i've seen of her that year and the live shows i've heard did not seem like they were suffering due to her klonopin use....it seemed quite the opposite....as a matter of fact, i thought some of her performances during the Behind the Mask era were a bit listless at least when i saw them.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by joe

anyway, recently this summer i have found myself really liking the album and i'm playing it constantly in the car....or, i should say, i'll play selected songs cause there's a few in there that i can't deal with...it's just kind of weird cause all of a sudden i don't think a lot of those songs are that bad and i'm wondering how the record got such a bad rap after all.

When Stevie did her little press junket for this tour and she was at KBCO she said it was a great record to cruise around to in a '66 Mustang. She said it right before they played Listen To The Rain.

[macmar71]

Not a favorite album of mine but I do love a few of the songs. Kick It, Blue Denim and Rose Garden are the ones I always play when I put it on.

[gldstwmn]

Originally posted by joe
you know, it doesn't make sense....the clips i've seen of her that year and the live shows i've heard did not seem like they were suffering due to her klonopin use....it seemed quite the opposite....as a matter of fact, i thought some of her performances during the Behind the Mask era were a bit listless at least when i saw them.

Her voice on the SA tour IMO was in top from. She was tearing it up all over the place. Wasn't she off the klonopin by the time she went on the road though?

[darklinensuit]

Second time trying to post this. First time the server was too busy & it all vanished.

When I first got SA I liked it better than I liked TOSOTM, believe it or not. Less keyboards, less dragging pace, but to be honest, fewer great songs.

Before the full album came out I played the crap out of Inspiration. Vocals are better than the lyrics. Telephones are as mundane as a laundromat, but hey, I'm not a phone person.

Blue Denim is good, but lost its punch live with a weaker guitar sound.

I loved Kick It, but a bit of its charm has faded. Perhaps with Stevie's current vocal exercises she could improve the chorus.

I love Destiny. Great harmonies. Love the ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-oooooh parts & sax. I don't mind the similarities to Enchanted, which has such a different, peppy sound. It's like she's reflecting on the last ten years, revisiting a theme a la Blue Lamp/Welcome to the Room...Sara with the upstairs/downstairs.

Rose Garden works quite well. Catchy sound and respectable lyrical quality.

For the record, I HATE the boxed set versions of Destiny & Rose Garden. They are horrible: Destiny with a three note sound and no harmonies, Rose Garden minus the catchy stuff. The SA versions are FAR superior.

I like Unconditional Love for what it is, a pleasant Not-Written-by-Stevie-but-Could-Appeal-to-the-Masses song a la Talk to Me, & Every Day. But they released Maybe Love instead. Maybe Love is an eighties song lacking eighties production and doesn't quite thrill me as much.

I like Love is Like a River, including the echoes from the back-up singers - these exchanges remind me of All the Beautiful Worlds with more funk.

Listen to the Rain is okay, but the scratchy vocal near the bridge is a bit contrived.

Jane is a fine song - better vocals than the demo, but would be better with the piano instead of the keyboards. The chimp thing doesn't bother me. She's singing a tribute to a woman who has devoted her life to chimps. Of course it will come off a bit sappy to those of us who lack that enormous devotion. A romantic like Stevie is going to come off sappy in this context, I suppose.

Mirror Mirror is better than some of the songs on the album. It's surprisingly effective for a song that's so keyboard-dependent.

Greta is not a favorite, but I like the demo a lot, with its tighter sound.

IMO God's Garden would work better as a love song, with a chorus like I see US walk on water, playing in God's garden, etc., as if Stevie's thinking of a lost love that worked out in a parallel universe. Like I said, JMO.

All in all, a good album, but I don't rank it at the top of Stevie's work.

- Jake

[David]

Originally posted by gldstwmn
Her voice on the SA tour IMO was in top from. She was tearing it up all over the place. Wasn't she off the klonopin by the time she went on the road though?

Yes, she was off the **** by then.

The "Street Angel" album & tour are the best Stevie's been, in my opinion, since her Second Great Age came to an end in 1986. Her First Great Age, characterized by the attitude & youthful abandon of the mid-1970s rock scene, lasted until 1980, when the Second Great Age of Stevie Nicks began. This age, which I dub the Empress of the Pagoda Age, is marked by a highly formal, almost hieratic amplification of her image & a rougher, deeper, richer vocal style.

The Third Age (how great it's been is open to opinion) started in 1987 & has lasted till the present day. So I think Stevie's best studio & concert work is found on the "Street Angel" album & tour. The album has something of the grace & complexity of a Partridge Family album, like "Sound Magazine" or "Up To Date." I saw some shows on the tour, & heard most of the others on fans' recordings, & I have to say that it was the greatest of the Third Age concert tours, without or with Fleetwood Mac.

I hate hearing people bag on "Street Angel"! So knock it off.

[strandinthewind]

In an interview, Stevie said she made the Street Angel songs and then went into rehab. When she got out of rehab, she realized the recoidings were not that great. She then tried to fix the music, not the vocals, but just had to let it go for financial reason, her sanity, etc. Then she was horrified to promote what she thought was a mediocre record. She did think, however, the press were polite enough in their reviews and seemed greatful to them fot it.

[gldstwmn]

I thought Ethan Jones (who is?) wrote God's Garden and Stevie wrote Unconditional. I'm so confused. Forgive me, I have a fever.

[Johnny Stew]

Originally posted by joe
you know, it doesn't make sense....the clips i've seen of her that year and the live shows i've heard did not seem like they were suffering due to her klonopin use....it seemed quite the opposite....

Even though 'Street Angel' was recorded while she was still using Klonopin, Stevie had actually kicked the habit sometime in late 1993, prior to the actual release of the album and the subsequent tour (her stay in rehab was yet another factor in 'Street Angel's' many delays).

I think her energy and enthusiasm on stage during that tour, was born out of Stevie starting to feel like herself once again, for the first time in far too many years, and actually having fun being up there performing.

[Johnny Stew]

Oops, I should have read the rest of the thread before I responded to Joe's comment... then I would have saved everyone from having to read a redundant post!

Sorry about that.


By the way... even though "Mirror Mirror" was the b-side to "Blue Denim," the track is a leftover from the 'Rock A Little' sessions, and was not newly recorded for 'Street Angel.'

However, in the case of "Thousand Days"... which was also originally recorded for 'Rock A Little'... the version found on the European singles (and the longer version included on 'Enchanted') were freshly recorded in the '90s.
Though I'm not sure... given that it was co-produced with Chris Lord-Alge, rather than Thom Panunzio... if it was ever actually intended for 'Street Angel,' or if it was always meant as an "extra" for use elsewhere.