To be real, Stevie Nicks hasn’t been in my dreams for several decades, and she’s certainly been off my radar since the days for a least two of ‘em. Remember the last time she tried to be “modern” and she ended up working with Brett Michaels in a weak attempt to look “hip?”Embarrassing.
The thing about Ms. Nicks, and God, I hope she would have figured this out by now, is that she created her own enigma, so fuck everyone and run with it, sister!
That moment in School of Rock where Jack Black spins “Edge of Seventeen” for Joan Cusack’s character? That shit’s real! Stevie had the ability to transfix fans back in the day, even under the presence of compressed recordings and dumbass electronic drums. The only thing that and Brett Michael’s co-writing credits did was make us forget how compelling she could be lyrically and stylistically.
I don’t know about you, but I got tired of having to make excuses for her stupid decisions that I walked away. And now there’s news that she’s ready to make nice and give an album that’s good even though it’s been forever when an album like In Your Dreams really mattered.
Fans of Stevie will call this a return to form and they’ll be very pleased with this effort. These are the people that she should be groveling to, but judging by the half-assed marketing effort, and yes, the half-assed effort to again sound “modern,” Stevie once again is stuck in the past where she believes this record will somehow be received well by others who don’t have their hearts already lodged in her Bag of Holding.
To do this, Stevie has created a soundtrack for the Twilight/True Blood sect, that may get a kick out of embarrassing New Orleans odes and tales about vampires, but it doesn’t do much for me at all.
Seriously, she’s in her 60’s now, and a bunch of her material on In Your Dreams sounds like the kind of work she would have tossed out during Rumors. It’s half-assed, and for someone who released her best work around the time of Rumors-and someone who hasn’t released a new album in almost a decade-you would think that Stevie would give a shit with this album and not settle for “half-assed.”
Instead, she delivers that aforementioned ode to New Orleans (called simply “New Orleans,” btw) with the skill of someone who’s never really been there, but has glanced at the brochure. “I want to dress up/I want to wear beads/I want wear feathers and lace/I want to brush by Anne Rice/I want to go down Bourbon Street” is the best she can come up with, along with some references to ghosts, Mardi Gras, and Hurricane Katrina.
Nicks dishes up another reflective middle-age musing about a trip to Italy (“Italian Summer”) with such phrases as “Oh it’s so romantic/Hey it’s so soulful/The rain falls down and the thunder rolls.” It makes my parents’ own retelling of their trip to Venice a few years ago sound positively enthralling.
Thankfully, producer Dave Stewart-a pairing that I struggled with when I first heard the news-does a good job of keeping even the most cringe-worthy lyrics tolerable by working together a mix that references her most organic moments and ones that won’t make In Your Dreams sound too remarkably dated in a few years.
Ironically, the album’s two finest moments come through the opening track, “Secret Love,” and with “Annabel Lee.”
“Secret Love” turns out to be a leftover from Stevie’s Rumors-era songbook, concerning yet another beau she bedded during her cocaine nose-job period. No names are provided, but then again, do you really want to know after learning about her affair with Mick Fleetwood?
“Annabel Lee” is the peak performance, a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe’s poem of the same name. The song has been floating around the Nicks’ cannon for a while now, never officially seeing the light of day until now. It’s worth the wait, and one of tracks within In Your Dreams that keep it from falling into the grasp of middle-aged moms across the country still following the flight of the one-winged dove.
No comments:
Post a Comment