Landslide (Fleetwood Mac song)

Stevie Nicks has said that she wrote "Landslide" while contemplating either going back to school or continuing on professionally with guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. At the time, Nicks was financially supporting both herself and Buckingham by taking up jobs as both a waitress and a cleaning lady. Following the release of their debut album Buckingham Nicks, they had been dropped from their recording contract 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." On the studio recording of "Landslide", Buckingham played a Martin D-18 acoustic guitar using a Travis picking technique with the thumb alternating between bass notes. He described the part as a "three against four pattern that crosses the bar line and gives the chorus another level of lift." In 2007, Buckingham told The Austin Chronicle that the song addressed some of the interpersonal issues between him and Nicks. He thought that the song possessed a "nice" guitar solo and also maintained that "Landslide" was not a "signature guitar piece". In a different interview, Buckingham discussed how he bristled at the notion that "Landslide" was associated with country music. ==Live performances and release==

"Landslide" is one of Fleetwood Mac's most frequently performed during tours. Nicks has sung it on every Fleetwood Mac tour since joining the band, with the exception of the Shake the Cage Tour, and has performed it on all of her own solo tours from 2005's Two Voices Tour onwards. A live performance of "Landslide" recorded on 27 June 1980 at the London Wembley Arena was included on Live. For early live performances of "Landslide", Buckingham played the song on an Ovation guitar with a built-in pickup. "Landslide" eventually peaked at number 51; it became their last single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 until 2003, when "Peacekeeper" debuted at number 93. "Landslide" also reached the top 30 on both the US and Canadian adult contemporary charts. Following the song's inclusion on the season finale of "Stranger Things", an American television series that aired on Netflix, the studio version of "Landslide" entered the charts in several countries. It received 7 million streams, 800,000 radio impressions, and 1,000 downloads in the United States from 2–8 January 2026, which was sufficient for a debut of No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first time the band appeared on the chart since 2020 when "Dreams" re-entered the chart after being featured in a TikTok video. ==Critical reception==

In a contemporary review, Rolling Stone wrote that Nicks seemed "lost and out of place" on "Landslide" and that her voice sounded "callow and mannered". In his review of the band's Fleetwood Mac album, Ben Edmonds of Phonograph Record said that "Landslide" demonstrated Nicks' versatility as a songwriter. Retrospective reviews have been more positive, with certain publications such as The Guardian and Paste ranking "Landslide" amongst the band's best work. AllMusic described "Landslide" as a traditional song "built on a very simple (and very effective) country-folk-inspired chord progression". ==Personnel==

• Stevie Nicks – vocals • Lindsey Buckingham – guitars ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Certifications==

The Smashing Pumpkins Alternative rock band 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. The song was also featured on the US version of their 2001 greatest hits album Rotten Apples. It was later used in the TV show Alias on season 1 in the 2002 episode "Page 47". At the 2026 Met Gala on May 4, Sabrina Carpenter performed "Landslide" as a duet with Nicks inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, following a set of Carpenter's own material including "Espresso" and "House Tour." Nicks also performed several of her own songs at the event, including "Gypsy" and "Edge of Seventeen." Charts Dixie Chicks American country music group Dixie Chicks released a cover of "Landslide" on 26 August 2002 as the second single from their 2002 album, Home. Lead singer Natalie Maines said she was attracted to the song because she was then the same age that Nicks was when she first performed it. The band performed the song with Nicks at VH1 Divas Las Vegas in 2002. This version, featuring the band's two- and three-part harmonies, reached the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Outside the United States, "Landslide" reached number two in Canada and became the band's only top-10 hit in Australia, where it reached number six. • "Landslide" (album version) – 3:49 • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix) – 3:47 Australian CD single • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix) • "Landslide" • "Landslide" (live from the Kodak Theater) • "Landslide" (video version) European maxi-CD single • "Landslide" (album version) – 3:49 • "Long Time Gone" – 4:08 • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix) – 3:47 • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix—video) – 3:45 UK CD single • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix) – 3:47 • "Landslide" (album version) – 3:49 • "Landslide" (live from the Kodak Theater) – 4:07 • "Landslide" (the Sheryl Crow remix—video version) – 3:45 Charts Certifications Release history Glee version In 2011, the cast of Fox Broadcasting Company's 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. Other cover versions • Anohni recorded the song for the tribute album Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac. • Harry Styles performed this song with Nicks during his show at the Troubadour in May 2017. • The Japanese House recorded a cover of this song for Spotify Singles, released 26 July 2017. • Parodied by Lucy Lawless (in character as Stevie Nicks) in a 17 October 1998 season 24 episode of Saturday Night Live. • On 12 March 2019, Australian pop singer Conrad Sewell recorded a cover of the song for Australian bank Westpac, in a campaign designed to target families dealing with separation and the resulting financial consequences. Branding in Asia described the rendition as "powerful", while The Music Networks Jake Challenor praised Sewell's performance as "soulful and emotionally charged". • Brittany Snow (as Bobby-Lynne Parker) and Scott Mescudi (as Jackson Hollis) performed a cover in the Ti West period slasher film X (2022), which is set in 1979, four years after the original song had been released. ==See also==