CSPC: Fleetwood Mac Popularity Analysis
Fleetwood Mac may not be as universally well-known as the Beatles, ABBA or even Police. They did get a couple of things none of those bands never had.
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 comeback.
During late 60s, they had a string of hits in their native UK, hitting #1 with Albatross. They achieved a decent success in European continent as well. After tough years, they realized 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. Currently recording a new album, their history show it can bomb as well as it can smash. In the meantime, we will be checking really how big or weak the band discography is.
As a reminder for users who are not yet familiar with the CSPC idea you do not need to worry, it is quite simple as it only consists in merging every format sales an artist has been getting and attributing them to respective studio albums. We will start by focusing on raw data, setting how much each Fleetwood Mac album sold. Then, we will check sales of each track from those albums on each format – physical, digital and streaming – and weight them to value those figures on a par with album sales. To complete the study, we will study sales of the all compilations, live albums and music videos they dropped. Once all the raw data is set, we will only need to apply appropriate weighting to get the overall picture of the classic rock band career results.
Let’s go!
Hi! Numbers of Fleetwood Mac and REM aren’t updated after a search. Cheers!
Thanks for noticing Clockingbell, it’s fixed!
hey mjd,please give us Total Album (all types) Sales per Country
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… Read more »
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 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?
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.
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… Read more »
Hi Guillaume!
Can you please post the detail per country for Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits?
Thank you very much in advance!
Tony
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
This is fantastic and very accurate. Can this be done for Stevie Nicks please?
Hello James!
Yes, this can also be done for Stevie Nicks. There is various artists already in the pipe so it may take some time though!
Hi. Can You do one of Stevie Nicks? Please
Not as well known as Abba or The Police? Lol!!!!!! Be real!!!
Hello Teresa, Sadly this is a fact pretty undeniable. In English-speaking countries, Fleetwood Mac is the most popular of the three bands but all are just as well known as everybody know them. In other areas yet, Fleetwood Mac are not even close. As an example, I’m from France, while everyone know ABBA or Police it is highly unlikely that 10% of the population know Fleetwood Mac, the real number is likely from 1% to 5% of awareness among the general public. This situation is the same in most European countries – almost all except German-based language countries like Germany… Read more »
Highly unlikely? Well, what is your study based on? Lol! I’m not putting down Abba or The Police but cmon? I don’t even know the names of the people in Abba! I bet all these countries have heard of let’s say for instance, STEVIE NICKS? Just saying. Then they would of course associate her with the band Fleetwood Mac.
Errr I’m also from France and most people definately don’t know who Fleetwood Mac are, let alone Stevie Nicks. Everybody knows Abba and The Police though.
Teresa, On your next trip to a non-English speaking country, just feel free to ask who “Fleetwood Mac” are, most people won’t be able to answer you. I posted this analysis in Chartsinfrance website, that is the main charts-related music forum of the country, and most comments were how impressive their sales are considering they never heard about this group. This is France, one of the top 5 markets in the World. Just think about Asian or Latin American countries. Obviously Stevie Nicks is completely unknown in most countries of the world. As an example, her last album 24 Karat… Read more »
OK Thank You 😁
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.
I have to admit, ABBA is more famous worldwide than Fleetwod Mac is.
Hi dear MJD !!!
Your articles and your detailed analysis are always fantastic, even for Fleetwood Mac, really compliments, I visit your site every day to see if there are new artists analyzed, I hope you analyze as soon as the Fab Four (The Beatles), I’m a big fan of the four legendary musicians from Liverpool !!!
Hello Anthony!
The ones The Beatles, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley are definitely in the pipe. Giving their importance yet, I’m building their statistics over a long period, studying everything as deeply as possible. The Liverpool band will likely be the first to come out from those mega selling artists yet!
Hi dear MJD !!! Thank you for answering me. I also believe that The Beatles are still the first artists to have sold more records than all, in fact, in your old website that was “fan of music” you show in your graph that six albums of The Beatles were present in the top 100 best-selling albums of all time. Albums that were present The Beatles 1, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road, 1962-1966 (The Red Album), 1967-1970 (The Blue Album), The Beatles (White Album). I hope that by the end of October you realize CSPC analysis of… Read more »
Nice work again MJD! Quite a big number for a band who is often considered a one-album wonder!
By the way, MJD, you made a slight (probably irrelevant) mistakes on page 20. Firstly, the release year for Tango in the Night says 1977, but it should be 1987. Moreover, on Orphan albums, those singles add up to 4,3m, so the album equivalent should be 1,29m, 60K less than what you’ve typed.
Looking forward for your next post!
Hi Raffi!
The typo of the year is fixed, on the Orphan Album calculation I have put 1,23 million, missing the “Remaining Singles” 200,000 units from the cum, now fixed!
Your help is highly appreciated Raffi, it is very welcome to have someone enabling me to always correct all typos in such a detailed way that may stay here and there.
Thanks again!