The modern musical icon that Stevie Nicks said “changed me forever”
It would be easy for an artist as experienced and celebrated as Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks to believe they knew everything there was to know about music. Many acclaimed musicians stop keeping their ears to the ground at a certain age, but Nicks still feels the same euphoria upon hearing a new sound that lights a spark within her soul.
Nicks doesn’t need to remain active in the music industry for monetary reasons. However, it’s more than an occupation to the singer-songwriter; it’s her calling and why she’s on this planet. While Fleetwood Mac is no more, Nicks continues to dedicate her life to touring as a solo artist and, in 2024, released the powerful pro-women anthem ‘The Lighthouse’ amid the dismal backdrop of the US election.
While she has achieved godlike status in the music industry, Nicks doesn’t look down on the generations below her. Instead, she looks to them for inspiration, such as Lana Del Rey, with whom the Fleetwood Mac vocalist shares a special relationship. Their joint track, ‘Beautiful People Beautiful Problems’, featured on Del Rey’s 2017 album Lust For Life, and it was a mutually beneficial exercise for both artists. Nicks has always been open to the art of collaboration. If the opportunity feels right, she will trust her gut instinct and happily oblige.
In recent years, she’s lent her voice to Miley Cyrus’ work and created the utterly forgettable ‘Remedy’ with Maroon 5. While not all of her experiments have succeeded, Nicks’ willingness to associate herself with the younger generation of artists is a credit to her open-minded spirit.
Out of the list of the younger artists she has recently collaborated with, nobody has inspired her artistically like Del Rey. Nicks was approached late on during the recording process of Lust For Life because the singer “really felt like I wanted [another] woman on the record.”
The dream alliance was brokered by her longtime producer, Rick Nowels. He has known Nicks since they were teenagers, and she gave him his debut production credit back in 1995. Although Del Rey thought Lust For Life was finished at this stage, the addition of Nicks on ‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems’ was an irresistible extra sparkle that she knew would take the album up a level, which it duly did.
Speaking to KROQ about working with her hero, the ‘Video Games’ singer praised Nicks’ level of engagement with modern music, noting: “She was amazing. She’s just everything you hope she’s gonna be. She’s so contemporary, and she knows all the new music that’s out weekly. She loved the track and she added so much to it.” Del Rey added: “She’s one of the few people I know that says the muse is the most important thing to her. More than anything else, her priority is just following the muse wherever it takes her, whether it’s a 60-date tour or new record or solo endeavour. So she’s inspirational like that.”
Additionally, the pair enjoyed a conversation together for V Magazine to promote the track. While it was a dream for Del Rey to spend more time in Nicks’ presence, the latter gained more from their encounter than her younger accomplice. “You have a beautiful voice and I’ve already learned things to add to how I sing from you,” Nicks told Del Rey. “Working on your song has changed me forever because I’ve learned from you.”
Nicks added: “We are witchy sisters and that’s it. That’s where ‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems’ comes from because we are trying to ride above all the problems and have hope in everything else, but it’s still a world filled with problems no matter how hard we try to change it.”
‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems’ shows magic can happen when artists from different generations bundle together in a studio and collaborate. Although the combination of Del Rey and Nicks sounds like an incredible blend of musical talent, these collaborations have a habit of not living up to the hype and falling flat. Thankfully, ‘Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems’ more than delivered, and the only shame is they haven’t coalesced on another creation since.
