The 2001 album that pushed Stevie Nicks to the brink of retirement: “That was heartbreaking”
When it comes to acts whose name carries a prestige on the level of Stevie Nicks, there’s a common misconception that there’s more freedom to do whatever they want. While this might be the case in some cases, often, they have it harder than you’d think.
Staying at the top for decades upon decades is no easy task. After all, one look at the current landscape will tell you that most musicians who rose to fame in the 1960s and ’70s are no longer positioned in the mainstream like they once were, with much of their audience being longtime loyal fans who have been there through thick and thin. Their influence on modern music will always be there, but their physical presence is less conspicuous.
However, while this might be the case for many of those still putting out music, Nicks is an exception to the rule. This could be thanks to her being more present among many of the current musical pop stars taking the world by storm, like Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Sabrina Carpenter, but she also remains a prominent figure because she still feels incredibly important, even though she hasn’t put out anything new for years.
Admittedly, she does what a lot of the same legacy acts do and survives by hopping aboard the nostalgia train more often than not. But, in her case, it works because it actually feels meaningful, rather than an attempt at cashing in on something that people stopped caring about long ago. ‘Landslide’ is usually a go-to when it comes to dueting with younger stars, and besides being a great song that people still love, it taps into many things people still resonate with today, like growing older and navigating change.
That said, Nicks isn’t anywhere near as confident as her legacy makes her out to be, and, in fact, she’s suffered from imposter syndrome from day one. It says a lot that many of her best songs came from the early days, when she and Lindsey Buckingham gave themselves a deadline to pursue music and felt as though they were chasing a pipe dream rather than on the path to a sustainable future.
Yet, even after she ‘made it’, Nicks still felt as though the rug could be pulled out from under her, even more so when she surpassed her so-called peak and entered the phase of her legacy when most musicians either throw in the towel or attempt to push through the uncertainty. Nicks did the latter, but not without facing some relatively hard truths about how she’d learn to sustain her career in the age of the internet and as someone who is no longer as fresh-faced as they once was.
This moment of reflection came after the release of Trouble in Shangri-La. At the time, Nicks was regaining her confidence in music, but she was also listening to her manager’s opinions on how the digital age would impact the industry, who told her that it would “eventually kill the music business”.
On top of that, she was processing the fact that people listening to records in their entirety was becoming a dying art, and that the general public only listened to hits nowadays, making the concept of a record no longer meaningful.
A “heartbreaking” realisation, Nicks was advised that the best thing for her to do as a legacy act was to focus on touring rather than making new material. Which is why ten years went by before she made her next record, In Your Dreams, which remains her last collection of solo material. While she has discussed her hopes to make something new, as of yet, Nicks has mainly remained a towering figure with a legacy built on historical achievements.
To her credit, though, there’s still a lot of life left in said historical achievements. Unlike many of her peers, people have yet to grow tired of Nicks’ music, much less accuse her of doing nothing more than flogging a dead horse. And if that day finally arrives, Nicks might just be ready to create new material, realising that the people do still want it – even after all this time.
