This week on the charts: Fleetwood Mac | Stevie Nicks "Seven Wonders" and "Rumours" Bound

USA - February 15, 2014

Fleetwood Mac released 'Rumours' 37 years ago this past February 4th and although the album took a giant leap up the charts this week after re-entering the charts three weeks ago, I'm not entirely sure it was due to it's anniversary.  This week the album moves up the Billboard Top 200 to No.59 from No.191 last week. That's a fairly significant increase in sales week over week.  The bounce on the charts could largely be due to Stevie's appearance on American Horror Story, as I didn't see any deep discounting of the album online. 

SEVEN WONDERS IS A SALES WONDER

Fleetwood Mac's classic '80's tune "Seven Wonders" featured during the cold opening of the season finale of American Horror Story on January 29th benefits from the exposure on the show and Stevie's Guest Appearance.  According to Billboard, the song sold 13,000 downloads during the tracking period ending February 2nd. This is an increase in sales of 9,086% vs what the song did the week prior. On the Rock Digital Songs Chart the song debuts this week at No.18.  In 1987 when the song was originally released as the second single from the album Tango In The Night, it peaked at No.19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at No.2 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

Stevie's new film 'In Your Dreams' in it's 9th week of release hits it's lowest point on the Top 50 Music DVD Sales Chart moving down this week to No.27 from No.22 last week.

Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland charts below... The UK to follow later today.

* Previous week in parenthesis

BILLBOARD TOP 200 ALBUMS CHART
# 59 (191) Fleetwood Mac "Rumours"

TOP 50 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
# 8 (36) Fleetwood Mac "Rumours"

TOP 40 MUSIC VIDEO SALES CHART
# 18 (19) Sound City "Real To Reel" (feat. Lindsey, Stevie and Mick)
# 27 (22) Stevie Nicks "In Your Dreams"

"In Your Dreams" Chart run thus far:
TW     LW        Weeks On
27       22      9 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
22       17      8 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
17       18      7 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
18       21      6 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
21       22      5 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
22       18      4 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
18       12      3 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
12        7       2 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks
  7        -       1 In Your Dreams Stevie Nicks (Debut)

Celebrating Fleetwood Mac: Feb 9, 1998 Received The Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution in Music

Sir George Martin presented the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music at The BRIT Awards 1998 to Fleetwood Mac.

After receiving the award the band performed 'Go Your Own Way' and 'Don't Stop. This marked Christine's last UK live performance until her return in Sept, 2013.

The Grammy Awards performance later in February, 1998 would ultimately be Christine's last live performance with Fleetwood Mac until Sept, 2013.

Interview: Stevie Nicks estimates what she currently does will go on 6-7 more years - then on to Art

Interview with Ultimate Classic Rock:

Stevie Nicks tells Ultimate Classic Rock that if she ever decides to record another album, she couldn't do it in the 'In Your Dreams' house... she'd have to move to a different house.

She also says that what she currently does will likely go on another 6-7 years, then she'll flip over to Art. She would really like to show the art / drawings she's worked on for years and for the most part have kept away from the world.

A reminder to ourselves of what an integral strand Christine McVie is to Fleetwood Mac's superstar DNA

FLEETWOOD MAC: 
CHRISTINE MCVIE’S TOP 15 CONTRIBUTIONS 
by Mark Pursell
Glide Magazine

Even die-hard Fleetwood Mac fans forget (or never knew) that English-born Christine McVie was part of the band’s first incarnation as a British blues act whose intermittent success and ever-changing lineup prevented them from widespread success.  The Fleetwood Mac that people (especially Americans) tend to think of is the band’s California reinvention of the mid-‘70s, a reinvention that brought Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks on board and eventually resulted in the band’s permanent pop canonization.  The chemistry between Buckingham and Nicks, both on-record and off as writers, performers, and lovers, tended to throw a long shadow over the decades, perhaps unfairly obscuring the very real, very substantial contributions that Christine McVie made to the group’s success.

It’s usually obvious when a Fleetwood Mac track that belongs to McVie begins playing.  Her upbeat grooves are deceptively lighthearted, painting a contrast with the plainspoken but often emotionally raw content of her lyrics.  Said contrast seemed to speak to listeners; if you look at any breakdown of Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits, nearly half are written and sung by McVie. Her songs showcase a sunny exuberance that, taken in context of a full Fleetwood Mac record, build a perfect contrast to the band’s darker tracks.  She’s also underrated as a vocalist; her deep, bluesy voice works wonders in a pop-rock context, bringing a gravitas to her own straightforward but heartfelt songs and giving them cunning little dimensions that aren’t always immediately apparent.

In early 2014, Fleetwood Mac announced that McVie would be rejoining the band after a long hiatus.  There are plans to tour; some are even hoping for a new record.  In the spirit of McVie’s return, let’s revisit fifteen of her most accomplished, most enduring contributions to Fleetwood Mac, and remind ourselves of what an integral strand she is in the band’s superstar DNA.

Click through for Glide Magazine's Top 15

Great grouping of songs... Some omissions that could have made the lists... But it's all subjective.

How does Fleetwood Mac follow-up "Rumours"? The answer is "Tusk"

Follow-up Albums: Fleetwood Mac - Tusk 
(Originally broadcast May 24, 2012 on BBC Radio 4)

Radio 4 Archives have made this 28 minute Fleetwood Mac feature on Tusk available for download through their archive. Listen on-line or download from BBC Radio 4 (Scroll down the list for the link)

How do you follow a record that sells 21 million copies worldwide and spends over 30 weeks at number

one in the US album chart?

The answer is Tusk - the album Fleetwood Mac recorded in the wake of 1976's Rumours.

Despite joining the band just three years previously, this was the record that saw Lindsey Buckingham impose his will on Fleetwood Mac using the studio as a crucible in which he shovelled intra-band infidelities and his new-found love of punk.

In 1979 it was deemed a failure, nicknamed "Lindsey's folly" from industry insiders. After 35 years, it has been reappraised as their boldest, most forward-looking release, "a peerless piece of pop art", influencing Radiohead and REM.

Produced by Laura Parfitt

A White Pebble Media Production for BBC Radio 4.

"I don’t see Fleetwood Mac ever really stopping" - Stevie Nicks New York Times Interview

Stevie Nicks, Just Following Her Muse 
The Creative Mid-Life 
By JOAN ANDERMAN
New York Times

During her 40-year career as a member of Fleetwood Mac and a solo artist, the singer-songwriter Stevie Nicks has made more than 40 Top 50 hits and sold over 140 million albums. “In Your Dreams,” a documentary film about the making of her 2011 album of the same name, was recently released on DVD. Now 65, Ms. Nicks called from a rented house in Phoenix, her hometown. A condensed and edited version of our conversation follows.

You just finished a tour with Fleetwood Mac, a band with a tumultuous personal history. How do you all get along now?

Mick Fleetwood and I are best friends. We were mad at each other for six months or a year after we broke up, and then were able to return to who we were before. My relationship with Lindsey Buckingham is never going to be that. When it’s all said and done and I’m 90 years old, maybe I’ll be able to figure that relationship out. John McVie I adore. I look after him as much as I can [Mr. McVie was given a diagnosis of cancer in October] and make sure he puts ice on his back.

Are you surprised that the band is still together?

Surprised? No. It’s a really great band.

How has your voice changed?

I had a lot of problems with my voice from 1975 to 1998. We were only just starting to use ear monitors, and we’d been using huge floor monitors that blast the sound back at you and you just scream over it. There were many bad nights onstage. Since 1998 I’ve been working with a vocal coach, Steve Real, and I’ve never had a problem onstage since.

Do you have a voice care regimen?

Three hours before I go on-stage I do a 40-minute vocal lesson. We go on at 8, which means I have to be done at 5, so from 3 to 3:30 I do the first part and between 4:30 and 5 I do the second part; 30 minutes and then 11 minutes. By the time I walk onstage at 8 o’clock, I’m ready to do 2 hours and 40 minutes.

So your voice is in better shape than it was 30 years ago?

Oh, yes. I tell all the young people I know that sing to get a vocal coach. You don’t have to take them on the road like I do. They’ll make you a tape, and you’ll become a better singer.

Why the 10-year wait between your last two solo albums?

After I made “Trouble in Shangri-La,” which came out in 2001, I started realizing that everything my manager was telling me about how the Internet was going to eventually kill the music business was true. Records as we knew them, records as concepts, as 12 songs in a row that were sequenced, where you may not like the fourth song but you let it play because you love the way the third song went into the fourth song and the way the fourth song went into the fifth song, were definitely ending. And that was heartbreaking. I was told that the best thing for me to do as an older rock ‘n’ roll singer would be to tour.

Eventually you made “In Your Dreams.”
Well, I saw this movie, “New Moon,” in the Twilight series, and I was very inspired by that story so I wrote a song about it called “Moonlight.” And I thought, I can’t just put out this one song so I guess I’m going to have to put out a record. I got off the Fleetwood Mac tour in 2009 and hit the ground running. I called Dave Stewart [formerly of the Eurythmics] probably two weeks after I got home and said I’m ready to make a record now.