Is Hold Me the Mac's most successful single?
 

People may say Dreams was the Mac's most successful single since it reached #1 for a single week. However, statistics don't reveal it was the most successful song for the Mac. Dreams finished 1977 as the 39th most popular song that year. Hold Me finished as the 31st most popular song in 1982. Hold Me was cock blocked from the #1 spot by Eye of The Tiger (#1) and then by Hurt So Good (#2). Hold Me stayed at #4 for a then record of 7 weeks.

Foreigner had a similar situation with Waiting For A Girl Like You which spent 9 weeks at #2 blocked by Physical. Foreigner had other #1 songs like I want to know what love is but Waiting For A Girl Like You was a bigger hit.

All these stats are based on weeks on the charts. On another note, we all know how brutal the Hold Me video was for the band. They were not getting along. John was drunk and tried to punch the director. Mick was hitting on Stevie's friend. Nicks was high and Christine was late. If you notice the band never appears together as a band in the video. There are separate segments for each member that are then pieced together. Yes, things were that bad.
Anyway here is a chart of Mac's singles on the charts. Interesting that both Say You Love Me and Rhiannon both hit #11 in 1976 yet Say You Love Me was a bigger hit.

Billboard Year-End performances
Song Year-End Position

1976
"Say You Love Me" 53
"Rhiannon" 77

1977
"Dreams" 39
"Don't Stop" 52
"Go Your Own Way" 94

1980
"Sara" 87
"Tusk" 94

1982
"Hold Me" 31

1987
"Little Lies" 51
"Big Love" 81


* If song was not in the top 100 for the year, it is not listed

The above makes me wonder whether 1982 might have been a relatively weak year.

I see that "Ebony And Ivory" was released that year. What were other big songs from 1982?

It amazes me that even "Gypsy" didn't beat out "Hold Me."

What do you mean weak year? 1982 like any year was big in music. Huge artists like MJ's Thriller released, Asia was huge, Toto, John Cougar, etc. It was so huge which caused the charts to get unusually clogged. Same reason Gypsy crapped out at #12 (or something). Even Bella Donna was so big it bled into 1982.

I don't understand your point I guess

While Gypsy is one of the most beautiful songs ever made and quite possibly Fleetwood Mac’s best song ever, I can see why Hold Me did so well in the charts in 1982, it’s a poppy, yacht rocky, catchy tune, despite being very chorus heavy and the chorus only being two words, the song is brilliantly crafted. Gypsy, like most Stevie Nicks songs, was more poetic. Hold Me was the catchy pop song. I am surprised that Gypsy didn’t break the top 10 though, peaking at #12.

I tell ya, I hear Hold Me in the Goodwills still, A LOT. Pretty amazing, that they regularly rotate a 40yo song.

It's probably my #2(no, not that) song, right behind(yet another pun) Think About Me.

In terms of longevity, Hold Me has to be pretty low. I know Homer says he hears it a lot still, so maybe it’s a regional thing; in my area, Go Your Own Way is still played often, but I can’t tell you the last time I’ve heard Hold Me on a local radio station. I’ve even heard Got a Hold On Me lately! The Rumours singles, Rhiannon, Little Lies, Everywhere, and occasionally Gypsy, Tusk, and even Sara are FM songs I still hear, but not Hold Me.

When I was in college in 1990 I had a Japanese roommate. I was a loser listening to BTM and OTSOTM while other cool kids had to current stuff. My roommate had over a few Japanese students were enrolled in the English school before they could start classes. Their English was not great. I was playing Greatest Hits and Hold Me came on. I was floored. The girl who could barely speak any English sang the entire song Hold Me in English without missing a word. Her connection to Fleetwood Mac was not Rumours but this song.
Hold Me is an incredible song from the beginnings of one of the coolest piano riffs in music to the cool percussion parts in the end. The guitar solo is fantastic too. Its pure pop greatness and then some. Clearly if the song was released about a month earlier, it could have been a #1 song for several weeks.

The reason you dont hear it on the radio that much is because its almost a lost hit of the 80s. The Mac songs that get played on lamestream radio are usually classic rock stations. They play songs from the White Album and Rumours only. Adult contemporary stations may play Sara and Gypsy. Hold Me really does not fit classic rock and it does not fit adult contemporary that much. Same reason you dont hear Big Love. Rock/classic rock stations wont play it and neither will adult contemporary. If you have an 80s channel you may hear it but its pretty rare.

I remember when Hold Me was released. Pre internet, we didn't know much about when albums were being released, and the like. I remember riding around in the back of my friend's car, listening to the radio, and every time that piano note intro would come on, I'd SCREAM at everyone to STFU, and CRRRAAAAANNNNNNNNKKKKK ITTTTTTTTTTTT!:lol:

From a production standpoint, it's a very interesting song!

Dreams is their best single. #1, Rumours, Tik Tok. It doesn't get any better than that.

Nope. GYOW is a way better song.

Da googles says that their top 10 digital downloads are:
1 GYOW
2 The Chain
3 Everywhere
4 Little Lies
5 Dreams
6 Albatross(okay, where do they get these numbers?)
7 Landslide
8 Don't Stop
9 Big Love
10 Songbird

Another page lists GYOW as #1, too.

Think About Me will ALWAYS be my #1.

And no "Hold Me"? Not even in the top 10. Doesn't say much for the topic at hand, at least with your criteria.

I don't quite understand the chart data cited, but it wouldn't surprise me if Christine had predominately more songs with heavier radio play.

It's no surprise.
No, it's no surprise.

I heard that at Walmart the other day.

Take that up with Macfan... I'm an odd duck. I couldn't give two flying f*cks what anyone else likes. #1 in my life is the ONLY chart that matters. I listen to country from the 50's and 60's, much of the time. And Western Swing from the 1930's and 40's.

Yeah, you might not enjoy riding in my car....:lol:

Until I put on Think About Me. Then volume is on 11, and I'm singing at the top of my lungs!:wavey:

It's just the perfekt song to me. The beat. That rocking guitar. Christine and Lindsey singing in unison. Probably my favorite song of all time. I love everything about it.

Those year-end stats MacFan cited tell us a lot about a song’s initial run. In terms of Billboard Chart action, “Hold Me” was huge. I remember it being everywhere in 1982—and through the first half of the 80s. But if we play the long game, songs that ranked a lot less in the year-end stats have become more iconic. GYOW, Little Lies, Rhiannon, Say You Love Me...

Dreams and Don’t Stop never stopped being ubiquitous.

But Hold Me was a monster in its day. It’s still a GREAT pop song.

An easier way to explain it is that Hold Me was in the top 10 longer than Dreams thus making it a bigger hit. Locked at #4 for 7 weeks is not only unusual but insane. Even #1 songs usually dont stay in the top 10 for that long let alone locked in a high spot. No doubt the song dragged Mirage to the #1 spot.

There is a reason why you hear Dreams more than Hold Me today. The album Rumours has sold over 20 million copies and every song whether single or not from that album is heard every day on some radio station.
Hold Me was on a mildly successful album and does not have the classic rock chops that Rumours has. While Mirage is a great album, it is not considered a rock masterpiece like Rumours. If Hold Me was on Rumours, it would still be played like the rest of the Rumours songs.

This thread was just pointing out that Hold Me was technically a more successful single than Dreams. Hold Me was in the top ten for almost 3 months. Dreams was in the top ten about a month. Dreams just had an easier ride to the #1 spot which only lasted 1 week btw.
I am not hating on Dreams, just pointing out a little known fact. I love little known facts ;)

Well at least you're confident in one thing...that you're always right.:laugh::woohoo::wavey:

Never question me ;)

This was just pure statistics. But I did give commentary/opinion in the end. No one is right all the time (although i am so close :lol:) I love everyone's opinion on the board. We have very diverse opinions on everything. There are a few posters who spend too much time drooling and worshipping a few poster's comments than giving their own opinion :lol:

I will do ANYTHING for Love but I wont do THAT

:lol:

Hold Me is in my top 10, possibly even top 5 Rumours-era FM songs.

it's amazing little pop song, fun and so well crafted. Second Hand News and Hold Me just have everything and beyond a pop song should have, imo.

Dreams is boring, was boring on the album and has been pretty unlistenable live for a long time now. not really sure why Dreams has been even introduced to this discussion. the only fun part of Dreams are ridiculous weather-related lyrics.

That's not facts, that's pure conjecture. If you suggest the success of a song is based on its length of time it spent on the charts, and in just the top 10 at that, you would also have to weigh the strength of the songs it was competing against. Probably a safer and more accurate way to judge success would be sales or how music stands the test of time. I love "Dreams" as much today as I did when I first heard it. Never gets old to me. I also love "Hold Me", but I just disagree that it was Mac's most successful single . It's really hard to gauge the "most successful" single in such a binary way that you have.

Success is a very subjective word.

Well damn, I'm really surprised that YOU would wonder that. :lol:

I've mentioned this several times before but the deluxe reissue really turned Hold Me into a different song for me. I've always been a fan but it just dazzled with the remix where you could finally hear the vocals and production values like they were meant to be as opposed to the original terrible CD mix.

To answer the question though, I think Dreams holds that title not just because it made it to number one but because for the general public, it seems to be the "standard" that people relate to Fleetwood Mac.

You are missing the point. I did not define success. The charts did. I personally disagree with charts all the time. I hate charts. The chart was not of my making. Its actually on the Fleetwood Mac charts page. I just cut and paste. I never had control of any hit list. I never created the list. I just reported it.
Conjecture has nothing to do with it. I mentioned Dreams because it was the Mac's only #1 song and is fairly common to believe that its the Mac's biggest hit, no?

Dont blame me. Blame all the radio DJs across the USA in the 70s and 80s and all the criteria for creating pop radio lists. I am not saying what is the better song, just revealing the statistics. You argument loses water. If you are proud and believe Dreams was a #1 song then you cant discard the same criteria that made Dreams #1 for 1 week and that states Hold Me was a bigger hit with more weeks in the top 10 and ended up higher on the charts in each of their year's end. You cant have it both ways. Your love of Dreams have nothing to do with the actual statistics. Dont blame it on me.....blame it on the countdown :)

Sorry :(

is that true though?

Dreams became huge last year, bigger than ever before, because of Apodaca.

but the standard that people think of as FM - seems several songs interchangeably hold that title - goes between Go Your Own Way (i've heard from several people who think that's Stevie's song so that tells you a lot about general audiences and standards!), The Chain and Thunder Only Happens that just recently became known as Dreams :p

if you are in the UK, then Everywhere and Songbird come into equation. and Little Lies.

if you are college football fan? USC fan? Tusk.

for SN? usually people identify her with Gold Dust Woman, which was never a single. Landslide.

Perhaps you should have stated that "Hold Me" had the longest stay in the Top 10 of any FM single. That would be a fact, I guess, I'm trusting your info. It doesn't make it the most "successful" single, unless of course you describe success as how many weeks a single stayed in the Top 10.

My opinion that "Dreams" is the Mac's most "successful" is based on my opinion. It's just a feeling.

Like I said success is a very subjective word.

Homer, I hear Hold Me all the Time. It's so weird. Sirius plays it constantly. I heard it in Ralph's during Covid 2020, for whatever reason. (That's a grocery market). I keep a radio on for the cats at my place and I hear it on the rock station too. They seem to play the same classic rock songs, however.
Gypsy is a very basic and flat demo ( like Dreams) that Lindsey and Macsters made beautiful. The guitar and harmonies are stunning. That's why live, it falls flat. They can't re-create it because there's not a lot to it. The lead vocal on the album is really good. But, hearing her sing it now is excruciating.
Hold Me Live at Christine's show was fantastic compared to the pretty good version we hear on Mirage Forum Show. The Christine McVie band did a great job!

I question you, daily! :mad::mad::mad:



:laugh::wavey::xoxo:

Other possible reasons Hold Me doesn’t get a lot of respect, so to speak, could be that:

- it hasn’t aged all that well.
- it’s very, very poppy. A lot of FM songs are, but they don’t sound quite so annoying. Compare You Make Loving Fun to Hold Me. Both are very poppy but YMLF is much simpler and catchier.
- the video is not very memorable, especially compared to Gypsy. As a FM fan, I like the video a lot, but a casual fan probably couldn’t even recall the video.
- my sister dislikes FM. She says their music is “whiny” LOL. Even though I disagree with her, I can kind of see that, and Hold Me has a whiny sound to it.
- lyrically, I can see why Tusk, Rhiannon, Dreams, Go Your Own Way, and others are remembered more often. Even Little Lies is a more interesting song, lyrically. There is a gravitas to them that Hold Me lacks.

It hasn’t aged well? According to whom? This is not a widely accepted fact. And the lyrics to Hold Me are quite clever and sly. Robert Christgau sees the song as the standard by which the rest of Mirage can be judged: “After seven years, you'd think they'd weary of romantic tension-and-release. But despite the occasional I'm-scareds and can't-go-backs, you'd never know how much passion they've already put behind them--they write about infatuation and its aftermaths like twenty-year-olds. This is obviously a commercial advantage, and I wouldn't want to be immune to its truth. But pop music offers endless variations on that truth, and since only the most graceful are worth pondering I have to say that there isn't another "Hold Me" here. B+“

Hold Me is a classic.

You know it!

:laugh:
recently i looked up the lyrics of one of the SN songs everyone's been quoting to me. the lyrics consisted of a single interesting great sounding phrase with tons of meaningless gibberish filled all around it. a reaction from a huge Stevie fan was "how dare you!" followed by something like - you just described lyrics of almost every single SN song. :nod::angel:

Hold Me is a complete package - some interesting turns of phrase, catchy melody, interplay of voices, fantastic arrangement / music, all that tightly packaged from the start to finish.

this is the first time ever i heard Hold Me described as "annoying" and i can't wrap my head around it. :shrug:

why some songs stay popular while others do not? besides the initial quality, pure luck can have lots to do with it. Don't Stop might be one of the Rumours era FM most widely known songs (that we forgot to list in this thread!). why? because it was used in presidential campaign which brought it back in the spotlight to stay.

sometimes it's deliberate marketing other times happy accident or pure serendipity.

Well, if we’re using opinion on what makes a successful Fleetwood Mac song, my top five are The Green Manalishi, Talkin’ To My Heart, Miles Away, Say You Love Me, and Love Shines.

Well good for you Steve. Now maybe based on your opinion you could explain to us why you believe those are the most "successful" Mac songs. Successful, ugh.

You're on you own with this, man. I've always tried to pigeon hole you as a Chiffonhead, but you seem a little too level headed for that, so I've tried to place you in the FM camp. But you lost me with this comment.

WHINY? Hasn't aged well? What could be worse than Stevie and her Nasal Symphony? Now THAT'S whiny and annoying.

Now just admit that you are wrong, and we can all have wine.

Again, its not "my" info. Doesn't a song which spent as much as 3 times longer in the top 10 make it more successful? When you add that it spent over 2 months locked at #4 alone is quite the oddity for any chart. However the end of year statistics make it even more revealing. Hold Me was a bigger song in 1982 than Dreams was in 1977 (statistics on chart). Even when #1 songs were falling from the top spot, Hold Me was holding steady and not moving. I agree Dreams is heard more today on the radio but it does not take away the chart information on Hold Me. Everything from Rumours is played more than any other Mac album since its from one of the biggest albums of all time.
Like I said, the statistics speak for themselves. There are definitely bragging rights in having a #1 song. But lets say Dreams was at #2 for 7 weeks, would it not have been a bigger hit than #1 for 1 week? The end of year statistics would say yes. Just shedding some light on the casual acceptance Dreams was the Mac's biggest hit. It was their only #1 but that did not make it their biggest "hit."
It very similar to when people thought Stevie Nicks was the lead singer in Fleetwood Mac because she had all the "hits" but then statistics show Christine has more hits than Stevie with the band. Its fun to pull back the curtain now and then ;)

I was just offering some ideas about why Hold Me may not be as well remembered today as some of FM’s other songs, even though back in 1982, it performed so well on Billboard. Those ideas aren’t necessarily how I personally feel.

Another reason might be that FM only performed it live for one tour. And even when the Mirage tour was released to the public, they left Hold Me off the concert. That’s pretty blatant right there about how FM may have felt about the song, because they left the lead single off their last album (to that point) off the concert, a song that performed very well on Billboard. Since the song was never captured live (except on bootlegs), the song had less exposure than, say, GYOW.

I agree with that. Feels like it was the real beginning of the 80s decade.

They left it off(IMO) because it was so overproduced, that it was hard to replicate, live. So is Gypsy, and that's why it's always sucked, live.