Street Angel (album)

Street Angel
Studio album by Stevie Nicks
Released May 23, 1994
Recorded 1992–1994
Genre Rock
Length 57:32
Label Modern Records/Atlantic Records
Producer Stevie Nicks, Thom Panunzio, Exec. Glen Parrish
Stevie Nicks chronology

Timespace - The Best of Stevie Nicks
(1991)		 Street Angel
(1994)		 Enchanted
(1998)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
Rolling Stone [2]

Street Angel is the Gold-certified fifth studio album from American singer-songwriter and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks. Released in 1994, the album debuted at #45 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart with first week sales of 38,000 and spent only 3 weeks within the top 100. The album has since sold over 231,000 copies in the US and was certified Gold for shipments of over 500,000 copies.

Album history

The album was released in 1994, during a particularly unhappy time in Nicks' life and career. It was the first album she released after her much publicized departure from Fleetwood Mac, and during the tail end of her 8-year-long dependency on the prescription medication Klonopin. It is the least successful record of her solo career, peaking at only #45 in the U.S. The album has, however, achieved Gold status there for shipping 500,000 copies.[3]

Unlike all of her previous releases, the album did not yield any major hit singles, though "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind" reached #57 on the Billboard Hot 100. A second single, "Blue Denim", did not chart at all.

The album enjoyed slightly more prominence in the UK, where it peaked at #16, though again there were no top 40 hits from it. "Blue Denim" was originally lined up as the lead-release in the UK, and promotional copies were circulated to radio stations in April 1994, but it was replaced at the last moment by the more pop-friendly "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind", which peaked at #42. The UK release of the "Maybe Love..." single featured two separate CD-single releases as an attempt to boost the song's chance of UK chart success (no promotional video was shot for the single, unlike "Blue Denim"), and included a newly recorded version of "Thousand Days" (originally demo-ed for her 1985 Rock a Little album).

Nicks has tended to look upon the album's lack of success as a result of her dependency on Klonopin and, due to the resultant onset of writer's block from which she suffered until 1995, most of the songs used were outtakes from previous solo albums. "Greta", "Love Is Like a River", and "Listen to the Rain" date back to the Rock a Little era. "Destiny" was written in the early 1970s before Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac, and shares some lyrics with the song "Enchanted". It was originally considered for The Wild Heart album but ultimately not selected. "Rose Garden" was written when Nicks was 17 and was considered for the Rock a Little album. Street Angel also features a cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like a Woman", with Dylan himself on harmonica. Originally, the album was produced by Glyn Johns and was ready for release in February 1993, with "Unconditional Love" as the first promo single.

Nicks was not happy with the production of Johns and spoke about the issues in an interview with Joe Benson: "And I didn't fix it while I was working with the person that I was working with [Glyn Johns]...who doesn't like to be talked about because he's not speaking to me, um...I didn't like it when he was there, and he knew it, and basically he told me to...like, in no uncertain English, very rough terms, to shut up and deal with it and this was the way it was going to be."[4]

"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. But I was so sort of overwhelmed with trying to fix the things that I didn't like about the music, which was like...there was no percussion, there was no Waddy Wachtel. Because I was told that the last thing that I would need was Waddy Wachtel. And I, you know...I mean, to that comment I was so speechless that I just didn't do anything, I said ok. So when I went back in, I had Waddy come in and play, and I had Peter Michael come in and put percusssion on, and Michael Campbell came back and put some more guitar on it, and we re-mixed everything, and we did a lot of other things besides that."

"I should have gone back in and really worked with the album, with the vocals. Because that's something that...I guess that was the last thing that I knew was wrong with it, and after being in two months trying to fix everything that I thought was wrong about the music and the mixes, it was almost kind of like, you know, maybe you just need to let this go and go on. I mean, this is three years now. And this record should have been out a long time ago. It may be new for everybody else, but it's really old for me."

The album suffered further as Nicks spent her second stint in drug rehabilitation (for Klonopin dependency) during the mixing and mastering period. The record label rushed the production so Nicks would be ready to promote the album once out of rehab, but this meant that she had no input into the overall sound or tracklisting of the album - these duties were overseen by co-producer Thom Panunzio, who had previously worked with Nicks' close friend Tom Petty. On coming out of rehab, Nicks returned to the studio (without Johns) to overdub and re-record a lot of what had already been done. Despite her efforts, the album did not turn out how she wanted. She was, however, able to present some of the album's tracks ("Street Angel", "Destiny", "Rose Garden" and "Blue Denim") in her own final mixes on the 3-disc Enchanted retrospective in 1998.

Track listing

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Blue Denim"  Nicks/Mike Campbell 4:22
2. "Greta"  Nicks/Campbell 4:18
3. "Street Angel"  Nicks 4:09
4. "Docklands"  Trevor Horn/Betsy Cook 4:47
5. "Listen to the Rain"  Nicks/Monroe Jones/Scott Crago 4:33
6. "Destiny"  Nicks 5:00
7. "Unconditional Love"  Sandy Stewart/Dave Mundy 3:20
8. "Love Is Like a River"  Nicks 4:44
9. "Rose Garden"  Nicks 4:28
10. "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind"  Rick Nowels/Stewart 4:18
11. "Just Like a Woman"  Bob Dylan 3:50
12. "Kick It"  Nicks/Campbell 4:25
13. "Jane"  Nicks/Joel Derouin 4:59
Total length:
 57:32

B-sides

  1. "Mirror Mirror" – B-side to "Blue Denim" cassette single. Originally recorded for the Rock a Little album in 1984 and later surfaced during sessions for The Other Side of the Mirror in 1989 but was never included. Nicks later revealed that "Mirror Mirror" was the original intended title for both albums. The version released as a B-side was recorded in 1984, but it was later revealed that a 1992 recording of the song was originally intended as the b-side and that the 1984 recording was added in error
  2. "Thousand Days" – B-side to the European CD single for "Blue Denim" and UK single for "Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind". Later appeared on disc 3 of the Enchanted box set. The song was originally written for the Rock a Little album, and demos were recorded, but the song was scrapped.
  3. "Inspiration" - B-side to "Maybe Love". A song cut from the final album but included on the Japanese release as a bonus track.

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1994 US 45
1994 UK 16

Promotion & Tour

Nicks made an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on August 24, 1994 performing "Blue Denim" and sat down for an interview with Leno. She also performed the song on The Late Show with David Letterman and sat down for a memorable interview in which she discussed the Bill Clinton inauguration. [5]

Nicks toured in support of the album across the US during 1994. Although praised for her post-klonopin vocals, she was criticised for her weight gain and once the tour was over, vowed never to walk on stage again until she had reached a more reasonable weight.

Set list:

Encore:

Tour dates:

Notes:

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Rolling Stone review
  3. ↑ "American album certifications – Stevie Nicks – Street Angel". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Album, then click SEARCH
  4. ↑ http://rockalittle.com/offtherecord.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/stevie-nicks/1994/tonight-show-with-jay-leno-burbank-ca-23db246b.html