Stevie Nicks - The Wild Heart (1983)

Stand Back

The Wild Heart is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks. Recording began in late 1982, shortly after the end of Fleetwood Mac's Mirage Tour. After the death of her best friend, Robin Anderson, and with new appreciation for her life and career, the recording took only a few months and was released on June 10, 1983, a year after Fleetwood Mac's Mirage. It peaked at No. 5 on the U.S. Billboard 200 charts (for seven consecutive weeks) and achieved platinum status on September 12, 1983. The album has sold over 2 million copies in the US alone, and has sold approximately 250,000 copies in the US since 1991 according to Nielsen Soundscan.

My favorite too.

Sable on Blonde, I Will Run To You and Nightbird are all great.

What do you think she's trying to convey in that witchy-poo cover photo? Her different selves splintering off?

My daughter requested a leather and lace cast for her shattered maidenhead after Stevie kicked her in the vagina bone.

The Other Side Of TheMirror is one of my favorite albums, underrated, I guess because it didn't yield singles.

OSOTM has Ooh My Love -her best song ever.

Huge, longtime Stevie fan here.

While I appreciate The Wild Heart for its wildness and for some of its wonderful songs, this was the moment when Stevie began to unravel, although it wasn't necessarily apparent at the time. Pushing her voice and her talent to the limit and fueled by ever-increasing amounts of cocaine, the album foreshadowed the frayed, burned-out and desperate Stevie of Rock a Little. While the epic title song, featuring Stevie's most daring-ever vocal (check out the "wild, wild, wild, WIIIIILLLD HEART!" thriller at song's end), Sand Back, Sable on Blonde and Beauty and the Beast (another daring moment) showed Stevie at the top of her game, other songs (Gate and Garden, Nightbird, Nothing Ever Changes, If Anyone Falls) were comparative throwaways, indicating that there was a limit to how many worthwhile songs she could generate in a given space of time.

It was particularly noteworthy that her duet with Tom Petty wasn't chosen as a single, had little impact and is largely forgotten - nowhere near as effective as Insider or Stop Draggin' My Heart Around. The Rolling Stone review didn't help - the reviewer hyperbolically called the album a "catastrophe" - but there was a grain of truth there. Lyrically, Stevie gave plenty of ammunition to detractors who said her songs were rambling and incoherent, and in too many places it feels as if her words spring from her own, insular drug-reality with little thought given to how they would land. Her thoughts are scattered, the lyrics jump around and it all seems un-integrated and jittery.

While I understand that some fans - particularly younger fans - love out-of-control, coked-out Stevie because she represents a hot mess of raw talent and because they know she would recover her footing, older fans like me find parts of The Wild Heart and Rock a Little rather alarming and sad. The beautiful, mystical Stevie of Rhiannon, the soulful, introspective Stevie of Landslide and the wise, broken-hearted Stevie of Dreams were increasingly replaced by a hard-bitten, drugged-out, braying SUPERSTAR on the skids. Her all-time low would come on Tango in the Night with the truly awful songs Welcome to the Room...Sara and When I See You Again. She would recover somewhat with The Other Side of the Mirror - her voice sounds great on that record - and she had a few respectable songs on Behind the Mask, but it would take years to put the pieces back together.

By the time The Dance and Trouble and Shangri-La rolled around ,it was very moving and satisfying to have all of the Stevie's merged into one healthier, more powerful Stevie who had her life and priorities in order.

Thanks for indulging.

[quote]other songs (Gate and Garden, Nightbird, Nothing Ever Changes, If Anyone Falls) were comparative throwaways

If Anyone Falls is not a throwaway, comparatively or on any level at all. I'd argue Nightbird isn't, either.

One of the best things I have ever seen on this rotten shitheap of beautiful bastards called the DL was this video of Stevie practicing "Wild Heart" before a concert. It's before she recorded it, if I recall.

Yes - I'm well aware of the clip - it's wonderful. The backing track is by Lindsey - it's called Suma's Walk and would morph into Can't Go Back on Mirage. Maybe Lindsey sent it to Stevie to work up into a song?

If Anyone Falls isn't bad and it's kind of catchy, sure, but they lyrics are nothing to write home about. It's all about the synth line and vocal layering. It's also sort of plodding and only managed to make it to #14. Again, not bad at all, but not spectacular for Stevie at this point.

As for Nightbird, I was never able to get past "cause I wear boots all summer long", "my make-up's dark, and it's careless" and the recycled chorus (Dreams meets Edge of Seventeen).

Neither song is "bad", just not top-tier.

I've been a Stevie addict since the Fleetwood Mac White Album. IMO, "Storms" is her best song. For my birthday last spring, my partner got us tickets for Stevie's latest tour with The Pretenders. The Pretenders were great but Stevie was awful, awful, awful. The concert was 3/4 full of songs that she had never recorded from the last four decades. And she aimlessly rambled on with stupid personal stories for about ten minutes between each song. We actually left before the end of the show. We had really good seats that cost around $700 for the two of us. What a waste. I still love her classic stuff though.

Bella Donna has always been my favorite of her solo albums. I didn't care for most of The Wild Heart at all for a long time, but I've warmed up to it lots in recent years. She performed the title song for the first time ever (as part of a medley with "Bella Donna") on her most recent tour and it was wonderful.

[quote]The concert was 3/4 full of songs that she had never recorded from the last four decades.

No it wasn't. You're an idiot.

r7, The Other Side of the Mirror yielded singles. Namely, the hit song "Rooms On Fire".

I saw the bitch and the pretenders open for her. i enjoyed the concert thoroughly. you must be a total idiot to have left before the show was over you asshole, r12.

How did she sound? [R12]

I thought it was 'meh' at the time but have grown to appreciate it. It was the last album she did where her voice sounded really great. I think she's still a strong vocalist but It's dropped an entire octave and is nowhere near as expressive as it was back then. Unfortunately, the joke about her sounding like a billy 🐐 often rings true.

I think "Enchanted" is the weakest song on the album. The deluxe edition that recently came out has 2 bonus tracks ('All The Beautiful Worlds' and 'Violet and Blue' - the latter later released on the "Against All Odds" soundtrack) that should have been included.

I love the damned song "Enchanted".

Her duet with Lana Del Rey (Beautiful People With Beautiful Problems.) is a good song, dreamy.

Their voices sound nice together.

I still love Bella Donna more. She sounds too coked up on Wild Heart.

R8, it was a song in desperate need of a thesaurus.

In the shadow of the castle WALLS

Wherever those WALLS were

Well you used to love to be behind those WALLS with her

Within these WALLS

Well he watched from the corridor

Watched from the corner of his eyes

Seemingly waiting for the time

When the castle WALLS would all fall down

lol R22.

If Anyone Falls is my favorite Stevie song. Wild Heart is a great track that should've been a single. And I can't believe Stevie is only singing it live for the first time on her most recent tour.

I too absolutely love Ooh My Love on OSOTM but the Fleetwood Mac demo she did for the song was abominable.

Yup, Edge of Seventeen was like a mack truck running over me. Love Jack Black playing it on a jukebox in The School of Rock. OOOPS, it is not from The Wild Heart, Sorry.

Was OSOTM when she started taking Klonopin? She looked significantly heavier in the "Rooms On Fire" video.

Baa!

Baa, baa, BAA!!!

I love her music. It really is the soundtrack of my entire life.

Talk to Me is another underrated gem she never performs. It was her biggest it too. It was also when her drug use was at it's worst so maybe it brings back too many bad memories.

She didn't write Talk To Me...that's my guess as to why she doesn't perform it.

Brad Jeffries, the choreographer/dancer who appeared in most of Stevie's 80's videos, including Stand Back and If Anyone Falls.

Still friends.

Brad joining Stevie on a live performance of Stand Back on SNL at around 3:16.

Is it really good? I downloaded Stand Back recently as nostalgia because my mom listened to it CONSTANTLY when I was a kid, and I was surprised how much I like it. But other tracks on the "best of" collection it was with on iTunes were disappointing.

Well, I guess we know Brad was a top, then.

R34, don't drag that ghetto-ass video in here. Show some respect.

Supposedly Debbie Harry was jealous of Stevie throughout the '80s. Debbie knew she never would have been Madonna, but Stevie had the '80s solo career many foresaw for DH: A respectable run of top-10 hits and million-selling albums with just enough weirdness to be interesting.

Apocryphally, Debbie was in an NYC club and saw a Stevie Nicks concert poster on the floor, so she popped a squat and pissed all over it.

I don't think Stevie's "Best Of" collections reflect her greatest solo work. These are the songs I would put on a Greatest CD:

Edge of Seventeen

Bella Donna

Stop Dragging My Heart Around

Outside The Rain

Leather & Lace

Sleeping Angel

Blue Lamp

Stand Back

If Anyone Falls

Wild Heart

Violet and Blue

Battle of The Dragon

I Can't Wait

If I were You

Talk To Me

Reconsider Me

Long Way To Go

Planet of The Universe

Fall From Grace

Annabel Lee

Moonlight

Whenever I Call You Friend (duet w/ Kenny Loggins)

I think Ms Harry would have popped a squat on anyone's poster...

Wow OP! You are on my psychic wavelength.

Stand Back is probably my favorite song of ALL TIME.

Something about that hypnotic melody- LA LA LA-LA LA LA LA LA-LA.... and those gorgeous keyboards.

There is no other song like it.

I have searched high and low for every live version ever..

Love The Wild Heart. It is very rough sounding and almost harsh- yet really beautiful. Like it was recorded in some kind of Irish Moor.

Love it.

[quote] I still love Bella Donna more. She sounds too coked up on Wild Heart.

r21, you are WRONG!

Stevie didn't sound too coked up until her NEXT album, "Rock A Little".

I disliked the song "Gate and Garden" until I realized that Stevie is singing about her vagina.

There is a gate

And it has a garden

Well it is not heaven

And it can be guarded

So to the red rose

Grows the passion

I mean, the only thing left is to draw a picture!

No Spoken Word is great on RAL. Her most driving rocker ever.

Enchanted! You saw something in my eyes

Enchanted, well it's a shame that you wanted me, but didn't try

Enchanted...Oooh, I hope you make it

"Sable On Blonde" - another catchy Stevie song muddied by awkward and nonsensical lyrics.

Learn to be a stranger

Blond on blond

In silence she says

Excalibur

The lyrics have definite meaning in Stevie's own mind, but the words are so beautifully strung together that it hardly matters that they're largely impenetrable.

Stand Back, Nightbird and Enchanted are my favorite tracks on the album.

No one knows what I mean unless they read between my lines!

Stop laughing, Lindsey! I'm serious!

Between my lines of cocaine, that is.

You could be STANDIN' IN!!!!

[quote]The lyrics have definite meaning in Stevie's own mind, but the words are so beautifully strung together that it hardly matters that they're largely impenetrable.

This reminds me of the burn Michael Richards (playing a Zappa-like character) delivered on the tv show "Fridays": "Let's face it, (Stevie Nicks') 'poetry' wouldn't cut it in a high-school yearbook!"

OP, I like much of her music too.

But you gotta admit, she has a voice like an elf with a cold.

Thankfully she never did a Christmas album. Her rendition of Silent Night on A Very Special Christmas is dreadful

You can consume all the beauty in the room, baby, r54

.........

OSOTM was her first klonopin album. You can totally tell the difference in her singing. She went from the energetic babbling of Rock a Little to laconic talk-singing. It’s a snooze, as were her contributions to Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey-less Behind The Mask album. She rallied a bit with the Timespace single “Sometimes It’s a Bitch” though. And came back with Street Angel and has been doing fine ever since.

Rhyming "walls" with "walls"? I can't even.

Bullshit to R57 - OohMy Love and Rooms on Fire were great vocally on Other Side of the Mirror.

Wild Heart > Rock A Little > OSOTM > Street Angel

The song Wild Heart should have been recorded like this

R38 I would love a source on the Debbie Harry pissing story, lol.

Right on r24, I was going to say the exact same thing. I love the video for If Anyone Falls & it’s my fave Stevie song, The title track is my alternate fave from that album. I love Marilyn Martin, who did background vocals for Stevie & appears in the IAF vid.