The Pop Corporation

What is it with Stevie Nicks? It doesn’t matter what generation you’re from, you either love her or are witnessing everyone else fall head-over-heels for her. In 2023, there’s scores of young women in floaty clothes twirling around on TikTok or wherever, fuelled by the power of Stevie Nicks. Now, of course, Stevie is made of an unquantifiable magic that no-one else really has, but you could say that about hundreds of enduring megastars couldn’t you?

However, magic is the word when it comes to Nicks, as there’s a witchyness about her and her music, which is catnip to anyone who wants something more ethereal or wild. Stevie didn’t invent the doe-eyed magic look, but since the mid-70s, no-one’s been able to swipe her flower crown.

Stevie’s always been delicate, precious, but never only these things – she’s also righteous, sarcastic, angry and inscrutable. And somehow, every generation that listens to her sing act like they’re the first people to ever do so. That’s not a slight, but rather, despite being in one of the biggest selling bands that ever existed, Stevie Nicks somehow manages to feel like she belongs to every one of those listeners.

In a way, there’s nothing clever about listening to a Stevie Nicks solo LP or a Fleetwood Mac album – there’s literally bazillions of ears that have done it before. The queue to tell Nicks you love her is so long, it would stretch to Pluto and back. Saying you’re a fan of Stevie Nicks is like saying it’s good to sit-down after a long day. It just doesn’t feel like it, does it?

You can see someone dancing to her song ‘Dreams’ and it’s not the same as dancing to ‘Billie Jean’ or chanting along to ‘Hey Jude’ – there’s just something so personal to her delivery that people clutch it to their chests, even though the mass-production of her songs should probably make us feel otherwise.

But it doesn’t, and each year a new crop of Stevie Nicks devotees appear, be they people with something to flog on Etsy, or someone with a cottagecore Instagram, or someone who just loves wearing a cloak and a moon pendant. Or, man, they just fucking love those brilliant tunes she sang. Regardless of what decade you were born in, regardless of what era of music you listen to, chances are, you have a huge soft spot for Stevie Nicks.

And while you might want to scream from the rooftops about Christine McVie’s gargantuan contribution to Fleetwood Mac, there’s no-one quite like Stevie, with her reedy voice, telling you her thoughts from her battered journal, casting a weird hex on all and sundry.

Perhaps the closest we get elsewhere is Kate Bush – a woman so loved, mysterious and filled with a rage and lust that it’s impossible to ignore. However, Kate Bush is, in many respects, more niche and peculiar. Eccentric and English doesn’t carry the same marketable weight as a woman beaten up by long, painful touring and relationship dramas from within her own band. Stevie Nicks is the perfect artist – talented, flawed, and wronged.

Her heartache is just as forlorn as it is stubborn. It’s something we can all identify with, and if we can’t, it’s fun to singalong with. And in 2023, she’s simultaneously everyone’s batty grandmother and best friend. Listen to her singing whilst she’s young, and she’s singing to you. Listen to her speak now and she’s delightfully not arsed about celebrity and favour. She’s generous with what she gives away in song, but she’s not outstaying her welcome by living online and in dreadful TV interviews.

Does she believe her own bullshit? Almost certainly. Should we chide her for it? Why would we do that? She’s Stevie fuckin’ Nicks fercryinoutloud!

You see, while a lot of American West Coast music of the 1970s could be deemed to square to dance and charmingly sexless, you can’t accuse Stevie Nicks of any of that. Even though you could forgive someone for thinking that Nicks is the living embodiment of a Yankee Candle, she’s snorted such an unholy amount of cocaine and shared too many mistakes with us to ever been seen as spineless and timid. If anything, she’s feral and trying to keep a lid on it.

While she can sing something about spirits and yearning, you’ll also stumble across one hell of a quote like: “Let me tell you, Botox only makes you look like you’re in a satanic cult. I only had it once and it destroyed my face for four months. I would look in the mirror and try and lift my eyebrow and go: ‘Oh, there you are, Satan’s angry daughter.’ Never again. I watch a lot of news and I see all the lady newscasters looking like Satan’s angry daughters, too.”

She’s part Ophelia, part Carrie Fisher. Along with her huge talent, it’s a huge part of why so many adore her. And here we are, another piece written about someone who is already well written about, already well loved, already wealthy, bloated and millions of sales under her cowl – what’s left to say, really?

That’s the thing. There’s always something to say when it comes to Stevie. Harry Styles has been flirting with her for years (you can imagine the eye-roll) and all his fans have found her. She was liked by the punks in the ’70s and ’80s. Indie kids love her. The R&B crowd can’t get enough of her. Maybe despite her best efforts, we just keep heaping praise on her when we could be writing hundreds of words on a young band that needs them.

Rest assured, we’ll do that here, but really, when it all boils down to it, there’s just no-one quite like her, is there?