"Landslide" has become such a cliche song

[MarkMc1990]

And not because of Stevie. But these days, is it just me, or has it fallen victim to the "bandwagon" effect? Like everyone from Miley Cyrus, Haley Williams, people on various singing competitions, etc. are all covering it. It's gained a lot more notoriety in the last couple years and I don't know how I feel about it.

[wild-heart]

I read a comment on youtube that said Miley sounded like Stevie singing that song. I think a part of me died when i read that.

[elle]

And not because of Stevie. But these days, is it just me, or has it fallen victim to the "bandwagon" effect? Like everyone from Miley Cyrus, Haley Williams, people on various singing competitions, etc. are all covering it. It's gained a lot more notoriety in the last couple years and I don't know how I feel about it.

hm... jersey girl was on tv the other day and landslide came on - i thought it actually fit nicely how it was used in that movie.

[WildHearted]

I'd say nowadays it's definitely Stevie's most well-known song. Especially with the exposure from Glee this year, it's become very mainstream if you will.

I'm not bothered by people covering it - I'm bothered by people covering it badly. But that's just me being critical because I hold Stevie and her songs in high regard and don't like to see them butchered. With Landslide, I find a lot of people sing it and maybe sound okay but it completely lacks emotion which is almost worse than if they were singing it completely out of key but meant it with all their hearts.

[fleetwoodtrick]

!!!!!!! I did NOT know that Paramore did a cover of Landslide, I just looked it up on youtube and died a little. That is fricking fabulous. I thought it sounded great. Paramore is one of my favorite bands, and I went to Warped Tour to see them this past summer. Too bad they didn't do it there, I would have **** a brick!!! ...Miley.....not so much. :mad::mad::mad:

[icinglover1995]

Yeah, I was in the car the other day, and a BAAAAD cover of Landslide came on the radio and I imediate shouted to my mom "can you turn change it, pleeeaaaase?!"

[WildHearted]

^ Dixie Chicks, or Smashing Pumpkins?

[louielouie2000]

Let's not forget Landslide was also prominently featured on several different episodes of South Park this season! :p

Landslide has long been cliche, it's not a new phenomenon. It was especially so during the Dance era... they wore it OUT on the radio. Hard to believe that's been 15 years ago now! :shocked:

[Macfanforever]

I do like the Dixie Chicks version.It made me to like them better.Is "Landslide" the most covered FM song in resent years.I found this info on Wikipedia.

.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landslide_(song)

[Regina]

IMO, when the original is so...original and so perfectly suited to the person who sings it (who ALSO happened to write it and "gets it" like no one else can) and who is alive and well and singing it frequently, it's almost idiotic to attempt to cover it.

I think the song, as much as I bitch about it being sung so often and not being put on a long hiatus, is so quintessentially Stevie. I think it's a living thing to her and every year that goes by, it gets more layered. Certainly, the "I'm getting older, too," of the Dance is different than that line now. And, with every loss and every year that goes by...the song has more meaning.

Maybe I'm slightly reversed age-ist, but most 19 or 20 year olds can't possibly "get" what it's like to be Stevie's age and have experienced what she has, and how she got from the Landslide of then to the Landslide of now. So, their versions tend to come off as ... superficial.

[THINKABOUTIT]

God you're telling me! LOL I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the queen herself mentioned she gets tired of it and dislikes how that's all a tv show wants to hear her sing LOL.....

The song is fabulous, don't get me wrong; it feels as if it would have to be banned for a decade & then come back strong again, like new you know? LOL Does that make any sense? :)

I hear her do it, though more oft than not, not by choice, on tv shows, appearances, etc., & think to myself...are there people out there who think that this poor woman has only written 3 songs? Landslide, Dreams and Rhiannon? LOL Oh people.....there is such a massive, long long catalog to listen to.....listen through her :) :laugh:

[MarkMc1990]

I'd say nowadays it's definitely Stevie's most well-known song. Especially with the exposure from Glee this year, it's become very mainstream if you will.

I'm not bothered by people covering it - I'm bothered by people covering it badly. But that's just me being critical because I hold Stevie and her songs in high regard and don't like to see them butchered. With Landslide, I find a lot of people sing it and maybe sound okay but it completely lacks emotion which is almost worse than if they were singing it completely out of key but meant it with all their hearts.

I agree. There's nothing worse than clicking on any given amateur cover on youtube where the person barely knows how to play guitar, can't sing that well, they screw up the verses, the sound quality on their video sucks, there's no emotion like you said, but the thing that really bothers me is when it gets to the end and they sing the triple "well maybeee" signifying that they've been listening to the Dixie Chicks cover more than the original.

[WildHearted]

IMO, when the original is so...original and so perfectly suited to the person who sings it (who ALSO happened to write it and "gets it" like no one else can) and who is alive and well and singing it frequently, it's almost idiotic to attempt to cover it.

I think the song, as much as I bitch about it being sung so often and not being put on a long hiatus, is so quintessentially Stevie. I think it's a living thing to her and every year that goes by, it gets more layered. Certainly, the "I'm getting older, too," of the Dance is different than that line now. And, with every loss and every year that goes by...the song has more meaning.

Maybe I'm slightly reversed age-ist, but most 19 or 20 year olds can't possibly "get" what it's like to be Stevie's age and have experienced what she has, and how she got from the Landslide of then to the Landslide of now. So, their versions tend to come off as ... superficial.

I agree about trying to cover it - no matter what you do, you can't top Stevie. Which is why the whole MEANING it thing is really important to me, because you aren't just trying to sing it to show off or whatever, you're singing it because it touched you. And who can complain about someone doing that.

I don't necessarily agree that most 19 or 20 year olds can't "get" it. Obviously, no one gets it like Stevie or could ever really compare because she wrote it and lived it, but, Stevie was only 25 when she wrote it. She hadn't lived half of what she's lived now - though I understand what you mean about how the song has changed for her over the years. But just because it's changed doesn't mean it didn't mean something great in the beginning, before all this time went by. And I think the song is very layered, and it was so even in 1975, and in order to grasp a little bit of that you have to have at least a little understanding of Stevie - why I think anybody who covers the Dixie Chicks version completely fails and all meaning is shot. Now, I will agree that some (a lot) of young people perhaps are too caught up in the now / not mature enough / don't CARE enough to actually get the song.

Maybe I'm just biased because I'm 18 and managed to pull off writing my English final last semester on Landslide, lmao. Which I'd actually be happy to share, just for the heck of it. I spent a lot of time reading way too much into all of the lyrics, I think, but that's basically all Lit courses want you to do. Attribute meaning where the author intended none :D

[girlboymusic]

I agree about trying to cover it - no matter what you do, you can't top Stevie. Which is why the whole MEANING it thing is really important to me, because you aren't just trying to sing it to show off or whatever, you're singing it because it touched you. And who can complain about someone doing that.

I don't necessarily agree that most 19 or 20 year olds can't "get" it. Obviously, no one gets it like Stevie or could ever really compare because she wrote it and lived it, but, Stevie was only 25 when she wrote it. She hadn't lived half of what she's lived now - though I understand what you mean about how the song has changed for her over the years. But just because it's changed doesn't mean it didn't mean something great in the beginning, before all this time went by. And I think the song is very layered, and it was so even in 1975, and in order to grasp a little bit of that you have to have at least a little understanding of Stevie - why I think anybody who covers the Dixie Chicks version completely fails and all meaning is shot. Now, I will agree that some (a lot) of young people perhaps are too caught up in the now / not mature enough / don't CARE enough to actually get the song.

Maybe I'm just biased because I'm 18 and managed to pull off writing my English final last semester on Landslide, lmao. Which I'd actually be happy to share, just for the heck of it. I spent a lot of time reading way too much into all of the lyrics, I think, but that's basically all Lit courses want you to do. Attribute meaning where the author intended none :D

I totally agree with you. I actually think "Landslide" is one of the few Stevie songs a 19- or 20-year-old can get. I know it was one of the few Stevie songs that I could truly get when I was a kid. No, the song isn't going to have the same layers of meaning when a 20-year-old sings it that it has when Stevie sings it now -- but it didn't have those layers of meaning when Stevie sang it at 25, either. Originally, it was a song about realizing you were growing up, and all the bittersweetness that comes with it, and I think a 20-year-old is going to be closer to the original meaning of the song than Stevie is now. As long as the singer is good, and thoughtful about the lyrics, they can sing it just fine.

Something like "Silver Springs," on the other hand -- to be honest, I don't think even Stevie pulled that off when she was young. It was a pretty enough song back then, but it really became powerful when she brought it back for The Dance.

[Gypsybecca]

God you're telling me! LOL I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the queen herself mentioned she gets tired of it and dislikes how that's all a tv show wants to hear her sing LOL.....

The song is fabulous, don't get me wrong; it feels as if it would have to be banned for a decade & then come back strong again, like new you know? LOL Does that make any sense? :)

I hear her do it, though more oft than not, not by choice, on tv shows, appearances, etc., & think to myself...are there people out there who think that this poor woman has only written 3 songs? Landslide, Dreams and Rhiannon? LOL Oh people.....there is such a massive, long long catalog to listen to.....listen through her :) :laugh:

Marisa, you bring up such an important fact- that Stevie herself gets tired of singing Landslide! :lol:

You know she has to be rolling her eyes when she sings it sometimes, but it's obviously what people know her for and what tv shows want her to perform.

And yes, you do make sense, I think if it were banned for a while, we would miss it and welcome it's return!

I think it's a beautiful song and always cringe when I hear a cover version of it....no one should ever sing it but Stevie. That's just wrong.

[David]

the thing that really bothers me is when it gets to the end and they sing the triple "well maybeee" signifying that they've been listening to the Dixie Chicks cover more than the original.Oh, I hate that too. My niece does that every time she sits me down at a piano to play it so she can sing it. She only knows the Dixie Chicks--really had no idea about the Fleetwood Mac connection--so that's the rendition she thinks of as the authentic one.

[THINKABOUTIT]

Hey Becca....you know my friend Anna :) I saw you at Amoeba, THe WIltern, the Grammy museum....never got to say hi ;) :wavey:

[michelej1]

Maybe I'm slightly reversed age-ist, but most 19 or 20 year olds can't possibly "get" what it's like to be Stevie's age and have experienced what she has, and how she got from the Landslide of then to the Landslide of now. So, their versions tend to come off as ... superficial.

Of course, Stevie was older than 19 or 20 when she wrote and then recorded it. Still she was young and had not had that many life experiences herself (not compared to what was to come). I was always impressed with the age-old wisdom in her voice and phrasing inflections in those earliest years.

The song had a maturity a generation beyond her years then, in one sense. In another, I think it is a song handmade for a young person, breaking old ties and restrictions, venturing out on a search for independence for the first time.

Michele

[Buddy]

I love Landslide. I never tire of Stevie singing it.
I'm happy other people sing it, good or bad, because they must love it too! I'll admit I don't always want to listen to the other versions!
I think Landslide is one of Stevie's masterpieces.

[WildHearted]

If anyone's interesting in reading the paper I wrote on Landslide, I've uploaded it. The prompt for the paper was something along the lines of: Choose a text anddemonstrate how it is emblematic of the human experience through a close reading of the text. So it's basically just a 3.5 or so page analysis of it.

Keep in mind that since it was for school, it probably sounds overly pretentious, has a cheesy title and annoying introduction paragraph, includes stuff like "the speaker," "Nicks," " her lover," etc because per the instructions of the teacher, I had to treat Stevie as a poet and wasn't allowed to assume that the speaker was the author etc. I also basically had to pretend that I knew nothing about the actual story behind it, and divulge everything I wrote purely from the text itself (because everything i said had to be backed up by the text so my teacher could see where I was getting it from).. in other words, I had to sort of generalize it all.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RaM6_IOz0Gg7kWTwDz9UzMzk7nMFKKTPNcoKw3Xr5sY/edit

[Buddy]

A+
wonderful ;)

[WildHearted]

A+
wonderful ;)

Haha, thank you! I did manage to snag a 95 on it in reality so not too shabby.

[PolishStevieFan]

It might seem for us that "Landslide" is a bit cliche because we are aware that Stevie has written so many unforgettable songs that sadly are ignored by the mass public. I can name at least ten other songs that are in my opinion way better than overplayed and overhyped "Landslide". On the other hand, if this song serves as another brick in the Stevie's legend wall then I'm not against it. Let legacy continue! Even with 1.000.000 th contestant of American Idol singing this old tune:)

[David]

I can name at least ten other songs that are in my opinion way better than overplayed and overhyped "Landslide".
I don't think I could. To me, "Landslide" is a top-notch example of structural strength, effective brevity, beautiful melodic hook, & memorable wordsmithing. The themes of growing older & reflecting back seem to connect with a lot of people.

Look closely at the melodic line in the chorus: its path--an ascent with three switchbacks (the third of which falls twice), followed by a descent that is almost the ascent in reverse--is a cool little representation of the words ("climb a mountain and turn around").

It's details like that which probably indicate that Stevie put a heck of a lot of thought into this one.

[WildHearted]

^ To be honest, I think those things are unintentional on Stevie's part (which makes it all the more beautiful as a piece of art, imo), at least, as far as the melodic line and all. Didn't Stevie say she wrote it in like 10 minutes or something, the words and music all at once?

[Kena]

If anyone's interesting in reading the paper I wrote on Landslide, I've uploaded it. The prompt for the paper was something along the lines of: Choose a text anddemonstrate how it is emblematic of the human experience through a close reading of the text. So it's basically just a 3.5 or so page analysis of it.

Keep in mind that since it was for school, it probably sounds overly pretentious, has a cheesy title and annoying introduction paragraph, includes stuff like "the speaker," "Nicks," " her lover," etc because per the instructions of the teacher, I had to treat Stevie as a poet and wasn't allowed to assume that the speaker was the author etc. I also basically had to pretend that I knew nothing about the actual story behind it, and divulge everything I wrote purely from the text itself (because everything i said had to be backed up by the text so my teacher could see where I was getting it from).. in other words, I had to sort of generalize it all.


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RaM6_IOz0Gg7kWTwDz9UzMzk7nMFKKTPNcoKw3Xr5sY/edit

Good paper!

[MarkMc1990]

Excellent paper, WildHearted! I have to admit there were some explanations you gave for lines that I never considered and they make perfect sense.

[WildHearted]

Thanks you guys!

Glad that there was an interpretation or two maybe different from your own. That's the great thing about Stevie's songs (and poems and music and writing in general) - it's all subjective!

[poetinmyheart]

Thanks you guys!

Glad that there was an interpretation or two maybe different from your own. That's the great thing about Stevie's songs (and poems and music and writing in general) - it's all subjective!

I really enjoyed reading your paper. Thanks for sharing.