JUNE 14, 2023
BY MIKE DUQUETTE

If you’ll forgive the easy reference, there’s no one quite as bewitching as Stevie Nicks. Since she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and helped turn them from British blues-based cult act to blockbuster pop/rock icons, her enrapturing voice and stage presence have influenced generations. In 1981, she began a parallel solo career with hits on her own that helped make her, in 2019, the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice. It’s that solo material that’s the subject of a brand-new box set from Rhino, featuring all eight of her studio albums and a host of rare material.

Complete Studio Albums & Rarities brings together just about all of Nicks’ own output between 1981 and 2014, a period covered by Rhino’s Stand Back compilation from 2019. The set features the chart-topping Bella Donna (1981) and follow-up The Wild Heart (1983) – both presented as remastered for a pair of deluxe editions in 2016 – newly-remastered versions of Rock a Little (1985), The Other Side of the Mirror (1989), Street Angel (1994) and Trouble in Shangri-La (2001), and the late-period successes In Your Dreams (2011) and 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault (2014). The set closes out with a newly-compiled double album of Rarities, featuring 23 B-sides, bonus tracks, compilation songs, material from nine different soundtrack collections and Nicks’ recently-released cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.”

With Nicks in demand thanks to Fleetwood Mac hits like “Rhiannon,” the chart-topping “Dreams” and “Sara,” plus treasured album cuts like the moving “Landslide,” she was keen to offload some of her own song ideas (after the sprawling Mac album Tusk (1979), masterminded mostly by bandmate and ex-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham) into a record of her own. With the help of producer Jimmy Iovine and a murderer’s row of session players – drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarists Waddy Wachtel and Davey Johnstone, Bruce Springsteen’s pianist Roy Bittan, and guest appearances from Don Henley of the Eagles and all of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers – Bella Donna was a certified smash. “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Leather and Lace” – duets with Petty and Henley, respectively – and the blistering “Edge of Seventeen” were all Top 20 hits, helping launch the album to the top of the Billboard charts. 1983’s follow-up The Wild Heart reunited Nicks with most of her previous collaborators plus a brilliant uncredited cameo from Prince on synthesizers for the Top 5 smash “Stand Back.”

The singer expanded her sound into a sleeker pop style as the ’80s continued: Rock a Little and The Other Side of the Mirror featured collaborations with producers and songwriters like Rick Nowels, Mike Campbell and Rupert Hine and featured hits like “Talk to Me” and “Rooms on Fire.” After a greatest hits album, a stint in rehab and a reunion with Fleetwood Mac at Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration, Nicks’ next album Street Angel was marred by a troubled production, remixed at the 11th hour to make room for some of her regular collaborators. 2001’s diverse Trouble in Shangri-La was seen by fans and critics as a return to form, and when not recording or touring with the Mac, she’d issue two more albums: In Your Dreams and 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault, featuring new recordings of demos the singer had been stockpiling for years. (It’s one of Nicks’ only albums to get a proper deluxe edition at the time of release; all of the tracks from that version are present here.)

As Nicks tours North America in 2023 – including several co-headlining dates with Billy Joel – Complete Studio Albums & Rarities offers the most comprehensive look at her work thus far. It’ll be available July 28 as a 10CD and digital set; Rhino’s official web store will carry a numbered 16LP box, limited to 3000 copies and pressed on crystal-clear vinyl. The Rock a Little B-side “One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star” appears above as the first digital teaser of the set, which can be pre-ordered below.

Complete Studio Albums & Rarities (Warner/Rhino, 2023)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Rhino Store / Dig! Store

* 2023 remaster ** 2016 remaster + first time on vinyl

CD/LP 1: Bella Donna (Modern MR 38-139, 1981) **
CD/LP 2: The Wild Heart (Modern 90084, 1983) **
CD/LP 3: Rock a Little (Modern 90479, 1985) *
CD 4/LP 4-5: The Other Side of the Mirror (Modern/Atlantic 91245, 1989) *
CD 5/LP 6-7: Street Angel (Modern/Atlantic 92246, 1994) * +
CD 6/LP 8-9: Trouble in Shangri-La (Reprise 47372, 2001) * +
CD 7/LP 10-11: In Your Dreams (Reprise 527247, 2011) +
CD 8/LP 12-13: 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault (Reprise 544476, 2014)
CD 9-10/LP 14-16: Rarities (new compilation) * +

1. Blue Lamp
2. Sleeping Angel
3. Garbo
4. Violet and Blue
5. One More Big Time Rock and Roll Star
6. Battle of the Dragon
7. Real Tears
8. Sometimes It’s a Bitch
9. Love’s a Hard Game to Play
10. Desert Angel
11. Mirror, Mirror
12. Inspiration

1. Thousand Days
2. God’s Garden
3. Somebody Stand by Me
4. Free Fallin’
5. Reconsider Me (with Don Henley)
6. If You Ever Did Believe
7. Crystal
8. Touched by an Angel
9. Not Fade Away
10. My Heart
11. For What It’s Worth

Disc 9, Track 1 from Heavy Metal (Music from the Motion Picture) – Full Moon/Asylum DP-90004, 1981
Disc 9, Track 2 from Fast Times At Ridgemont High (Music from the Motion Picture) – Full Moon/Asylum 60158, 1982
Disc 9, Track 3 from “Stand Back” single – Modern 7-99863, 1983
Disc 9, Track 4 from Against All Odds (Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Atlantic 80152, 1984
Disc 9, Track 5 from “Talk to Me” single – Modern 7-99582, 1985
Disc 9, Track 6 from American Anthem (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Atlantic 81661, 1986
Disc 9, Track 7 from “Real Tears” single – Modern 7-99179, 1989
Disc 9, Tracks 8-10 from Timespace: The Best of Stevie Nicks – Modern 91711, 1991
Disc 9, Track 11 from “Blue Denim” cassette single – Modern/Atlantic 98232-4, 1994
Disc 9, Track 12 from “Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind” CD single – Modern/Atlantic 98270-2, 1994
Disc 10, Track 1 from “Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind” European CD single – Modern/EMI 72438 81461 2 8, 1994
Disc 10, Track 2 from Japanese edition of Street Angel – Modern/EMI TOCP-8162, 1994
Disc 10, Track 3 from Boys on the Side (Original Soundtrack Album) – Arista 07822 18748-2, 1995
Disc 10, Track 4 from Music from “Party of Five” – Reprise 46431, 1996
Disc 10, Track 5 from Enchanted box set – Modern/Atlantic 83093, 1998
Disc 10, Tracks 6-7 from Practical Magic (Music from the Motion Picture) – Warner Sunset/Reprise 47140, 1998
Disc 10, Track 8 from Sweet November (Music from the Motion Picture) – Warner Sunset/Reprise 47944, 2001
Disc 10, Track 9 from (Listen to Me) Buddy Holly – Verve Forecast B0016050-02, 2011
Disc 10, Track 10 from Barnes & Noble exclusive edition of In Your Dreams – Reprise 527684, 2011
Disc 10, Track 11 from Warner digital single, 2022