Fleetwood Mac may not be as universally well-known as the Beatles, ABBA or even the Police. However, they did get a couple of things none of those bands ever had.

https://flic.kr/p/rNjQYa

The first achievement they managed is a super mega blockbuster album like Rumours is. Just think in the US this album sold as much as Beatles smashes Abbey Road and Revolver combined. Resuming the band to Rumours would be a huge mistake yet. One argument Fleetwood Mac can claim more than any other group in music history is the capacity to successfully come back.

During the late 60s, they had a string of hits in their native UK, hitting #1 with Albatross. They achieved a decent success on the European continent as well. After tough years, they made a breakthrough as impressive as unexpected with their 1975 eponymous LP in the US. In 1977, they dropped Rumours, possibly the second most successful album ever in English-speaking countries. After back-to-back flops, 1987 record Tango In The Night was massive. Disappearing from the map again, 1997 live album The Dance was huge and even their 2003 effort was a very good seller compared to its predecessor. They are currently recording a new album and their history shows it can bomb as well as it can smash. In the meantime, we will be checking really how big or weak the band's discography is.

Original Albums Sales

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (1968)

Mr. Wonderful (1968)

• America

  • US - 500,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 425,000

  • UK - 150,000
  • France - 50,000
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - 25,000
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 1,100,000

Then Play On (1969)

• America

  • US - 1,200,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 475,000

  • UK - 225,000
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - 25,000
  • Spain - 25,000
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 2,000,000

Kiln House (1970)

• America

  • US - 450,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - 25,000
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - 225,000

  • UK - 100,000
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 800,000

Future Games (1971)

• America

  • US - 550,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - N/A

  • UK - N/A
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 800,000

Bare Trees (1972)

• America

  • US - 1,400,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia -50,000
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - N/A

  • UK - N/A
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 1,850,000

Penguin (1973)

• America

  • US - 500,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - N/A

  • UK - N/A
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 700,000

Mystery To Me (1973)

• America

  • US - 1,200,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - N/A

  • UK - N/A
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 1,600,000

Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974)

• America

  • US - 1,000,000
  • Canada - N/A
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - N/A
  • New Zealand - N/A

• Europe - N/A

  • UK - N/A
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 1,300,000

Fleetwood Mac (1975)

• America

  • US - 7,100,000
  • Canada - 500,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - N/A

• Oceania

  • Australia - 350,000
  • New Zealand - 60,000

• Europe - 1,000,000

  • UK - 425,000
  • France - N/A
  • Germany - N/A
  • Italy - 40,000
  • Spain - N/A
  • Sweden - N/A
  • Netherland - N/A
  • Switzerland - N/A
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 9,400,000

Rumours (1977)

Tusk (1979)

Mirage (1982)

Tango In The Night (1987)

Behind The Mask (1990)

Time (1995)

Say You Will (2003)

• America

  • US - 975,000
  • Canada - 100,000
  • Argentina - N/A
  • Brazil - N/A
  • Mexico - N/A

• Asia

  • Japan - 15,000

• Oceania

  • Australia - 25,000
  • New Zealand - 10,000

• Europe - 380,000

  • UK - 160,000
  • France - 10,000
  • Germany - 100,000
  • Italy - N/A
  • Spain - 10,000
  • Sweden - 10,000
  • Netherland - 15,000
  • Switzerland - 5,000
  • Austria - N/A
  • Finland - N/A

• World - 1,600,000

Original Album Sales - Comments

A grand total of 17 studio albums for Fleetwood Mac with a total of 84,55 million units sold. Of course, Rumours looks like the absolute juggernaut of their catalog with a terrific 35,5 million albums sold. Considering this number, their overall total doesn't look that big but we need to highlight the band's first nine albums weren't major sellers. They ended stepping up to stardom with their eponymous tenth album in 1975. Plus, one must mention late 60s was mostly a period of single sales, hurting the pure album sales relevance.

Since, depending on the group's line-up, they went up and down in great fashion. Tusk sold less than 20% of Rumours total. Tango In The Night more than doubled Mirage. Behind The Mask and Time sold an awful 25% and 5% of their immediate predecessor, dividing their score by 75 within' two records. Then, Say You Will sold more than 10 times more than Time.

1968 Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac – 1,600,000
1968 Mr. Wonderful – 1,100,000
1969 Then Play On – 2,000,000
1970 Kiln House – 800,000 
1971 Future Games – 800,000
1972 Bare Trees – 1,850,000
1973 Penguin – 700,000
1973 Mystery To Me – 1,600,000
1974 Heroes Are Hard To Find – 1,300,000
1975 Fleetwood Mac – 9,400,000
1977 Rumours – 35,500,000
1979 Tusk – 6,600,000
1982 Mirage – 5,500,000
1987 Tango In The Night – 11,300,000
1990 Behind The Mask – 2,750,000
1995 Time – 150,000
2003 Say You Will – 1,600,000

Physical Singles Sales

If they never had a true big selling physical single, Fleetwood Mac still sold a nice total of 26 million units. During their early years, the industry was following another model than today. Singles and albums were indeed fully distinct releases. Thus, none of their first nine albums enjoyed singles sales while all their first hits end up into the Orphan Album category.

Interestingly, while their pure album sales display huge differences between each album, it is not at all the case with their physical singles. Each of their five LPs from 1975 Fleetwood Mac to 1987 Tango In The Night averaged about 4 million units sold from their singles.

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 3 ratio between one album and one physical single.

Fleetwood Mac (1975) - 810,000 equivalent albums

Over My Head - 700,000
Rhiannon - 900,000
Say You Love Me - 900,000
Landslide - 200,000

Rumours (1977) - 1,770,000 equivalent albums

Go Your Own Way - 1,300,000
Don't Stop - 1,600,000
Dreams - 2,100,000
You Make Loving Fun - 900,000

Tusk (1979) - 1,320,000  equivalent albums

Tusk - 1,900,000
Sara - 1,500,000
Think About Me - 800,000
Sisters Of The Moon - 200,000

Mirage (1982) - 1,012,500  equivalent albums

Hold Me - 1,700,000
Gypsy - 900,000
Love In Store - 500,000
Oh Diane - 250,000
Can't Go Back - 25,000

Tango In The Night (1987) - 1,455,000  equivalent albums

Big Love - 1,300,000
Seven Wonders - 700,000
Little Lies - 1,600,000
Family Man - 200,000
Everywhere - 1,000,000
Isn't It Midnight - 50,000

Behind The Mask (1990) - 135,000  equivalent albums

Save Me - 400,000
In The Back Of My Mind - 50,000

Say You Will (2003) - 24,000  equivalent albums

Peacekeeper - 80,000

Orphan Album - 1,290,000  equivalent albums

Black Magic Woman - 50,000
Need Your Love So Bad - 200,000
Albatross - 1,200,000
Man Of The World - 400,000
Oh Well - 1,400,000
The Green Manalashi - 300,000
Fireflies - 200,000
As Long As You Follow - 300,000
Love Shines - 50,000
Remaining Singles - 200,000

Fleetwood Mac's digital singles sales

No need to say Fleetwood Mac's hey-days weren't marked by digital sales, as iTunes was launched more than 15 years after the band's last successful album. The question then is how enduring the appeal of their past hits is. Since Rumours and their compilations are impressive catalog sellers, it comes as no surprise to see their digital sales being pretty healthy too.

Moving more than 17 million digital singles in the US alone, the group is up to 32 million singles sold overall. Incredibly, Rumours songs are responsible for almost half of that tally. Their leading hit is 1977 single Go Your Own Way although several songs follow it quite closely.

As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between one album and one digital single.

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac (1968) - 60,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 400,000

Mr. Wonderful (1968) - 53,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 350,000

Then Play On (1969) - 15,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 100,000

Kiln House (1970) - 3,000 equivalent albums

All tracks - 20,000

Future Games (1971) - 0 equivalent albums

Not available digitally.

Bare Trees (1972) - 0 equivalent albums

Not available digitally.

Penguin (1973) - 0 equivalent albums

Not available digitally.

Mystery To Me (1973) - 0 equivalent albums

Not available digitally.

Heroes Are Hard To Find (1974) - 8,000 equivalent albums

Not available digitally except Angel, 50,000.

Fleetwood Mac (1975) - 825,000 equivalent albums

Over My Head - 200,000
Rhiannon - 1,500,000
Say You Love Me - 300,000
Landslide - 2,900,000
Remaining Tracks - 600,000

Rumours (1977) - 2,250,000 equivalent albums

Go Your Own Way - 4,400,000
Don't Stop - 1,000,000
Dreams - 3,100,000
You Make Loving Fun - 700,000
The Chain - 2,100,000
Songbird - 700,000
Never Going Back Again - 1,200,000
Second Hand News - 500,000
Gold Dust Woman - 400,000
I Don't Want To Know - 200,000
Oh Daddy - 200,000
Remaining Tracks - 500,000

Tusk (1979) - 240,000  equivalent albums

Tusk - 400,000
Sara - 650,000
Think About Me - 75,000
Sisters Of The Moon - 75,000
Remaining Tracks - 400,000

Mirage (1982) - 188,000  equivalent albums

Hold Me - 200,000
Gypsy - 800,000
Love In Store - 50,000
Oh Diane - 50,000
Remaining Tracks - 150,000

Tango In The Night (1987) - 810,000  equivalent albums

Big Love - 400,000
Seven Wonders - 500,000
Little Lies - 1,300,000
Family Man - 100,000
Everywhere - 2,700,000
Remaining Tracks - 400,000

Behind The Mask (1990) - 15,000  equivalent albums

All Tracks - 100,000

Time (1995) - 8,000  equivalent albums

All Tracks - 50,000

Say You Will (2003) - 75,000  equivalent albums

All Tracks - 500,000

Orphan Album - 255,000  equivalent albums

Black Magic Woman - 250,000
Need Your Love So Bad - 100,000
Albatross - 400,000
Man Of The World - 75,000
Oh Well - 50,000
The Green Manalashi - 25,000
As Long As You Follow - 100,000
Remaining Tracks - 700,000

Fleetwood Mac's streaming sales

The table below lists Spotify streaming of all songs from the five albums we are studying. The Comprehensive Streaming is reached by multiplying Spotify figures by 68/26. In fact, https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/GMR2016.pd f" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">as shown in IFPI 2015 Report, there were 68 million paying subscribers to all streaming platforms by the end of 2015. While the exact count of Spotify paying subscribers by the end of 2015 is unknown, that figure reached 20 million in June 2015 and 30 million in March 2016, thus an estimated 26 million is used as of the end of 2015.

The equivalent album sales is the division of the comprehensive streaming figure by 1500 as it is now the norm in the new industry model.

Part 1 - Just Getting Started

It can be difficult to accept those figures come from a cult rock band. The point is that Fleetwood Mac started as a Blues act, plus their first albums had no singles, which is very visible on those lists. Figures of all those album tracks aren't that bad yet as they almost all get into six digits, some of them even reach seven figures results.

Part 2 - Oh iTunes, Where Art Thou?

If you thought scores of their first two albums were bad, then just check the following ones. In the middle of them, several albums are completely missing - Future Games, Bare Trees, Penguin, Mistery To Me - as they have never been made available on downloads platforms, nor are they available on Spotify.

From the three albums listed here, only the few tracks that made it into their early years compilations are available, all of them having a pretty bad showing.

Part 3 - Rumours Get Noisy

And just like that, Fleetwood Mac got utterly massive. From 288 to 1,559 to 195,000 to 625,000, album sales equivalence of their albums streaming results explode record after record.

Fleetwood Mac isn't that big overall but both Rhiannon and Landslide are truly solid hits. On its side, except the few tracks added to the expanded edition, Rumours is utterly massive all over its track list. With its worst song at nearly 7 million and soon 8 tracks at 15 million or more, no catalog album can challenge such an extensive appeal. Go Your Own Way is shown at 98,8 million here - to be fully honest, as those figures were compiled a few days ago, time to define all data, it has already passed 100 million as of October 7. Believe it or not, songs like The Chain at a huge 47 million streams or Never Going Back Again, which recently topped 30 million, weren't even singles of the album.

Part 4 - Mirage Success

Both follow-ups Tusk and Mirage made Rumours look like a one-time success. Their success was way more modest which is fully visible on their streaming figures.

Still, both of them, respectively with Sara / Tusk and Gypsy, own very decent hits.

Part 5 - More Ups, More Downs

With two average hits and two big ones, Tango In The Night was a real comeback for Fleetwood Mac. Everywhere at 59 million is truly one of the band most remembered songs, while Littles Lies at 29 million is huge as well.

In terms of albums equivalent, this album performs four times better than its predecessor. Back to stay? Well, not really. If the Rumours to Tusk drop was heavily covered as the biggest freefall of the history of the music industry - a 89% drop in streaming results, the one from Tango In The Night to Behind The Mask, at 98,5%, is even more absurd.

Part 6 - Winds Of Change...

Far from recovering, Time manages to do even worst than its predecessor. Nowadays, streaming is often seen as a fanatics tool to artificially inflate sales of flop albums. Well, as you can see, a flop is a flop and an album that had no impact upon release and no hit at all will hardly turn into a major seller because you add all formats figures.

Say You Will clearly lacks a hit but is surprisingly consistent. No track top 1,6 million, still all of them are over 300,000 plays. If not record breaking, the overall tally is seven times bigger than Time one.

Part 7 - Orphan Album

A mix of many, many different songs, the Orphan Album category is led by the band non-albums physical singles from the 60s. The biggest of them is easily Albatross, a #1 smash in 1968 that is still popular as of today.

Fleetwood Mac's full length related records sales

Fleetwood Mac had three main life. Their late 60s years with Peter Green leading the band. Then Bob Welch succeeded him during 1971-1974 years. Ultimately, the Christine McVie / Lindsey Buckingham took over to record the group biggest records.

When the band exploded, an awful lot of compilations from Peter Green period came out, a list is presented below in part 1. The Bob Welch period is pretty erased from the band catalog as not only it isn't available in digital formats, there have never been a single compilation or live album featuring songs from their 1971 to 1974 studio albums. Two more parts of full length records are displaying on upcoming pages, covering all post-1975 items.

Part 1 - Peter Green Years

How to understand this table? If you check for example English Rose compilation line, those figures mean it sold 800,000 units worldwide. The second statistics column means all versions of all songs included on this package add for 19 million streaming plays on Spotify.

The second part at the right of the table shows how many streams are coming from each original album plus the share it represents on the overall package streams. Thus, streaming figures tell us Mr. Wonderful songs are responsible for 16% of the English Rose tracklist attractiveness, which means it generated 131,000 of its 800,000 album sales and so on for the other records.

A few comments now, this period is largely dominated by songs Black Magic Woman and Albatross, both non-album hit singles. As a result, the Orphan Album is responsible for the majority of sales from all compilations of this period. Overall, those records represent a solid 8,8 million units sold.

Part 2 - Major Live and Compilation albums

The list below covers a couple of live albums and three compilations which contain post-1975 songs.

At 35,65 million copies sold, those records have been incredibly successful since they first came out, accumulating notable catalog sales year after year. What's impressive is that major selling compilation albums usually include a set of songs covering various relevant studio albums. In the case of Fleetwood Mac, the album Rumours has a mind-blowing domination over their catalog.

This album alone has been able to sell unreal amounts of copies by itself while generating millions and millions of compilation and live album sales at the same time. This situation is almost unique, only achieved by Thriller album by Michael Jackson at this magnitude of sales.

All in all, Rumours owns a record breaking 19,71 million of the 35,65 million sales registered by those five packages. Have I told you this album is massive?

Part 3 - Music Videos

Although music video records are naturally lower sellers than CD compilations, the pattern identified on previous packages appears again here with Rumours ridiculously destroying the competition. Except this album, only Fleetwood Mac and Tango In The Night achieve to get some relevant shares among those records.

Fleetwood Mac: Career results (CSPC)

[xyz-ips snippet="updatedCSPCalbums"]

You read it well - Rumours becomes the very first album among all discographies we studied so far to cross the 60 million barrier. What is even more unreal is that this album success wasn't equal everywhere. It ended as a great seller everywhere, but not that huge in many areas like in Asia, Latin countries and others.

On the other side, its success in English-speaking markets is out of this world. With more than 75% of their sales coming from the US-UK-Canada-Australia, this album generated more than 46 million units in those countries alone. That figure is so outstanding that in spite of the relatively lower sales elsewhere, globally the album still has a nearly 10 million units lead over Grease Soundtrack or Nirvana's Nevermind, a 15 million units lead over Guns N' Roses monster album Appetite For Destruction.

Elsewhere, Tango In The Night, which on its side failed to truly succeed in the US, achieves more than 21 million CSPC sales. Completing a strong podium is Fleetwood Mac at 17,2 million. Tusk and Mirage are always referred to as hardcore flops, the fact is that only the historical success of Rumours make them look so weak. At 9,7 million and 8,3 million respectively, they perform rather well everything considered. Their standalone hits from the 60s created a very solid Orphan Album too.

Apart from those records, the rest of their discography isn't that big with no album reaching even 3 million album sales equivalent. Worst, eight of their albums seem completely inexistent, plus a couple more close to that situation. I often mention how CPSC articles highlight each era added value to the music industry in a pure way, this is a very telling example as those records are truly dead, bringing no value at all to Fleetwood Mac, the complete opposite of Rumours. It sounds almost impossible that an album like Heroes Are Hard To Find, released less than 3 years before an all-time blockbuster album, is so much ignored today. Obviously, the band line-up notably changed in-between but that situation is still quite atypical.

As for the band overall total, the cumulative tally of Fleetwood Mac is up to 144,8 million equivalent album sales. In other words, non-Rumours albums are worth 83,6 million album sales equivalent, more than careers of Nickelback or Green Day. The point being, even if Rumours' magnitude of success would overshadow all remaining albums of anyone's discography, the band Fleetwood Mac is very far from being a one-album wonder, indeed, they have been a major force in the music industry for nearly 50 years now.

As usual, feel free to comment and / or ask a question!

Sources: IFPI, Spotify, Chartmasters.org.

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