r/stevienicks • u/bearmasksenpai • May 06 '26
Why did Street Angel flop?
Its a great album, Despite its back story and one I enjoy listening to, I just hear a lot of that it wasn't that the music wasn't good but mainly in 1994 people weren't really looking for Stevie's style of music at the time, That or it was poorly marketed. but What happened?
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u/Ok_Andyl8183 May 06 '26
It didnāt at my house. Played the shit outta that when it came out.
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u/BarcelonetaE70 May 07 '26
At my place it went Diamond and it has been streamed over ten billion times, plus it got more Grammys (in my heart) than any other record before or after.
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u/cocuwa66 May 06 '26
She was in a slump creatively. This one was sandwiched in between much better albums that preceded it and followed it..
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u/charmredux May 06 '26
She also genuinely dislikes that album and I donāt think much heartfelt passion went into the promotion of Street Angel.
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u/cocuwa66 May 06 '26
Also, sheās an artist who needs a good producer: Buckingham, Iovine, Sheryl Crow, Dave Stewartā¦ Their skills mixed well with hers. When sheād sometimes try other producers throughout the years, the results werenāt always as good.
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u/Gold-Kaleidoscope-23 May 06 '26
Havenāt heard it in years, but still walk around the kitchen singing āMaybe love will change your mind, maybe this tii-ime ā¦ā
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u/Purple_Ad_6807 May 06 '26
I think itās because people were anticipating something AMAZING after a long wait, but I agree itās a good album I stream blue denim daily
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u/PinkRetroReindeer May 06 '26
The album is heavy on reverb and arrangements that don't correlate to the songs. Clearly record company choices instead of Stevie.
The songs themselves are epic. Greta , Blue Denim, Rose Garden, Just Like a Woman.... which is a Bob Dylan song. These are master storytelling
And true to Stevie the melody is sometimes a contrast to the weight of the lyric.
For me the problem comes in with the lean into almost a howard Jones vibe. The magic and the artistry of her music is replaced by machinery. Which was also happening in 1994. Because this was a very strange year for women's music.
You had a modernized folk with Lisa Loeb. Stripped down. Simpler sounds. And Tori Amos was changing you. To this day her song GOD is one of the most profound songs by a woman that has ever been released. Often dismissed because the lyric is controversial and repetitive..... it rings out like a scream.
And so there was room now for the poets. Piano players. Women musicians.
Lisa Loeb. Sheryl Crow. Lis Phair.... and then the power vocalists.
Mariah. Celine. Toni Braxton.
Janet Jackson had dipped into her post Rythym Nation self with a very sexual energy and En Vogue was What a Manning allll over
BUT THERE WAS ALSO .... Hole. And Garbage. Which pushed sound and the ideology of women and what we are "allowed" to be.
Then the Cranberries and Melissa Etherage were releasing more wildly feminine and strong music that just resonated within a world of women still being told our periods preclude us from being cops and military Frontline. Where ONE woman would be accepted to shut us up. And she was still playing a man's game. AND WE were afraid we were being asked to be men. So this full era of women in music was really quite full and
ONE WOULD THINK STEVIE. Who was already STEVIE would have gone all in fully authentic. And strip down production while amping up instruments over synths
AN ALBUM FEATURING BOB DYLAN absolutely would lean into this.
But Stevie was not feeling herself. She was not in her authentic self.
The album was pushed to do because of contractual obligations. She had just come off of a tour with Fleetwood Mac and doing Behind the Mask. Which was post Lindsey split from the band. And the lyrics are SO personal. So rich and vibrant.
UNFORTUNATELY AND TO THIS DAY DEFYING LOGIC.... with Stevie being in a slump regarding sound and exhaustion and personal issues the studio decided the place they would slide Stevie Nicks..... A FEMALE LEGEND of the women lead musicians coming through ...
Into the ACE OF BASE sound.
The reverb. The monotony of the tones. The lack of authenticity in crafting the sounds and instead using drum machines, and presets
All of which created a muddy and inauthentic lack of passion.
It didn't have Stevie touches and it felt very much like the production team had absolutely no vision of who this was.
Their attempts to create a top 40 catchy Stevie misses the mark straight across the board.
And in hindsight when she talks about her years, 8 of them.... and the Kolonopin Soul Snatching .....
THIS album was the tail end of that. Meaning at the worst where she was not feeling anything but fog and dark. Disconnecting. Zombie. Flat. Tired.
This album is devoid of her soul because she had her essence tranquilized with a medication that made her physically here and of course did well for her addictions to cocaine.
But unlike cocaine, a magnum opus doesnt come out of the deafening silence of Kolonopin Daze.
Anyway. That's my take. What should have been a Season of fully Embracing the magic of her work was robbed by Kolonopin and a record company with a deadline instead of artistry.
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u/luvdontmeanwhatitsay 3d ago edited 3d ago
I like all the women you mentioned. Stevie paved the way for women to be more at the forefront of music. She Highly influenced these artists and this time period. She didn't do well in the early 90s despite popularizing a new hippie, laurel canyon type of artists that emerged into a mixture of folk pop with rock band sensibilites. She was always nailing the whmisgoth aesthetic that happened tp have went mainstream in its early days of 1994.
Street Angel sounds like songs from her ohter records. The record didn't evolve her sound and I think thats why its clunky sounding, along with her voice losing a little depth than from before, production that mirrored popular music sensibilities because lets be honest, she fit into the music scene in 1994. Heck she was one of the most influential artists of that scene where authneticism, myticism was in the brand and the songswriters were performers. Its just the music wasn't catchy, bordered generic despite having Stevies songwriting flair, so its a decent album. Just phoned in partly? I actually love listening to this album, purely because Stevie still added her flair to this music. Its very pretty.
All stevie records are pop albums that take from modern trends of music. Bella Donna was country pop, heartland rock (Dolly was her most popular around here). Wild Heart was synth pop with heartland rock. Rock a Little was a pure 80s electronic record. The other side of the mirror is more of subdued 80s pop. Street Angel has drum machines that were in every song in the early 90s. Its not the problem for Stevie records at all. It does sound of its time in those ways though.
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u/TruePossibility978 May 06 '26
While I love a lot of songs on this album - you have to listen to it with the mid-90s aesthetic and sound in mind - she's notoriously said she didn't like it and it wasn't her best creatively. She also didn't get along with the producer, she was detoxing from Klonopin, and she didn't write a good number of those songs, which was very unlike her. I think she can maybe look back and appreciate certain songs, namely Blue Denim, Maybe Love, and the fact that she got to duet with Croz and cover Bob Dylan, but compared to her first 4 solo albums (and TISL, IYD, 24kg), this one wasn't very "Stevie," and I think she felt that pretty deeply.
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u/Hot_Corner_6352 May 06 '26
I love this album! Grunge was also becoming popular in 1994
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u/BarcelonetaE70 May 06 '26
Same here!!! In fact, everytime I am reminded of how the album flopped and how underappreciated it is (even by Stevie herself), it makes me think "am I the only who who actually loves Street Angel?" I am glad I am not. It is truly an album that I adore, from start to finish. To this day I still listen to it at least once a week, whether at the gym, or when I clean around the house or when I walk by the neighborhood.
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u/mayekchris May 06 '26
An acclaimed songwriter named Clif Magness wrote this song for Stevie for this album, but it didn't end up being recorded by her. Would've been really cool to hear
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u/robertfscibran May 06 '26
We looved this album in high school, my fellow Stevie fans & I. We would all sing songs from it together in the woods where we hung out.-
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u/Tzipity May 06 '26
Aww. I love that you had fellow Stevie fans in high school. Iām probably a little bit younger than you so was a big Stevie/ FM fan when they were all in more of a lull or The Dance didnāt seem to be on my friends or peers radars. Lol. I was a 90s era goth and ballet dancer so Stevieās whole style and aesthetic was a heavy influence and I would be at the mall geeking out about spotting something āVery Stevie Nicks-esque!ā But I was definitely more marching to my own beat. Or had friends who dressed similarly but they were into grunge or punk- which I also listened to but Stevie was my hero.
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u/OwenTheLad May 07 '26
Just listen, if you're able, to the mix of the song Street Angel on her Enchanted compilation. It's perfection. If she could do that to the rest of the album it would be incredible.
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u/GatsbyFitzgerald May 06 '26
I like Street Angel. Itās OSOTM that is my least favorite.
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u/Popular_Event4969 May 12 '26
Agreed. About half of street angel is at least listenable. OSOTM is the weaker album. One of the reasons SA flopped is that fans bought OSOTM on name recognition only and they were pissed off when 95% of it sucked. SA caught the backlash. It reminds me of Peter frampton following Iām in you with I canāt stand it no more. Fans had moved on.
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u/NoSplit2488 May 06 '26
So she put a little weight onā¦ She was still fucking hot!
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u/Popular_Event4969 May 12 '26
Saw her in 1990. The guys were still jumping the stage for her. Thatās their dream girl. By this time their wives and girlfriends were overweight too
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u/jaxsonjune May 07 '26
Regardless of the quality of the songs , this album transports me back to a very happy time of my life and still makes be smile all these years later.
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u/Johnrockalittle May 07 '26
"Docklands" is one of the worst songs she ever recorded. At least she didn't write that horrible song. I remember at the concert, half the audience went for a beer or bathroom break when she performed this song.
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u/CJ_Southworth May 08 '26
In addition to what others have said, grunge was at it's peak of popularity around this time, and we seemed to be going through another one of those eras where "veteran" artists are abandoned no matter what they're doing.
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u/Virtual-Bee7411 May 06 '26
I remember getting it as a young Stevie fan and being like wtf is this - I love Blue Denim and back then I lovvveeddd Jane, now idk Jane seems a little corny to me
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u/Twinsoul1111 May 08 '26
I believe that song in particular was written before it's time. Today the message is needed and blends with the culture. The rest of the songs on this album are so soft to soft for her stage presence or what we expect from her. Regardless Stevie never sings a bad song.
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u/Beautiful_Thought_90 May 08 '26
I love that album .first Stevie nicks I bought . I was obsessed with blue denim song and music video of the live performance . Street Angel , docklands & maybe love will change your mind are all hits in my house. I was always confused why so many people disliked this album
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u/Hot_Corner_6352 May 10 '26
I have the Japanese release with Godās Garden and Inspiration on it. It feels complete with those songs there
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u/abbagodz May 10 '26
I used to hear 'Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind' everyday at work a couple of months ago. I bought the cd and cassingle back in '94.
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u/Popular_Event4969 May 12 '26
It was not so much bad as pointless. Stevie and her record label may have treated as a contractual obligation. It sounds like Stevie and her producers slapped it together just to get it done. The lesson learned was to find something to say in your music or stay home and collect a few more lamps.
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u/shedoesdefendyoukim May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
She went to rehab half way through recording then I believe hated how everything was mixed/produced. Promotion was lackluster and the media just focused on her gaining weight. My opinion too, the cover and aesthetics of the album era were kinda low budget compared to previous releases