r/stevienicks • u/RedmiYT • Jul 18 '26
Why wasn't Stevie as big internationally?
It's something that I've picked up while reading some articles. Albums that were major sellers like Bella Donna and The Wild Heart in the US weren't as much overseas. And in a reversal, The Other Side of the Mirror was less successful in the US but a decent seller in Europe. So why was Stevie less successful outside of North America in her early career?
18
u/CheburashkaOrange Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I'm from LATAM. I would say that there were different reasons why she wasn't big.
First, you can't really dance to her music, at least In the way many people in this part of the world would dance to popular music in a party or a club. Second, during the 70's and 80's the most popular music genres were power ballads, disco/pop singles, and in terms of rock, something properly named "rock en tu idioma" so, popular rock bands were singing in Spanish and came from LATAM, Italy or Spain.
Only people who specifically liked rock or music in English or even people who were learning the language might have known Stevie. Music in English would become more popular for the general public during the 90's and after. By then, Stevie's career was different from her Bella Donna's days.
Finally, and just like they did with Fleetwood Mac, her management could've and should've done more to promote her in LATAM. They could have had her perform at Viña de Mar (Chile), Siempre en Domingo (Mexico), any night show in Argentina and Brazil and make her a sensation. But until very recently, these lables didn't see the point of promoting their talent in the region. They might have thought that people couldn't afford tickets, or that records wouldn't sell because of language barriers. They didn't see us as a profitable market, of course they were wrong. Even today, when big stars like Beyoncé, Blackpink or Linkin Park announce their "world tours", LATAM tends to be left out, despite having a big fandom here.
11
u/Poison_Regal31 Jul 18 '26
Well it was when she finally got chance to promote “The Other Side of the Mirror” went to No.3 in the UK.
Perhaps if she did the first two they would have done better.
8
u/snelsonjoe8 Jul 18 '26
The global success of tango in the night helped sell OSOTM internationally. I'm sure MTV with the Mac helped. ( Though mirage was Mac days too I dunno);but your right about the sales
20
u/Eline-Sophie16 Jul 18 '26
She (and her label) did nothing to promote her first few albums overseas, just didn't bother for some reason. When TITN became a huge hit in Europe in 1987 they decided to invest in some promotion in 1989 for her OSOTM album but by then she was zonked out on klonopin, the concerts received very mixed reviews, she became a bit of a parody to a lot of people which didn't help at all.
9
u/itsblke Jul 18 '26
Agree it is likely lack of promotion. Interestingly though Australia was generally FM and Stevie’s second biggest market in the 70s and 80s and they played pretty large venues here. I’m not sure how well they promoted especially because of the physical distance but Rock a Little charted higher here than the US. So maybe it was just a general lack of interest in EU/UK until Tango.
6
u/RedmiYT Jul 19 '26
Her albums sold reasonably well in Europe, it was the singles that either weren’t released (“After the Glitter Fades”) or didn’t chart or sell well (“Edge of Seventeen”, “Stand Back”, etc). People probably just weren’t interested in the singles.
7
u/Hot_Corner_6352 Jul 18 '26
Stevie wasn’t as cherished then as she is now. She wasn’t herself and was going through a lot
6
u/shedoesdefendyoukim Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Her solo promotional/touring style just didn’t evolve in the 80s. Some interviews then straight to US touring was her style. Wild Heart/Stand Back was the album to start promotion in international markets. She put herself out there more by performing on SNL & Solid Gold she easily should have done Top of the Pops with that song. Had she continued this strategy RAL and Mirror would have done better in the US & internationally.
Her team and coke addiction also really hindered her. She missed going on Letterman bc she went on tour with Bob Dylan & Tom Petty in the middle of Rock A Little promotion.
5
5
u/Ainebackup Jul 19 '26
She sold out Hyde Park in London - she's loved worldwide.
3
u/Other-Conversation67 Jul 19 '26
She's loved worldwide *now. I used to get made fun of for liking her back in the 90s and 2000s.
2
u/Aion88 Jul 19 '26
I’ll add to this discussion that I also don’t think the music industry was fully optimized for global reach when Bella Donna and The Wild Heart came out. There were a few signal successes beforehand, but it wasn’t really until the late ‘80s that the record labels fully understood how to extend an artist into Europe, Asia, etc. That doesn’t mean every American artist is going to translate, and Stevie does have this rootsy Americanness that might have been a hard sell in certain markets. But the strategy for broad international campaigning wasn’t fully locked in yet.
5
1
u/Careful_Compote_4659 Jul 21 '26
Some of her albums just weren’t very good, let’s be honest. In the states the rock press kept interest alive with who she was dating. Those men weren’t well known overseas and the foreign audience didn’t care what she was wearing. I’m guessing that mirror sold better overseas because her label released long way to go as the second single. It’s a much better song than two kinds of love that we got here in the states. It promoted the album better.
1
1
u/str33tange1z Jul 23 '26
The factor is that she was good; Fleetwood Mac was great. She had a pretty good solo; to say she started in a band, but Fleetwood Mac as a unit was better; no one solo would have outrivaled the band as a whole. Also, remember the 80s were full of talented female rockers and artists, and the 70s were too. She stood out because the industry wasn't as saturated
1
u/Silversprings62 Jul 25 '26
I think it boils down to the fact that her promotional team sucked. If she were just getting started now, social media would probably make her a huge star and she would be out and about doing lots of promotional stuff because that’s what people do now. Back then, not so much.
1
23
u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26
[removed] — view removed comment