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No, it’s not quite a compilation album of songs Stevie Nicks has sat on over the years, but it’s also not really an album of new material, either. It’s somewhere between these two points. These were various demos that Nicks had worked on throughout the years before finally deciding to finish and release them.
What emerges is easily her best album since 2001’s Trouble in Shangri-La, and that includes both her greatest hits and live album releases in my estimation. Nicks is back in folky rocker territory with material that elucidates her penchant for verbose storytelling and elliptical symbols. Her character essays and tributes, like “Mabel Normand” and “The Dealer,” are far sharper than they were on the flabby, generic In Your Dreams.
Sure, 24 Karat Gold is a purely reactive creation. Recorded in a flurry after Nicks learned that the original demos were bootlegged and released, but that act spurred Nicks into finding her witchy fire again. She’s still detached and remote as many of these songs originate from somewhere between 1969 and 1995, so what the present-day Nicks is going through is as mysterious as ever. Her crystalline image of benevolent, love spurned manic pixie dream girl remains intact, and no one can do it as well she has. No one ever will.
We’re the better for Nicks culturally for her feminine mystique creating a sparkly, flowy mythical world. Her yearning for independence is continually at odds with a yearning for romantic love, and how to balance it all with her personal achievements. 24 Karat Gold offers up the ability to overdose on undiluted Stevie Nicks with no Lindsay Buckingham, Tom Petty, or Jimmy Iovine to sharpen or refine her weirdness. It may be too much for the casual fan, but I find it elucidating as a portrait of an icon in her purest form, with all the contradictions that implies.
DOWNLOAD: “Belle Fleur,” “The Dealer,” “Starshine”
