(Review) Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "A classy and melodically rich collaboration with Dave Stewart

Long-Awaited Nicks Fix
Washington Blade
By Joey DiGuglielmo

The music business circa 2011 is, as everybody knows, in the toilet. It’s a blessing and a curse for all involved — consumers, of course, have the option of buying songs one at a time, but that means album sales aren’t what they used to be so there’s little incentive for veteran artists to make records. All the money’s in touring.

Top-tier acts who still release albums every couple years are mostly doing it to satiate their muses. So it’s no wonder it took Stevie Nicks a full 10 years to get back to making a proper solo album.

“In Your Dreams,” out Tuesday, is her first studio album since 2001’s “Trouble in Shangri-La” and it’s been an excrutiatingly long wait for her bastion of rabid fans, among some of the most loyal in all of rock.

For all her ‘80s industriousness — she churned out an amazing amount of product both on her own and with Fleetwood Mac in that whirlwind decade — boy, did we pay for it in the ’00s. There were gems along the way — the 2003 Mac album “Say You Will” is an underrated tour de force for her and Lindsey Buckingham — but fans hoping she’d have a career renaissance after kicking years of drug problems were sorely disappointed. She seemed largely content to tour, do guest spots and the occasional hits package (“Crystal Visions”) or live project (“Soundstage Sessions”).

“Dreams,” a classy and melodically rich collaboration with Dave Stewart (The Eurythmics), arrives with anticipation set at fever-pitch levels. It’s been such a long wait, there’s almost no way the album could live up to expectations. But setting that aside and putting things into perspective, it’s pretty obvious from the first spin this is one of Nicks’ strongest, most consistent albums, perhaps even her best since 1985’s “Rock a Little.” It blows 1994’s dismal “Street Angel” away and while individual songs on “Trouble” are better than most of the tracks here, “Dreams” is overall a better, more cohesive album.

Full Review at Washington Blade

(Interview) Stevie Nicks talks 'In Your Dreams' and her greatest pleasure

Stevie Nicks released her first solo album in 10 years on May 3. “In Your Dreams” is vintage Nicks: her raspy vocals wrap around swirling tales of love, both secret and sacred.
Hitfix.com
BY MELINDA NEWMAN

Produced by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard, some of the album’s songs grew out of poems that Nicks had written years ago that she finally set to music with her collaborators. For Nicks, “In Your Dreams” is as definitive a work as Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” or her acclaimed 1981 solo album debut, “Bella Donna.” “I’m more proud of this than anything, really,” she says. Hitfix talked with Nicks about creating “In Your Dreams,” as well as lonely bus journeys and her love for Edgar Allan Poe.

You wrote first single, “Secret Love” in the ‘70s, but put it away and never played it for anyone. You’ve said now that you don’t even remember who it was about.

That song is a song that had I played it for Fleetwood Mac or for Lindsey [Buckingham], he really would have liked it because it’s a very simple kind of song. It’s very sophisticated in its simplicity. Christine [McVie] would have loved it, so I never played it for them.

At that point, in ‘75, I didn’t have a house in Phoenix because I was just in Fleetwood Mac and I was a waitress up until 1975 so I would send stuff to my mom. I put that in in a box and put it in my mom’s garage and I never took it out. It went out bootlegged somehow because the world has heard it because when I sent [my sister] home to look for it and [we] found it on Youtube. I don’t know whether to be thrilled or horrified by that. It’s possible when I first wrote it I left it out on a table and it said “Secret Love” on it and somebody took it and recorded it from cassette to cassette and put it back. I have no idea otherwise how it could have gotten out because I put it away. It was always a song that I didn’t want anybody to know about because whatever it was about, it was a secret.

You wrote “For What It’s Worth” with Mike Campbell from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. How’d that come about?

I wrote that song in May in Hawaii in 2010. Dave went to England and got stuck in that volcano. So I said, “Well, I’m going to go to Hawaii then.” I went for three weeks. and the day before I came back, I said, I’m going to revisit Mike’s tracks, because he had sent me 10 tracks.

Right when [that track] came on, I just remembered this trip that I had taken in a bus across the United States and this person who had really helped me through this very difficult time. The song starts with the bell ringing like a train and I thought about the bus and, strangely enough, the night before that on PBS was a show about kids riding the rails in the 1940s, they were 14, 15,16 years old, they would catch the trains and go to other cities. I also had a grandfather who told me many stories of riding the rails because he did it, he used to ride the rails and play in bars and play pool.

So I was thinking about my granddad and riding the rails and I was thinking about my bus trip and then I started thinking about this man who had really been like an angel, stepping in and putting the pieces back together at a very bad time in my life and I just started singing this song. I yelled at my assistant, “Get me some paper! Quick!” We’d sent all our recording equipment home the day before so all we had was a camera so we just put it on film.

What gives you the most pleasure these days? Singing or writing?

Reviews: Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams "Conjures Early Stevie Nicks Magic"

4 out of 5 stars  
Stevie Nicks In Your Dreams
All Music Guide

Perhaps it’s all down to Stevie Nicks being at peace with her legacy, perhaps she was coaxed back toward the ‘70s by producer David A. Stewart, perhaps it’s the presence of Lindsey Buckingham on “Soldier’s Angel,” or perhaps it’s the fact that she excavated a 1976 song called “Secret Love” for this album, but In Your Dreams is Stevie’s first solo album to embrace the sound of Fleetwood Mac at their prime. Nicks never exactly ran away from the Mac, but her ‘80s solo hits were tempered by a steely demeanor and her subsequent solo albums strove too hard to recapture the magic that In Your Dreams conjures so easily. Despite the quite deliberate connections to her past, In Your Dreams never feels labored; the hippie folk drifts into the mystic pop, punctuated by some witchy rock that may be polished a bit too sharply by Stewart, yet he manages to keep everything warm despite its cleanliness. Stewart’s real coup is focus: he keeps everything tight and purposeful, letting each element snugly fit together so In Your Dreams winds up capturing the essence of Stevie Nicks, which -- as her previous three decades of solo albums prove -- is no easy feat.

_______________________________________________________________

Stevie Nicks, In your dream.
Sydsvenska dagbladet, Sweden
by Anders Jaderud.
grade 3/5.

The fact that Fleetwood Mac in recent years has become an increasingly frequent source of inspiration to contemporary rock band creates a good starting point for Stevie Nicks comeback.

"In Your Dreams" is the first studio album since 2001 and although Dave Stewart is a somewhat dull choice as producer, the 62-year-old singer sounds convenient in the lavish mainstream rock with some batik patterned mystery. The record certainly contains a few misguided track, as stilted ZZ Top-bogie "Ghosts Are Gone". But on the other hand, succeeds Nick make pliable California radiopop by Edgar Allan Poe's 1800's poem "Annabel Lee" and she keeps on the right side of kitsch border in "Italian Summer", a song that had had Tony Soprano to sob like a child.

Best Track: Secret Love

Swedish original text:
Att Fleetwood Mac på senare år blivit en allt flitigare inspirationskälla för samtida rockband skapar ett bra utgångsläge för Stevie Nicks comeback. ”In Your Dreams” är förs­ta studioalbumet sedan 2001 och även om Dave Stewart är ett små­trist val som producent låter den 62-åriga sångerskan bekväm i den påkostade mainstreamrocken med viss batikmönstrad mystik. Skivan innehåller visserligen ett par omdömeslösa spår, som styltiga ZZ Top-boogien ”Ghosts Are Gone”. Men å andra sidan lyckas Nicks göra följsam kalifornisk radiopop av Edgar Allan Poes 1800-talsdikt ”Annabel Lee” och hon håller sig på rätt sida kitschgränsen i schlageraktiga ”Italian Summer”, en låt som hade fått Tony Soprano att snyfta som ett barn.


Bästa spår: Secret Love


Stevie Nicks: a worthy chapter in rock history.
Borås Tidning, Sweden.
By Fredrik Söderlund.
grade 3/5.

Stevie Nicks is a survivor. In my camp, she has always been Fleetwood Mac's strongest card and her hoarse, trembling voice are still managing to touch on the deep.

In Your Dreams is the first solo album in ten years and more than half the disc has Eurythmics Dave Stewart to help with the songwriting. Unfortunately, it's were it limp significantly. The last five Stewart-tracks is much weaker than the album's first half. If we focus on the highlights instead, we find Bob Dylan-colored "For What It's Worth, " blue tongue "Soldier's Angel" along with old partner Lindsey Buckingham.

In your dreams is a bit shaky but at the same time mature and it is worthy chapter in Nicks present rock history.

Swedish original text:
Stevie Nicks är en överlevare av rang. I mitt läger har hon alltid varit Fleetwood Macs starkaste kort och hennes hesa, darrande stämma lyckas fortfarande beröra på djupet.


In your dreams är det första soloalbumet på tio år och mer än halva skivan har Eurythmics-hjärnan Dave Stewart som låtskrivarpartner. Det är dessvärre också där det haltar markant. De sista fem Stewart-spåren är betydligt svagare än albumets första hälft.  Om vi fokuserar på höjdpunkterna istället hittar vi Bob Dylan-färgade ”For what it’s worth”, bluestunga ”Soldier’s angel” tillsammans med gamla parhästen Lindsey Buckingham.

In your dreams är en lite svajigt men samtidigt vuxet och värdigt kapitel i Nicks pågående rockhistoria.

Mick Fleetwood's Appearance on Maui with Neal Preston

Mick Fleetwood made an appearance hosting an event last night on Maui at Celebrites Galleries for Rock Photographer Neal Preston.  Neal has a long history with Fleetwood Mac and it's members dating back as far as the early 70's. 

According to Suzanne Kayian, Freelance entertainment writer for Maui Magazine, Rhythm and Views, Mick was gracious and posed with new collectors purchasing Neals work.

Stevie Nicks releases her first new album in 10 years a collaboration with record producer and songwriter Dave Stewart from The Eurythmics

Telegraph.co.uk

A lot has changed in the music business since Stevie Nicks released her last original work almost a decade ago, but the 62-year-old singer – who doesn't even own a computer – believes that producing quality music with a focus on quality is something that never goes out of style.

"There is no autotuning, nothing is fake about this record. It's all real, we can go onstage and play every one of these songs," she said.

It was Stewart who approached Nicks last year about co-writing songs, a concept she initially found foreign.

"I'm very selfish with my writing, I don't want to share that process with anybody, I like sitting in there and having that suffering thing, with my 50 pages of words taped to the piano, where I'm taking little bits and pieces from 20 poems at once, and that was something that I thought that was the way I wanted it to be," she said.

But the singer admits she had an "epiphany" after sitting down with Stewart. "My life changed, the golden doors opened, and I realised and understood why Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote together," she said. "He knows a thousand chords, I know seven. I have 40 pages of poetry, he doesn't have 40 pages of poetry, so we can bring that to each other".

When it came to recording the album Nicks invited studio staff and performers to her Pacific Palisades home in southern California. Performers were encouraged to lounge around between sessions at the spacious mansion overlooking the ocean, a freeing experience that hearkened back to the Fleetwood Mac days.

"You know, you go into a studio, and its $2300 a day, and you have rules there. When you're here at a house, you can have food, you have the kitchen, you can like hang out. If you don't want to work, you cannot work, so it was a fantastic experience, and I hope that experience made its way onto the tape," Nicks said.

In Your Dreams was released by Reprise Records on May 3.

(Review) Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream) is classic Nicks"

STEVIE NICKS - IN YOUR DREAMS (WARNER) Star rating: * * * 1/2
Herald Sun - Australia
Cameron Adams

IT'S been a decade since Stevie Nicks released a solo album. The cover of drought breaker In Your Dreams sees Stevie in a forest, in a flowing dress, with a horse. Naturally.

It's business as usual on the musical front as well. Musical cohort Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) guides her through country lite (In Your Dreams) to mystical English-lit gypsy rock (Wide Sargasso Sea) - she even shares a writing credit with Edgar Allen Poe on the soft rocking, poetry-quoting Annabel Lee, which harks back to Nicks in Fleetwood Mac's '70s glory days. See also For What It's Worth.

Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream) is classic Nicks - you can almost hear the scarves swishing on the mic stand - while to add to the familiarity Lindsay Buckingham guests on the surprisingly gritty Soldier's Angel.

Sounds like: surrogate Fleetwood Mac album.
In a word: Californian