“Landslide” (8) is a song written by Stevie Nicks and performed by British-American band Fleetwood Mac. The song was first featured on the band’s self-titled 1975 album. The original recording also appears on the compilation album The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac (2002), while a live version was released as a single 23 years after the live reunion album The Dance. “Landslide” reached No. 51 on the US Billboard chart and No. 10 on the Adult Contemporary chart. “Landslide” was certified Gold in October 2009 for sales of over 500,000 copies in the United States. Nicks has said that she wrote the song while contemplating going back to school or continuing on professionally with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. Their album Buckingham Nicks had been dropped by Polydor Records before they could release a follow up. Nicks wrote the song while visiting Aspen, Colorado, sitting in someone’s living room “looking out at the Rocky Mountains pondering the avalanche of everything that had come crashing down on us … at that moment, my life truly felt like a landslide in many ways”.
The Smashing Pumpkins recorded an acoustic arrangement of the song that was featured as the B-side to their 1994 single “Disarm” and later on their B-side collection Pisces Iscariot. The group’s arrangement went on to be one of the rock band’s most-beloved tracks and even had the approval of Nicks herself. As she told fans during a 1998 online chat with SonicNet, “There’s nothing more pleasing to a songwriter than [someone else] doing one of their songs. [‘Landslide’] also led me to being friends with Billy Corgan and the possibility that we’ll work together,” she said of the Smashing Pumpkins frontman. “Over this song, there’s been this incredible connection … he reached out … I believe that my poetry is really meant for everyone, no matter what age.” The new version was a hit, making it to the top three on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in the United States that year and No. 30 on the US Airplay charts.
American group Dixie Chicks (now known just as The Chicks) recorded “Landslide” for their 2002 album Home and it was released in August 2002 as the album’s second single. Lead singer Natalie Maines said she was attracted, in part, to the song because she was then the same age that Nicks was when she initially performed it. The Chicks performed the song with Nicks at VH1 Divas Las Vegas in 2002. This rendition, featuring the group’s two- and three-part harmonies, reached the top 10 on both the US Billboard and the Hot Country Songs chart, and it became the Chicks’ only number-one single to date on the Adult Contemporary chart. Outside the United States, the song reached No. 2 in Canada and No. 6 in Australia, becoming the group’s sole top-10 hit in the latter country. Their version has been certified platinum by the RIAA and triple platinum by ARIA, surpassing the commercial success of the original.
The cast of the musical television program, Glee, performed the song in Season 2, Episode 15, “Sexy”. Gwyneth Paltrow, Naya Rivera, and Heather Morris are featured on vocals for this version. Stevie Nicks attended the filming of the song and stated that it was a “beautiful mix” of the original and The Chicks version. The Glee version reached the top 40 on the singles charts of Australia (No. 38), Canada (No. 35), Ireland (No. 36), and the US (No. 23).
Miley Cyrus also regularly features Landslide in her stage shows. Engearingly in the video I have chosen to reflect this she uses her phone to reind herself of the lyrics because it is two years since she previously performed the song.
