Songoftheday 9/26/23 - Mirror in the sky what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above?
"Landslide" - The (formerly Dixie) Chicks
from the album Home (2002)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 22
Today's song comes from the (at the time "Dixie") Chicks, whose Home album had brought them into the top ten on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 with the song "Long Time Gone" in the summer of 2002. For the second single from the album, the trio released a remake of a song long-revered but never an "official" hit for its original writer. "Landslide" was written by Stevie Nicks while she was just starting her stint in Fleetwood Mac, and appeared on the band's self-titled 1975 album. The song was never released as a single at the time (her composition "Rhiannon" was instead) and remained a fan favorite for years.
In 1994, the alternative rock group Smashing Pumpkins covered the song for their Pisces Iscariot set. And while that is well wasn't released as a physical commercial "single", it had another pop radio airplay to climb to #30 on Billboard's Hot 100 Airplay chart . Three years later, Fleetwood Mac reunited for their #1 all-live mostly-hits album The Dance. That live version of "Landslide" was then released as a CD Single, but since most of the fans nabbed the album, it stalled down at #51 on the Hot 100.
Fast forward to 2002. The Chicks put their own version of "Landslide" out to the world. The production from the trio with Lloyd Maines (lead single Natalie's dad) stayed faithful to the acoustic nature of the original, but the harmonies Natalie and sisters Emily and Marlie give to the song elevate the sonic nature, even if Stevie's is of course much more personal in emotion. Does this surpass the original? Hell no, but like Luke Combs' current retread of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car", this quite beautiful version brings the song to a whole different audience, and in that light, it succeeds nicely...
"Landslide" became the second top-ten hit from Home (and second overall at that point) in March of 2003. On the radio, the song spent two weeks at #2 on Billboard's Country Songs airplay chart, six weeks at #2 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 list, and #13 on the Mainstream Top-40 radio panel. But it did its best at the Adult Contemporary, or "easy listening" format, where it topped the chart for seven weeks. Internationally, the single peaked at #2 in Canada (for sales), #6 in Australia, and #27 in New Zealand.
Two days after this song started its peak on the Hot 100, the Chicks were on tour in England, where Natalie Maines made the statement on stage that because of the Iraq War entanglements from then-President George W. Bush she was ashamed to be from Texas. Things would change dramatically after that.
But in the meantime, both the Chicks and the Home album will be back to the series.
(8/10)
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When the trio appeared on the Howard Stern Show, they performed the song...
And lastly, here the Chicks are on their MMXVI tour...
Up tomorrow: the arguably BIGGEST power-couple in pop music come together for the first time for a crime spree.
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