A 2011 Stevie Nicks record is a frustrating prospect. Past glories like “Dreams,” “Gypsy” and “Edge of Seventeen” have inhabited a space between the fantasy of longing and the reality of loneliness cherished by fans for decades. Even the titles betray any subtlety Nicks wants to bring to her songwriting. She speaks for the high school sophomore who just got cut from the field hockey team or caught her best friend making out with her crush outside the mall; not the self-exploratory undergrad that’s taken to smoking cloves and just slept with her first exchange student. The latter is a phase, while the former is the kind of hallmark of growing up that secures Nicks’ position as one of the preeminent female voices of influence in modern music. As it turns out, the current market for romantic angst has seldom been this ripe for seasoned interpretation. The juvenilia of current trends involving the lusting undead (Twilight – for the less bookish) is unsurprisingly right up Nicks’ alley and has, somewhat appallingly, lured Nicks back into the studio after penning a song that is actually called “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream).” I wish I could say that I’m kidding. Moreover, I wish I could pretend that it isn’t a good song.
My friend Alison, no stranger to the age reductive appeal of the Twilight juggernaut, remarked upon hearing In Your Dreams how obvious it is that Nicks is “still in love with Lindsey Buckingham” and that it’s “too bad she got too fat for him.” There’s some validity to that notion, in listening to the production of this album. Maybe it’s a willful bid on Nicks' part for some compressed relevance, while Buckingham still seems like a man who has never purchased a calendar.
Despite those apparent incompatibilities, Nicks is antsy for another installment of the further adventures of Fleetwood Mac, as she’s mined her old songbook for the awesome album opener “Secret Love” and the title track from In Your Dreams which sounds like it wandered out of the Rumours recording sessions and got lost on the Sunset Strip for thirty years.
The tearjerker “For What It’s Worth,” slotted between the once and future Mac songs, (with no less a Heartbreaker than Mike Campbell in tow on co-writing credit) is so unabashedly mournful of her lost shot at being Mrs. Buckingham that it ought to be titled “Life Without You, Lindsey, Ain’t Worth the Powder on my Donut.” The song borrows not only its title from both Buffalo Springfield and the Cardigans, but the opening vocal melody from the bridge of “Why” by producer Dave Stewart’s fellow former Eurythmic. That chorus, though, is a “lock your doors and windows” killer. Nicks brings it so strong on this opening trifecta that she all but sets up the listener for disappointment and forces the album into uneven territory. “Wide Sargasso Sea” sounds like the band Placebo on safari, but provides Nicks with her fix of forbidden love among some monsters of slightly more classic literary standing than New Moon. Laying in wait is the overwhelmingly trite “New Orleans,” which sounds like Nicks picked up a Louisiana guidebook and broke out a highlighter when she got to the French Quarter page. The last two tracks of the album suffer from similar travelogue banality and bog down the whole affair more than it deserves, where wiser sequencing would have it end with “You May Be the One”, the best insta-prom theme since “Drive” by the Cars.
Elsewhere across the record, the songwriting remains strong and the juiced-up production suits tracks like the shit-kicking roadhouse burner “Ghosts Are Gone.” But it all comes down to “Soldier’s Angel” which features Buckingham himself on the chorus harmony and adds a song of immeasurable power to both their canon. Nicks hasn’t shined this bold and brightly since she recorded “Insider” with Tom Petty. Okay, fine, maybe since “Leather and Lace.”
Artist:
www.rockalittle.com/
www.myspace.com/032165498
www.facebook.com/stevienicks
www.twitter.com/#!/realstevienicks
Album:
In Your Dreams is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
