Up to the edge of the night
4 Out Of 5 Stars
Stevie Nicks enters a new decade with an album that makes you wonder what took her so long; the cover drops Stevie from a crystal bubble, with a hazy white horse and the songstress entering from what looks like a location shoot from "Lord of The Rings." The picture teases you in a fashion that states, "You wanted a welsh witch? You got it." "In Your Dreams" delivers all the kind of music you'd expect from Stevie, even forty years since her rise to super-stardom.
Listening to "In Your Dreams" is a potent reminder of exactly how much Nicks' has influenced singers (not just women) for the past four decades. The nervous sense of drama, the urgency of all things mystical, the forcefulness of her femininity, these are all on display on this album. At the same time, I couldn't help but think of younger bands/singers. Everyone from Taylor Smith to Coldplay have copped some of Stevie's dramatic style for their own. Heck. there's even a vampire song her that she claims was inspired by watching "Twilight." Somewhere in England, Muse is rejoicing.
What makes "In Your Dreams" an album of the now is just how Stevie has kept to her own muse. Picking apart an Edgar Allan Poe poem ("Annabelle Lee") and recreating it as a song is pure Stevie, while name checking Anne Rice and having a spirit flit from woman to woman in "Soldier's Angel" (my favorite song on the album) takes to back to such classic albums as "Rumours" or "Bella Donna." Producer Dave Stewart even gets into the act by being Stevie's Don Henley on the closing song "Cheaper Than Free." Or, some might say, his Lee Hazelwood to Nicks' Nancy Sinatra. Either way you look at it (and you can add Lindsey Buckingham to the list of bargains on the album), "In Your Dreams" puts Stevie back into prominence.
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