Review Summary: Steering Into Muddy Waters
Stevie Nicks' second solo album followed the blueprint set by BELLA DONNA and met with similar success. The musicianship excels once again and producer Jimmy Iovine manages to capture both the scratchiness and suppleness of Stevie's voice, using these extremes to serve expressive ends. Here's the good news: several of these cuts really hold up over time. The classic "Stand Back" has remained a staple of both Nicks and Fleetwood Mac shows for years and with good reason. It's a kick-ass rocker with Stevie working herself into a crabby, foot-stomping tantrum. "Enchanted" is really a bake-to-basics rocker that wouldn't sound out of place on a Linda Ronstadt album, and the country-ish "Gate and Garden" has a lilting melody with a hook-filled chorus that's a pleasure to hear. That's the thing about Nicks' songs at this point in her career; she had a propensity for churning out charming melodies that stuck in your brain no matter how tangled her lyrical webs became. Even the cornball "Nightbird" slinks along with a subtle synth groove. It's a real treat until you start noticing the words.
And there's the bad news. THE WILD HEART is suffused with vague, whacked-out lyrics that might mean something to the author but remain elusive to mere mortals. Try these:
"And sumer became the fall...I was not ready for the winter...it makes no differance at all...cause I wear boots all summer long."
Huh?
"There is a gate...it can be guarded...well it is not heaven...and it has a garden...so to the red rose...goes the passion..."
How's that?
"Learn to be a stranger...blond on blond...in silence she says...excalibur...I beg of you now...what was it that fell?"
Beg pardon?
Needless to say, as Stevie Nicks drifted into her semi-permanent narcissistic coma her lyrical themes became more self-absorbed and less comprehensible. It's like she began to believe her own press and became convinced that anything she composed was worthwhile simply because SHE was the composer. That's why songs like "Gate and Garden", "Nightbird", "Stand Back", Sable On Blond" and "Beauty and the Beast" require not only a lyric sheet but an interpreter. What on earth is this woman singing about?! It's too bad because this album is expertly recorded and performed, and some of the wackiest songs have the catchiest melodies. Nicks clearly requires an assertive editor and about six weeks of reality testing to clean up the muddle, but somewhere in there remains a talented songwriter who just has far to much money and far too much time to think about herself.
"Enchanted" indeed!
