How beloved is Stevie Nicks? All six of her original solo albums, spanning 1981.2001, plus two best of collections,have been certified at least gold. With rock's superstar chanteuse about to go back on the road after guesting on Tom Petty's Highway Companion tour, Crystal Visions... covers her entire solo career for the first time in a CD+DVD package. Featured are several previously unreleased live tracks on the CD, as well as Stevie's voice-over commentary for each video and her artwork on the DVD. Crystal Visions...The Best Of Stevie Nicks is exactly that.With a career that's seen her soar from struggling journeywoman to superstar via a fateful invitation to join Fleetwoood Mac, the singer who now bills herself as the most successful female artist in rock history looks back on the various facets of her iconography via this 16-track career retrospective. The mystic-folkie ethos that has long been her caricature are well-showcased via the cult fave Rumours outtake/B-side "Silver Spring," the muscular Sheryl Crow collaboration "Sorcerer," and a live version of the moody "Rhiannon" that casts it in even longer shadows. Yet Stevie Nicks has always displayed a willingness to push herself beyond her hippie muse, as witnessed by the dense aura of Deep Dish's remix of Mac's "Dreams" and such disparate, pop-savvy solo highlights as "I Can't Wait," "Stand Back," and shrewd, successful duets with Tom Petty ("Stop Draggin' My Heart Around") and Don Henley ("Leather and Lace"). Indeed, bookended by the original version of the hit "Edge of Seventeen" and a live revamping with the Melbourne Symphony that amps its every melodramatic nuance, reinvention often seems the anthology's subtext. The album is also available in a deluxe edition featuring a DVD packed with videos, commentary, and more. --Jerry McCulley
