here is an article talking about all the charts for this week.

http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/....cgi?news09387

that IS the main chart, indie is just listed as a label. guess they could have put LMJS or whatever their name is ;)

That's the Lady Gaga rule. Her 99 cent first week release was the culprit. Kind of like the exclusive release exclusion rule because of the Eagles.

I'm not really sure where HitsDailyDouble chart gets their sales info but it's off from the Billboard 200 and SoundScan both on its Top Albums and on its sales data. It may just be the closing date difference but there's a significant sales number discrepancy between the two for a lot of those albums.

They definitely didn't sell 11k last week, and they're coming in at #48 on the Billboard Top 200.


Also, I'd have to argue that the Billboard charts are not all crap. The Billboard Hot 100 is, and it pissed people off royally when they changed it to include web impressions. But the sales charts are straight from SoundScan which includes almost all retailers. (It also includes venue album sales if the artist's merch person is up on reporting it.) Same with the radio charts. Those are BDS monitored/station reported spins.

Ah, got it now.

It looks like they're all over the chart for the May 18th issue:

Extended Play
#48 - 200 Albums (debut)
#9 - Independent Albums (debut)
#14 - Digital Albums (debut)

Rumours
#149 - 200 Albums (reentry)

Greatest Hits
#172 - 200 Albums

The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac
#194 - 200 Albums (reentry)

I think this shows that there is still demand for Fleetwood Mac to issue new material, in spite of what Stevie might think.

Vintage Vinyl News Thursday, May 09, 2013

Chart Watch America: LL Cool J and Fleetwood Mac Have Disappointing Starts; The Stooges Hit Career High

Read more: http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2013...#ixzz2Sqlz5iNG

Taking five years off may not have been a good idea for LL Cool J. His new album, Authentic, debuts at 23, his first non-top ten studio album since 1995. It is also his lowest charting since his 1985 debut Radio. It also starts at 7 on the R&B Albums, his worst ever (Radio peaked at 6).

Even so, he does have the highest charting album by a veteran artist for the week. The next highest is Fleetwood Mac's Extended Play which starts at 48, their worst since 1973's Mystery to Me. The combination of the album being a digital only release and four songs in length may have hurt the release.


Read more: http://www.vintagevinylnews.com/2013...#ixzz2SqmSmUFT

^ Yeah, well . . . the combination of them being 250 years old when you tally their ages didn't help sales either.

Michele

Also the fact that the promotion for the EP (in terms of letting people know when it would actually be RELEASED, and not just saying "yeah we're gonna do one") was pretty much nonexistent.

If Stevie reads this, you can kiss the rest of the album goodbye.

Picking through the sale charts with a magnifying glass (or two)
 

We all spend a lot more time examining these things than they or their (so-called) management will do in 2013. The new stuff has really grown on me the more I've listened to it. But at this point in the 21st Century--and going back ten years or so--the amount of money they generate from touring (whether Unleashed or nameless) will dwarf the money they make off new work by such a great factor that it probably barely factors in their daily concerns as they work through this year on the road. As they've mentioned over and over again, Fleetwood Mac is a big machine employing dozens of people whenever they reunite to tour, and as we all know, the ticket prices never go down. And they are all onstage on performance nights for a long time, especially Lindsey. It's a good thing he's the youngest of them. I still care deeply about them and their work, but it's 2013--not 1975 or 1977 or 1979 or even 1982 or 1987--and the likelihood of them getting together after this tour to make an album seems less and less likely. I wish that wasn't true, and I hope I'm wrong, but that's my gut feeling. I hope they prove me wrong.

^^If I had a dollar every time somebody proclaimed that this is the final Fleetwood Mac album/tour/concert, etc... :rolleyes:

Although Fleetwood Mac can be very predictable in some ways, especially in terms of their live shows, this whole Extended Play project has totally caught me off guard. For me, it's not just a handful of songs that they "just threw out there." It is perhaps the ballsiest thing they have done... ever.

-It's their first EP ever.
-It's their first indie release.
-It's their first digital-only release.
-They performed songs from it before its release (which has only been done a handful of times before).
-It's the first Rumours-era project that was primarily produced by an outside producer.
-It's the first Rumours-era release that didn't include any songs with Stevie singing the lead vocal.

But more than anything else, it proved that Fleetwood Mac is willing to work outside of the boundaries of the big label machine and they are willing to do it on the cheap, i.e., at Lindsey's home studio. They've essentially given up on the pretense that recording must be a grand affair with state of the art equipment, bloated budgets and endless months in the studio. Yes, computers may have decimated the music industry, but they have also enabled artists to render highly polished recordings cheaply using a Mac Airbook. Sure, their music is not going to sell the way it used to on a big label. But when recording costs are minimal and when the gross margin on return is higher (since they don't have label people salaries to pay), it helps to offset the disappointment with selling fewer copies. As one of the few bands of their generation that have not completely dived into the oldies circuit pool (although they are this close), I think they do feel an obligation of sorts to "preserve the Fleetwood Mac brand" by trying to at least maintain some semblance of being an ongoing, creative concern.

I"m really suprised about this site. A lot is going on with Fleetwood Mac and people don't seem to be that excited or posting very much. It's like people are losing interest.

me too i dont get it - i am just as excited now as when i fell in love with them 20 years ago. yeah there are things i wish they would do but i am just happy that they are still touring and make some new music.

Billboard by Keith Caulfield, Los Angeles | May 10, 2013 8:30 AM EDT
http://www.billboard.com/biz/article...rling-hits-new

-- Fleetwood Mac, "Extended Play" (EP) (No. 48): After a 10 year wait, Fleetwood Mac has returned to the Billboard 200 chart with a new studio album. The legendary band's Extended Play (EP) bows at No. 48, selling 9,000 copies in its first week.

The self-released set, issued on the LMJS imprint (an acronym for the first names of the four members of the band), is exclusive to iTunes. The four-song effort is the group's first release outside of the Warner Music family of labels since 1971.

The band's last full-length album, “Say You Will,” released on Reprise/Warner Bros., arrived on the chart almost exactly 10 years ago this week. The set debuted and peaked at No. 3 on the chart dated May 3, 2003. To date, it has sold 864,000 copies in the United States.

Blinded by Sound By Josh Hathaway on May 10, 2013

http://blindedbysound.com/news/itune...-itunes-album/

I'm actually stunned Fleetwood Mac finds themselves in the Top 10 in album sales this week at iTunes and not just because it's a rare display of respectable taste among digital music consumers. The real surprise to me is Lindsey Buckinghame settled for an EP rather than a double LP. Buckingham is ambitious, prolific, and relentless as a musician and songwriter. Four songs in stead 40... count me surprised.

That's the only surprise in this week's iTunes chart. The rest is predictable and uninteresting to me but I'll tell you about it anyway. You're welcome.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are #1 with "Can't Hold Us" and our resident pop critic Chris Morgan says this is better than "Thrift Shop," which is akin to being the best gay bar in Riyadh but there it is. Pink, Timberlake (and can I please say whatever commercial he's just done is ****ing appalling?), Icona Pop (that's a new name for me this week), and Selena Gomez all have Top 10 singles. Gomez continues to sell past the expiration date of a child star. Somehow she dated Justin Beiber, had a hit show on Disney, and managed to fly below the radar of cocaine and the Kardashians. I guess it can be done.

On the albums front, country is king. Kenny Chesney is #1 and Blake Shelton checks in at #8. Looking at names other than those mentioned above, we've got an outfit called Randy Rogers Band in the Top 10. This is another group I've not heard of and will have to investigate. Michael Buble has been knocked off the top spot but remains in the Top 10 along with Imagine Dragons and Fall Out Boy. FOB has named their album Save Rock And Roll. I'm not sure if they're being ironic or not.

Here are your Top 10 songs and albums at iTunes for the week of May 6, 2013, and you are welcome to them...

Top Albums:
1.Life On a Rock - Kenny Chesney
2.The 20/20 Experience - Justin Timberlake
3.The Heist - Ryan Lewis, Macklemore
4.To Be Loved - Michael Buble
5.Trouble - Randy Rogers Band
6.Night Visions - Imagine Dragons
7.Save Rock and Roll - Fall Out Boy
8.Based On a True Story... - Blake Shelton
9.Extended Play - EP - Fleetwood Mac
10.The Truth About Love - P!nk