Stevie Nicks
Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks. Modern-Atlantic. **
Stevie Nicks is the most potent distillation of that psychic blend peculiar to pop culture celebrities: titanic ego and an awesomely regrettable fashion sense.
Both trademark qualities are represented here, the cover photo capturing her in all her mystic, witch-like finery while the breathy solemnity of her notes on each song underlines just how seriously — despite all the magical mumbo jumbo and mawkish sentiments — Nicks takes herself.
More than any release that comes to mind, this project points to the laughable irony that has made best-of compilations the last resort of faded performers who didn’t have far to fall in the first place — something like “The Love Boat” of pop music.
But this album is a strikingly apt representation of the Fleetwood Mac superstar-turned-detox gypsy who inspired a generation of teen-age girls to wear silly, floppy hats and way too many scarves.
It has a few genuinely transcendent highs — “Rooms on Fire,” “Talk to Me” — and a lot of dreadfully misconceived lows. That’s especially depressing when one considers that the lowest of those occur on her new material.
Tom Maurstad / Lexington Herald / October 18, 1991
