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Hi Anthony!
Sure, the breakdown below:
America
- US – 10,200,000
- Canada – 1,100,000
Asia
- Japan – 225,000
Oceania
- Australia – 825,000
- New Zealand – 175,000
Europe – 4,970,000
- UK – 1,875,000
- France – 300,000
- Germany – 925,000
- Italy – 225,000
- Spain – 250,000
- Sweden – 150,000
- Netherland – 325,000
- Switzerland – 75,000
- Austria – 30,000
World – 19,300,000
I was wondering where you got some of this sales data. Some albums, like Fleetwood Mac (1968), Penguin, Heroes are Hard to Find, Fleetwood Mac (1975), Tusk, and Mirage seem to have higher sales than expected. You list Heroes at 1,000,000 units in the US, yet it hasn't received a certification.
Hi Sinny!
As you must know certifications aren't automatic. This is even more true for Fleetwood Mac with the messy changes of label along the years. If I would stop myself at RIAA numbers, then all studies would be useless, we would go by RIAA massively flawed all-time lists.
Using your example, Heroes performed way bigger than Mistery to Me during their respective promotional campaigns, peaking at #34 against #67. This latter album went Gold as early as in 1976. In 1975 Heroes re-entered charts on the back of Fleetwood Mac album success. There is no doubt it crossed half a million units at some point between 1975 and 1977. With the utterly massive smash of Rumours, their catalog undoubtedly enjoyed great sales for a few years. Bare Trees for example, which sold less upon release than Heroes too and wasn't as strong in 1975 catalog sales too still made it past 1 million by 1988.
It is clear that Heroes hasn't sold much post-LP era and since Reprise has been ignoring it for decades they aren't going to certify it. Still, it has clearly sold well past Gold criteria with the most realistic estimate to date on 1 million units.
Hi MJD,
Guardians of the Galaxy has propelled Chains to popularity and the volume 2 mix tape album is still selling great. Just wondering how u going to credit it to Fleetwood? Like if e album sells 500k, how much album eq u gg to credit to them?
I am from Argentina. ABBA was super massive here. My mother was a big fan in the 70s (she bought some albums)... If I ask her about Fleedwood Mac... she would say: "What is that?"
MJD is completely right about that.
Hi Jeff!
Compilations / Soundtrack that aren't related to one specific artist do not count towards their tally. Elseway, all 'Now' compilations among others would need to be considered too. The Chain will benefit from this exposure to increase its downloads and streams while the band best of packages are doing well right now thanks to the movie, so Fleetwood Mac are gaining still within' their own catalog.
My first time on this site. Not arguing, just curious. How is it most lists I view online have Rumours at 50M copies, and this list is well under 40M?
Hi Mike! Welcome 🙂
It's the whole purpose of this website, to fix the countless inflated claims that we keep reading everywhere. Thriller at 104m, Rumours, Back In Black and Bat Out Of Hell at 50m, Millennium at 40m, Elvis and the Beatles at 1b, Jackson at 750m, ABBA at 350m, etc, etc, these are only a few immensively inflated claims that keep floating around.
This is mostly due to lack of understanding from media. Labels use to report figures in a (naturally) favorable way, adding all records from an era together for example (albums and singles), or converting album sales into singles equivalent (multiplying numbers by 6), adding sales from all artists who covered the songs, etc, and media poorly aware of the vocabulary and methodology associated simply repeat "the album/artist xxx sold yy million copies!".
Because none of those lists have actually dissected Rumours sales, to see if it actually could have sold 50m, they just regurgitate record company press releases, which are always overstated, either due to their wording being misleading or using dubious and undehanded counting methods.
Hi! Numbers of Fleetwood Mac and REM aren't updated after a search. Cheers!
Fleetwood Mac’s Billboard 200 entries ranked by weeks in top 10 ( as of April 1 , 2024 ):
1. 53 , Rumours
2. 37 , Fleetwood Mac
3. 18 , Mirage
4. 16 , Tusk
5. 12 , The Dance
6. 6 , Tango In The Night
7. 2 , Say You Will
Total : 144 weeks .
