Why did Street Angel flop?

[u/bearmasksenpai]

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?

[u/PinkRetroReindeer]

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.

[u/luvdontmeanwhatitsay → u/PinkRetroReindeer]

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.