The title track pulses steadily like Stevie’s original 1981 demo but is now sprinkled with magic dust thanks to chimes, glistening guitars and a hypnotic ‘chains, chains’ hook. Cathouse Blues (a very early composition from the late 1960s) is given a charming, carefree ragtime update with Stevie’s appropriately bluesy vocals. īlue Water marks a calming reprieve from the drama, sounding close to its original 1978 piano demo before adding a New Orleans-inspired twist with drums, organ and harmonies from Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley. This album highlight, named after the tragic silent film star, is yet another impassioned warning about drug addiction after You Can’t Fix This off ‘Sound City’.

Even with Stevie’s matured vocals, the condensed, stream-of-consciousness nature of the lyrics reflects her cocaine-addled state of mind at the time the song was written, as if she urgently had to get the words out. Meanwhile, the meandering demo recorded for 1985’s Rock a Little, Mabel Normand, finally sounds musically focused as a gritty country-rock slow-burner on 24 Karat Gold. However, neither track has quite the sparkle of the demos as Stevie’s voice does not quite have the youthful glint it once had. The production is bright and the highly polished Nashville band is tight, with the sound of thumping drums, Hammond Organ, Watchel’s unmistakable guitar licks and the inimitable harmonies of faithful backing vocalists Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks. Opening tracks Starshine and The Dealer mark familiar territory, as they are mostly faithful to their original demos recorded for Stevie’s 1981 debut Bella Donna.

There is even a wondrous Vanessa Carlton cover of Carousel thrown in for good measure.

In Your Dreams collaborator Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics), Stevie and loyal guitarist Waddy Watchel produced this album of fan-favourites whose demos have circulated as bootlegs that have since surfaced on YouTube. Legendary rock n’ roll gypsy queen Stevie Nicks’ resurgence in popular culture continues with her eighth studio full-length, which is (at least for diehard fans) actually more like a greatest hits that never was.ĭespite a hectic schedule (including a song on Dave Grohl’s Sound City documentary, tours for herself and Fleetwood Mac, and an acting cameo on American Horror Story: Coven), infamously long, unproductive recording sessions for prior albums and long gaps between them, 24 Karat Gold only took three months to record and comes only three years since In Your Dreams.

Stevie nicks wild heart demo