Review/Photos: Stevie Nicks... The Fillmore... The Feathers... The Red Dress!

Continue to the full review and a lot more photos

Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart have penned a modern classic in “Everybody Loves You"

Stevie Nicks, “Everybody Loves You”
By Davis Inman
American Songwriter

With a chorus hook that seems in equal parts inspired by the hit DNA of U2′s “One” and REM’s “Everybody Hurts,” Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart have penned a modern classic in “Everybody Loves You.”

The song comes on Stevie Nicks’ new album, In Your Dreams, produced by Dave Stewart. It seems appropriate that for Nicks’ first album in a decade, she’s chosen to tackle aspects of Fleetwood Mac’s complicated past: the romantic entanglements and revolving personnel doors that would lead to the group’s most successful work.

Fleetwood Mac began life as a Peter Green-helmed British blues rock entity, along with the rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, for whom Green named the band and who would prove to be the only stable force through years of lineup changes.

By the early ‘70s, Green was out, and the band seemed to be switching guitar-playing singer-songwriters like relief pitchers in a baseball game. (1974’s Kiln House seems a clear high-water mark for the ’50s blues-meets-’70s soft rock transitional period caretaken by Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer.)

By 1975, Mick Fleetwood had moved the band to Los Angeles and was looking for a new guitarist. In a feature story, Nicks tells American Songwriter’s Lynne Margolis that “destiny” brought she and Lindsay Buckingham together.

“[Mick Fleetwood] definitely heard strains of Peter Green [in Lindsay Buckingham] and all the other famous guitar players who had been in Fleetwood Mac for the five years before that. So the fact that this big tall guy would come in and Keith Olsen would play him a song off a Buckingham-Nicks record that never really went anywhere, that two years before had opened to critical acclaim and then was dropped like a rock by Polydor—what are the chances of that? One in 20 million?”

Buckingham and Nicks would join the group and Olsen would produce the new lineup’s first album, Fleetwood Mac (their second eponymous release). The Buckingham-Nicks dynamic would help move the band into Fleetwood Mac’s golden era of ‘70s California smooth rock, which in 1977 produced Rumours, created in the midst of the power couple’s disintegration.

Stewart also headed up a famous formerly-romantic musical duo with Annie Lennox in Eurythmics, and Nicks says there was an unspoken bond between the two when working together on “Everybody Loves You.”

Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Blondie and The Cars - Ageless on new albums

Veteran rock artists like Lindsey Buckingham prove ageless on new albums
By Joe Szczechowski
Delconews Network

If there’s anything more difficult than achieving success in popular music, it’s sustaining that success. The overwhelming majority of artists and bands never sign to a national record label. Only a small percentage of signed artists ever sell enough music to make the charts. Of those that do, the majority make their mark and disappear with careers that last less than five years. For that reason alone, artists and bands that have enjoyed careers lasting 10, 20 or 30 years and more deserve respect and attention.

Rock and pop music is primarily marketed to and created by young people. With a few exceptions, established artists who pass middle age and continue to create music are often overlooked or ignored. Ironically, while the artists may be aging, their music remains ageless. Over the last few months, a wealth of "classic" rock and pop stars released new, notable albums that belied the age of their creators and deserved an audience.

In case you missed them, here are four of the best:

Panic of Girls; Blondie (Eleven Seven/EMI)
Move like This; The Cars (Hear Music)

In Your Dreams; Stevie Nicks (Reprise) –In the press release accompanying In Your Dreams, Stevie Nicks’ first album in 10 years, Nicks is quoted as saying: “This was one of the most extraordinary experiences I’ve had making a record. It is the first album that I have had this kind of collaboration since the making of Rumours. It was everything I always wished making a record would be.” Since major-label releases by major artists are often accompanied by their fair share of hype, it was clear that the album was being marketed as a “return to form” for Nicks.

Surprisingly, In Your Dreams not only meets expectations; it surpasses them. Nicks’ solo work outside of Fleetwood Mac has always been uneven. She’s capable of writing some of rock music’s most poetic lyrics and matching them to memorable melodies, but she seemed to thrive best in Fleetwood Mac’s group environment, where her individual musical excesses were reined in.

In Your Dreams was written and recorded at Nicks’ Los Angeles home and is co-produced by Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) and Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette). Perhaps Stewart’s guiding hand was needed to extract this gem from Nicks. She literally sounds reborn – her voice is as clear and strong as it was on anything she ever sang with Fleetwood Mac.

Most of the material on the album was written over the past few years, but some songs – like the album’s first single, “Secret Love” and the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired “Annabel Lee” – date back as far as the early 70s.

Album highlights include “For What It’s Worth,” an acoustic mid-tempo ballad that’s as good as anything on Tusk, the aforementioned “Secret Love” and the up-tempo title track, which proves Nicks can indeed still “rock a little.”

Elsewhere, Nicks draws inspiration from literary sources in “Wild Sargasso Sea” (from the book and movie of the same name) and “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)” (inspired by the film New Moon), as well as places in “New Orleans” and “Italian Summer” and events in “Soldier's Angel.”

With only a few slight missteps, In Your Dreams might be Stevie Nicks’ most consistently strong album to date.

B+

Seeds We Sow; Lindsey Buckingham (Buckingham Records) – Ever since the modern incarnation of Fleetwood Mac rose to popularity in the mid-70s, the band’s most valuable player has been Lindsey Buckingham. Buckingham’s contributions – solid songwriting, emotional vocals, fluid, finger-style guitar playing, and state-of-the-art production – are largely responsible for making albums like Rumors and Tusk the pop music milestones they are.

All of those attributes align once again on Buckingham’s new solo album, Seeds We Sow. While it’s by no means a stripped-down acoustic set (the route Buckingham took for the most part on Under the Skin), Seeds We Sow has a very intimate feel to it. It’s an album that’s meant to be listened to with headphones – the better to appreciate every detail of Buckingham’s musical tapestry.

Buckingham is an excellent traditional pop songwriter, but what sets his music apart from the crowd is the unexpected, sometimes quirky layers he adds to his songs – the echo effect in “Stars Are Crazy” or the intense vocal surge on the chorus of “On Our Own Time.”

Fans of Buckingham’s Fleetwood Mac contributions or his earliest solo work will find much to like on Seeds We Sow. Songs like “Gone Too Far,” “Illumination,” and especially “That's the Way Love Goes” would have fit well on Fleetwood Mac albums of the late 70s and early 80s. It helps that Buckingham’s voice hasn’t lost any of its range or power, and also that his guitar playing remains top-notch. He shows off his trademark finger-style playing throughout the album, and even pulls out a terrific shredding solo on “One Take.”

With “Seeds We Sow,” Buckingham has created an album that will be appreciated by Fleetwood Mac fans, Lindsey Buckingham fans, and if there’s any justice, lots of new fans.

A-

Stevie Nicks "Season Ends With Fleetwood Mac Sounds"

Review: "In Your Dreams" is pure Nicks but with a more mature edge

STEVIE NICKS
Album review: "In Your Dreams" 

Stevie Nicks, who began winning hearts in the 1970s when she and Lindsey Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac, is back with her first solo album in a decade, "In Your Dreams." It's full of her trademark songs of love and longing, but the album is enriched by her experiences.

Consider the song "Soldier's Angel," which flows from solemn guitars that echo Nicks's world-weary vocals reflecting a soldier's mother, his wife and the soldier himself. Nicks's heartache is palpable, likely gained through her extensive charity work for the military.

Not that the album ever gets too heavy.

With "Annabel Lee," Nicks is right back to form. The song opens with soft keyboards that seem to almost sonically mimic a sprite before they give way to flowing guitars and Nicks's voice, this time as a maiden who lived with no other thought than to love and be loved. On "Cheaper Than Free," Nicks teams with producer Dave Stewart (the Eurythmics) for a duet in which they relish "what's better than alone, going home."

"In Your Dreams" is pure Nicks but with a more mature edge. It's a sound that's easy to love.

--Nancy Dunham, Sept. 2, 2011
The Washington Post


Stevie Nicks plays live on Saturday September 3rd
Venue: Jiffy Lube Live, 7800 Cellar Door Dr., Bristow, VA
Time: 8 p.m.
Info: 703-754-6400
Price: $25-$181

Stevie Nicks... Footage of "For What Its Worth" Video - Toledo...

Looking good!  Can't wait to see it...

Thanks to: @jtwill84 for a glimpse of what looks like another great video... 

Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams" strikingly versatile, covering love and politics, dreams and poems, rock and pop

Stevie Nicks' first album in 10 years is easily her strongest solo effort since "Bella Donna" in 1981. "In Your Dreams" is strikingly versatile, covering love and politics, dreams and poems, rock and pop. Props to producer Dave Stewart of Eurythmics and to Nicks for inviting ex-beau Lindsey Buckingham to play on "Soldier's Angel" and for recording "Secret Love," which she wrote during Fleetwood Mac's "Rumour" period. Nicks is so proud of this new album that she's willing to play outdoors in her witchy wardrobe in the heat of the summer. Read an interview with the Fleetwood Mac siren in Monday's Variety section. (7:30 p.m. Wed., Mystic Lake Casino amphitheater, $33-$46.)

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
August 18, 2011

STEVIE NICKS Live in Atlanta... Included "For What It's Worth" Video

Stevie's show went off without a hitch last night in Atlanta at Chastain Amphitheatre... Atlanta was originally scheduled for Monday night but because of medical reasons it was postponed until Wednesday which sadly meant cancelling Indianapolis.  We later found out that it was Stevie's vocal chords that were sore... Not so much from the singing but from talking.  She had been doing a lot of press lately and being the chatty person that she is... she just over did it a bit.  So that coupled with being on tour, just wore her voice down... So she obviously was advised to take a few days rest, which she did...

She spoke early in the show about how she had been on vocal rest due to press she had been doing for the new album... According to reports you could hear it in her speaking voice a little, but her singing voice was spot on!  The setlist remained intact from Woodlands on August 13th.  Two songs in total have been dropped since the beginning of the tour.. Sorcerer and unfortunately the lead track from her new album "In Your Dreams".  But with the ever popular Landslide back in the set and Leather and Lace, which hasn't been around in years... It's all good.  A noticeable change in the wardrobe department, Stevie ended the night in the white top she had been wearing beginning with Edge of Seventeen, but on this night she left out the white dress.

"FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH" VIDEO

Another major change was the "For What It's Worth" video made an appearance during her performance of the song... Descriptions of the new video for Stevie's new single, which hasn't actually premiered yet, say it looks really beautiful and very fitting for the song... The video was shot in the desert a few weeks ago with an old bus used as a backdrop as if they were driving across the USA.  Reports say there are a lot of close-ups of Stevie in the video - on the bus, getting her makeup done, playing guitar, hanging out with Dave Stewart and Mike Campbell.  Plus there are images of her standing out in the desert in black flowy chiffon with the wind blowing.  Stevie's niece Jessica, appears in the video as a makeup artist doing her makeup.... CAN'T WAIT TO SEE IT!!

Photos by: @yourgypsybrandi


Photos by: CA_Dream

Photos by: JadeInTheMoon

Review: Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "Her voice and mystique are showcased in all their gypsy glory"

Stevie Nicks
In Your Dreams
by Tina Haase Findlay
Jambands

She could have twirled off to golden-oldie land, resting comfortably on her Gold Dust laurels. She could have taken her forty years’ worth of credentials and retired to a castle in the hills, like her one-time Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie. But Stevie Nicks shows us with her seventh solo release, In Your Dreams, that she and her mysterious glamour aren’t leaving anytime soon, offering her finest collection of tunes since her breakthrough solo debut, Bella Donna, in 1981.

Faithful followers of this melodic enchantress are well aware that two key ingredients of the Nicks appeal are singular lyric lines and scattered breathtaking moments, as much as entire songs. This principle is in full force here, from her sensual opening line in “Secret Love”, an invitation to “come on, it’s time to go upstairs,” all the way to the wistful coos in the two closing gems, “Italian Summer” and “Cheaper Than Free,” the latter a duet with the project’s main producer, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. Always to his credit, Stewart artfully demonstrates a universal knack for bringing out the best in a female musical partner.

A mid-tempo, mid-album block of three songs- “New Orleans,” “Moonlight (Vampire’s Dream)” (inspired by the Bella and Edward “Twilight” romance), and a newly-arranged take on Poe’s “Annabel Lee,”- sounds sufficiently pleasant, yet somewhat repetitive at first, given the fact that all are in the same musical key with similar rhythm and pacing. Eventually, the unique poetic nuances of each do emerge, aided by the ever-stellar harmony vocals of Stevie’s longtime ladies-in-waiting, Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks.

The choice of a first single can make or break any album, and the pristine vanilla pop of “Secret Love” may not have been the best choice. Some critics would identify such choices as familiar tactical errors of past Stevie solo projects as well. It’s a nice enough, largely undemanding volley into today’s postmodern, musically-eclectic arena; designed as an effort to blend in with the perceived “hip and relevant” sonic palette and undoubtedly helped along by her recent pop culture star power moments on Dancing With The Stars, The Voice, the Fleetwood Mac episode of Glee, and even The Oprah Winfrey Show.

However, where Miss Nicks has always excelled is in the visiting of her extremes. On the ballad side, the new original “For What It’s Worth” possesses gentle “Landslide”-esque loveliness. And the album’s most potent emotional highlight is “Soldier’s Angel”, featuring her legendary romantic partner-in-rhyme Lindsey Buckingham, and is a stunning reminder of the greatness that transpires when the stars of Buckingham Nicks collide. At the other extreme of uptempo vigor and sass, Nicks gives it in spades on the straight-ahead rocker “Ghosts Are Gone” and the unexpectedly peppy title cut which defies its dreamy pedigree and is much more “in-your-face” than “in-your-sleep.”

All in all, kudos are due to Stevie for this stand-out addition to her catalog. Praise must also go to Dave Stewart for his infusions of creativity and playfulness into these proceedings. He’s such a hero of this project that his picture is on the back cover, right next to the still ravishingly alluring Stevie who, along with Kirstie Alley, could be a spokesmodel for the slogan, “60 is the new 40.” Her voice and mystique are showcased in all their gypsy glory, wrapped up in her signature fierce, yet feminine, storytelling style. And every so often, for those who are listening most closely, there are vocal moments that truly recall the sheer brilliance of the chart-topping, globe-trotting Stevie days gone by. Simply put, she continues after all these years to ring like a bell through the night, and her international legion of fans still love to love her.

(Review) Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "None of Nick’s lyrical intensity has left her, with a Nicksonian take on the whole vampire thing on Moonlight, A Vampire’s Dream"

Stevie Nicks – In Your Dreams
Reviews, By Augustus, 7th July, 2011
Samesame.com.au

In Your Dreams is only Stevie Nick’s seventh solo studio album since the release of her highly successful solo debut, Bella Donna, in 1981. Then, Nicks had an enigmatic presence and somewhat ethereal style. She produced simultaneously haunting, fragile and hard-hitting melodies, with lyrics that often seemed more stream-of-consciousness than the musings of your everyday rock or pop artist.

Steve Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974, writing one of my all-time favourite lyrics on the track Dreams, which she performed on their 1977 album Rumours: players only love you when they’re playin’. It’s deceptively simple, but the more you think about it, the more you think about it.

This has been a difficult review to write... Continue to the full review

Review: Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams" South Africa

Click To Enlarge

"With her melodious folk rock twisted around intense narratives of love and yearning, Stevie hasn't strayed far from the formula that made her popular in the first place."

Reviewed in South African Weekly glossy magazine "Heat"
Issue Dated July 9, 2011.

Odds and Ends... Stevie Nicks article in Italian Paper il Giornale + The Week Magazine In Your Dreams Review

STEVIE NICKS HAS A NEW ALBUM

"In Your Dreams" is now her favorite 

Stevie Nicks has a lot to be thankful for. When we met the former Fleetwood Mac singer in Los Angeles this spring, she had just finished a sold-out show at the Wiltern Theatre, where she celebrated her 63rd birthday with an adoring crowd. She also had just released In Your Dreams, her first album in a decade — and her favorite from her storied solo career — to critical acclaim and a top 10 slot on the Billboard charts.

The album covers a wide range of subjects, from vampires to the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe, and one of the highlights of the album, "Soldier's Angel," focuses on Nicks' thanks for and support of injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the suggestion of a friend, Nicks first visited injured soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., in 2005. "I walked out of there after 11 hours, at 2 in the morning," she says, "and I knew I would never be the same." Since, she's returned many times, often with iPods filled with music for patients, and she's invited troops to her concerts when she's performed nearby.

She knew she wanted to include a song in tribute to them on her new album, but she was having a hard time finishing the arrangement in the studio. "Finally", she says, "I told Dave, (Stewart, the former Eurythmic and producer of In Your Dreams) ‘I've gotta call Lindsay.'" Lindsay, of course, is Lindsay Buckingham, her band mate in Fleetwood Mac and long time former love. The result is a haunting arrangement, featuring Buckingham alone on guitar and backing vocals, putting a spotlight on Nicks' voice and lyrics. "I want the song to draw attention to what happens to the soldiers when they come home, and their aftercare," she says. "That's why I say I am a soldier's girl — it means I'm supportive of them. Publishing royalties from the song will go to the soldiers."

At the Wiltern, she stops the show and tells the audience the story of her involvement at Walter Reed, and how important the song and the troops' families are to her. To thundering applause, Buckingham then comes out to play "Soldier's Angel," and it's clearly one of the highlights of the evening.

As for the album as a whole, Nicks is reflective and proud. "I felt like I touched on so many subjects. From vampires to "Italian Summer", which was written in the mid-70's, these songs are so off the wall in how different they are. You usually stay on the same thread, and this record goes everywhere. Still, I feel I did exactly what I set out to do. Dave and I made a promise to each other the record was not coming out until we knew it was done. And it's done!"

by: Bill Bentley | from: AARP | June 28, 2011

Review Stevie Nicks In Your Dreams 4 out of 5 by Indie London...

Review by Jack Foley
IndieLondon
Rating: 4 out of 5

STEVIE Nicks’ In Your Dreams is the singer’s first LP of new material for a decade and, for fans in particular, it’s well worth the wait.

Nicks’ distinct vocals retain the same power as her Fleetwood Mac days, while her song-writing demonstrates a wealth of ambition, taking in everything from New Orleans and Twilight tributes to tracks inspired by the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Edgar Allan Poe.

In doing so, she’s also amassed a strong army of supporting talent, including Mac band-mate Lindsey Buckingham, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell, long-term guitarist buddy Waddy Wachtel and Dave Stewart.

In truth, it’s debatable whether Nicks will win any new fans, such is the classic (and familiar) traits she brings to proceedings (there are moments this could pass for a Fleetwood Mac record). But given the length of time it has taken to emerge, In Your Dreams has to go down as a welcome comeback for the artist.

And there are plenty of highlights among the 14 tracks, starting with the opener, Secret Love, an oldie she wrote way back in ’76 and which could easily have ended up on a Fleetwood LP. It’s steeped in classic values… guitar backing, strong sense of melody, folk-rock tendencies and a notable chorus. And it gets things started in suitably assured fashion.

Nicks herself describes the LP as “a full blown rock ‘n’ roll album with some beautiful ballads’ but early on it’s more ballad driven. Secret Love isn’t really a rock song, while For What It’s Worth is a Dylan-esque folk ballad with country elements that showcases a tender side to the singer that’s welcome, but perhaps too early. It does, however, mark one of Campbell’s contributions.

Fortunately, that rock vibe drops with the rousing foot-stomper that is title track In Your Dreams, the sort of offering that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Petty record. It’s a real good time.

The ambition of her song-writing then becomes evident on Wild Sargasso Sea, a song that is based upon the novel of the same name that Jean Rhys wrote as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. It’s a brooding slow-burner that contains plenty of atmosphere and some cracking lyrics. And yes, it has to rate as another highlight.

REVIEW - STEVIE NICKS: IN YOUR DREAMS (REPRISE) "Poetic, majestic, delicious" ★★★★/5

Nicks, the eccentric Fleetwood Mac vocalist, is back with her first album in a decade to prove that her strange, iconic voice is everything it ever was, even at the age of 63.

The first single from the album Secret Love was originally written in 1976 for Mac’s masterpiece Rumours.

Put together with new songs such as the one she was inspired to write when a group of British soldiers were killed in Iraq, it forms a real thing of beauty. Poetic, majestic, delicious.

By Simon Gage
Express.co.uk

EURYTHMICS co-founder Dave Stewart must be one of the hardest-working rockers in the business.

With half the new Stevie Nicks album bearing his name and a new Joss Stone offering coming later this month you cannot help but wonder how he found time to round up the talent and lay down the tracks for this new project.

Including songs he wrote with Bob Dylan and collaborations with Stone and Nicks and Martina McBride, it’s a high-quality, bluesy, American-flavoured affair with Dave himself sounding like the veteran music man he really is.

By Simon Gage
Express.co.uk

STEVIE NICKS In Your Dreams (Reprise) ★★★★✩ "In Stevie's world, it's always Avalon or Camelot, fair maids and dashing knights"

CD'S Of The Week 
London Evening Standard

STEVIE NICKS In Your Dreams (Reprise)
★★★★✩

The pop world goes through its phases but it's good to find that Miss Nicks stays resolutely the same. In Your Dreams has on its cover a photograph of Stevie in flowing skirt leading a pure white horse through a forest, the sun flaring behind them. In Stevie's world, it's always Avalon or Camelot, fair maids and dashing knights. The soft rock is still in place, this time masterminded by our very own Dave Stewart. But what has always set Stevie apart continues to do so: that sexy, sassy voice is never drowned in a flood of cheap, hippy sentiment. Thus, songs such as Wide Sargasso Sea, Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream), Secret Love and the title track are borne along on undercurrents of sex and memories of wild times.

PETE CLARK

Album Review: Steve Nicks - In Your dreams ★★★ "Her voice remains a thing of beauty -- fragile and tough"

By John Meagher
Friday June 24 2011
Irish Independent

Okay, it's not Rumours -- Fleetwood Mac's breakup masterpiece from 1977 -- but Stevie Nicks' seventh album, and first in a decade, suggests her mojo is still very much intact.

Her voice remains a thing of beauty -- fragile and tough, often in the course of the same song. And it's this quality that makes Secret Love shine. The lead single was reportedly demoed for the aforementioned Rumours, before being discarded.

Several of the songs have been co-written with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and a handful are really quite something, including the rousing, emotive For What It's Worth.

Burn it: Secret Love; For What It's Worth

Available in Ireland Today!  itunes

Review: Steve Nicks: In Your Dreams ★★★/5 "Sounds exactly like the Nicks of myth: spooky, otherworldly, emotional and sassy...

With the title subtly doffing a cap to Fleetwood Mac's Dreams, Nicks's first solo studio album in a decade echoes the ethereal soft rock sound with which she helped redefine the band circa 1977's classic, Rumours. Producer Dave Stewart has helped create an album that sounds exactly like the Nicks of myth: spooky, otherworldly, emotional and sassy, yet stalked by some undefinable melancholy. Mac bandmates and old flames Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham guest, and while the latter doesn't lift Soldiers Tale above Nicks-by-numbers, the frisson of the Mac's complex romantic entanglements stalks Secret Love, written during the Rumours era. The superb For What It's Worth similarly describes an affair where "only a few around us knew". While the 14 tunes don't all linger, her raspy-voiced spray of emotions is hard to shake off, not least on Everybody Loves You ("but you're so alone"), which combines trademark candour and a killer chorus.

by: Dave Simpson

Guardian.co.uk

In Your Dreams is in stores today in Ireland and in stores Monday in the UK...

Review: Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams "Nicks opens with "Secret Love", a sturdily pulsing piece blitzed by growling powerchords singing of "a timeless search for a love that might work"

Dame Stevie taps into the 'Sleepy Hollow' vibe on her first album of new songs in a decade 

Reviewed by: Adam Sweeting
The Arts Desk 

In Your Dreams is also the "Disc of the Day" on the front page of the website 

It's been a decade since Stevie Nicks's last album of new songs, Trouble in Shangri-La, but In Your Dreams proves that there's creative life in the old girl yet. Fans of the wispy tunestrel will be pleased to hear that she hasn't strayed far from her familiar stomping grounds of melodious folk-rockism and tales of love and yearning, the focus (in fine Seventies style) fixing on the singer's emotional trials and torments. The voice that sang "Rhiannon" remains suitably ghostly, and even with an overlay of mild croakiness, it sounds pretty good for a 63-year-old.

The disc is crammed with a phone-book's worth of LA session veterans, from Steve Ferrone to Waddy Wachtel, and there are appearances by Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood. The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell plays an assortment of instruments and co-wrote a couple of tracks, though not as many as Dave Stewart, who also co-produced the disc with Glenn Ballard.

The best songs work very well indeed. Nicks opens with "Secret Love", a sturdily pulsing piece blitzed by growling powerchords as she sings of "a timeless search for a love that might work". Vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars underpin the affecting "For What It's Worth" (no relation to the Stephen Stills one), while the pick of the bunch may be the title track, a scintillating blast of jangle-rock which harks back to the days when Nicks used to hang around with Tom Petty and his crew.

That's not all. Nicks, still festooned in hats, feathers and bodice-ripper gowns after all these years, channels Edgar Allan Poe in "Annabel Lee", runs with the Undead in "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream)", and evokes vampire chronicler Anne Rice in "New Orleans".

Her only problem was knowing when to stop. In Your Dreams lasts half an hour longer than Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, and the longer it goes on, the more you want to start pelting it with rotten fruit. "Everybody Loves You" is drab electro-pop, "Italian Summer" is cloying schmaltz, and "Ghosts Are Gone" should have been called "The Day the Music Died". It'll all boil down into a nice playlist though.

(Review) In Your Dreams - Stevie Nicks ★★★★/5 by Allgigs

In Your Dreams - Stevie Nicks Album Review
allgigs.co.uk
Paul Pledger
★★★★/5

Upon studying the sleeve to Stevie Nicks' first album in a decade, you're almost transformed back to a time when album-art was determined by mystical imagery of white horses, moonlight and lace-adorned top-hatted blonde-haired singers - and then you realise that you're not in the '70s, you're in the 21st-century eyeing up Nicks', hamming it up in an extravagant white dress on the inlay for "In Your Dreams". How time's don't change - she's still keeping it 'chiffon'.

Fleetwood Mac certainly don't look like reforming again anytime soon (the last group release was the acclaimed "Say You Will" in 2003), but "In Your Dreams" does at least herd three of the favoured line-up together again - Nicks (obviously), Buckingham and Fleetwood contribute at various points. Main right-hand man to Nicks, however, turns out to be Dave Stewart, a huge name in his own right, both as a producer to the stars and erstwhile founder member of Eurythmics. King session-musician, Waddy Wachtel, also makes a few appearances, as does Heartbreakers member, Mike Campbell.

As Stevie Nicks albums go, this rates as one of her best, mainly due to its consistent delivery of pin-sharp rock-songs and beguiling choruses. From early track "Secret Love" (rumoured to have been mooted for the self-titled Mac album of 1977), kicks things off in typical fashion and has already done a turn on American radio - it's true grown-ups' pop-rock, but that doesn't make a dull prospect by any means. The album continues favourably with "For What It's Worth" and the first Stewart/Nicks co-composition, "In Your Dreams", giving the impression that her upcoming exclusive UK appearance at Hard Rock Calling may prove to be a special treat after all.

In truth, there aren't that many poor moments amongst the 14 songs, although mawkishness does sneak into "Soldier's Angel" - yet she can ramp up some classic hooks, particularly on "Moonlight" and the Edgar Allan Poe-influenced, "Annabel Lee". I suppose my only criticism of "In Your Dreams" is its length - we live in an age of drawn-out albums and, at 69 minutes, yes you get value for money, but you also get a couple of songs too many, methinks. Otherwise, Stevie Nicks still knows how to paint a picture and sing a song.