The album Stevie Nicks said should have never been made
There were bound to be a few songs that Stevie Nicks was more proud of than others when she put out a record.
The classics have etched themselves into history for a reason, but even when looking at some of the biggest albums Fleetwood Mac ever made, there are always those few songs that Nicks would have rather not have put out or was outwardly insulted by when they worked on Rumours. But even when she ventured out into her solo career, it’s not like she was saying that everything she did was spotless from top to bottom.
Then again, all rock and roll is meant to be imperfect to some degree. No one comes to their favourite artists wanting to listen to technically perfect songs all the time, and Nicks has always brought that certain mystique to all of her records even if she wasn’t singing everything exactly right. But after working on Bella Donna, you could almost feel a change in the air when she went back to Fleetwood Mac. The band were on the same page, but Nicks had a whole new career to worry about.
She wasn’t going to ignore the success of ‘Edge of Seventeen’ or ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’, and a lot of her greatest moments in the 1980s were about finding that perfect balance between the band and her solo career. There was a way to make a song like ‘Stand Back’ while also appearing on tunes like ‘Little Lies’ and ‘Everywhere’, but after Lindsey Buckingham split from the band, Nicks was already dealing with her own troubles.
Behind the Mask squeaked by alright in the mainstream, but after kicking her cocaine habit, her next muse was Klonopin. She was already struggling when going into the recording sessions for Street Angel, but before the record had even come out, she had already begun to butt heads with Glyn Johns once they got to the mixing stage.
Johns had already worked his magic for everyone from Eagles to The Who to The Rolling Stones, so it’s not like the record was in shaky hands or anything. But outside of having his own way in the studio, Nicks felt that the record was getting swallowed up before it had a chance to shine. Her vocals were already getting buried, and during the promotional cycle for it, she was already talking about how the record didn’t come together like she thought it would.
In the end, though, Nicks said that she should have had another chance to work on her parts for the record, saying, “This is not my record. So I went back in for about eight weeks, and I didn’t mess with the vocals, which I should have… I should have gone back in and really worked with the album, with the vocals.” The vocals are certainly a bit weaker than before, but the real issue had to do with what was happening in the background.
Her addiction was slowly starting to consume her, and even after she got clean and started working on new music, she had no problem telling friends like Sheryl Crow that the whole record was doomed from the start. But if there’s one thing that the fans love more than anything, it’s a comeback story, and Nicks was going to give her fans something to remember once she made Trouble in Shangrila.
She may have had to go through a lot of sleepless nights to get to the other side, but Street Angel doesn’t need to be looked at as ‘the album she made when she was strung out’. This was an honest document of where she was at the time, and she wanted to do everything in her power to make sure she never got to this position ever again.
