The gold records
 

Some of my favorite FM albums have not turned platinum or have been the least commercial successful.

1980 Live Album
Heroes Are Hard To Find
Mystery To Me
Behind the Mask
Say You Will

Its interesting because albums like Penguin and Bare Trees turned platinum but Mystery To Me and Heroes never did come close. Why do you think that is?
IMHO the band got better and better each album before Stevie and Lindsey and each album also charted better yet those are still not platinum.

I did a little research for this thread and sales figures are all over the place because some of them count international sales. I apologize if my quick research is wrong.

My favorite FM albums are the ones that sold 4 million or less and that would include Tusk, Mirage and the ones I mentioned already. I did not count the EP or other stuff prior to 1970.

Tango which is the band's second biggest seller is one of my least favorite albums.

I like Behind The Mask and even TIME as much as Tango. Tango is just too plastic for me. I love Mirage leaps and bounds more than Tango.

Okay so, as of 2016, these were the sales figures for FM’s studio records:

1968 Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac -
1,600,000
1968 Mr. Wonderful - 1,100,000
1969 Then Play On - 2,000,000
1970 Kiln House - 800,000
1971 Future Games - 800,000
1972 Bare Trees - 1,850,000
1973 Penguin - 700,000
1973 Mystery To Me - 1,600,000
1974 Heroes Are Hard To Find - 1,300,000
1975 Fleetwood Mac - 9,400,000
1977 Rumours - 35,500,000
1979 Tusk - 6,600,000
1982 Mirage - 5,500,000
1987 Tango In The Night - 11,300,000
1990 Behind The Mask - 2,750,000
1995 Time - 150,000
2003 Say You Will - 1,600,000

It appears PENGUIN did not outsell MYSTERY or HEROES.

Info found here: https://chartmasters.org/2016/10/csp...y-analysis/19/

And one other source says, as of 2005, the US sales alone for LIVE (1981) and THE DANCE (1997) were:

Live Albums
1980 1981 Live - 500,000
1997 2000 The Dance - 5,000,000 - 4,400,000

I imagine they are higher now.

https://www.ukmix.org/forum/chart-di...-sales-history

Interesting, I saw that site but most others were not that generous. Wikipedia lists Mystery To Me, Say You Will, BTM, and others Gold.
I read that when Fleetwood Mac came to the states, their albums sold a consistent 250,000 copies each. When the band got extremely successful, the early albums started to creep up in sales. Bare Trees was certified platinum in 1988 (maybe because of Sentimental Lady?). On other sites I saw Penguin also was platinum. But Mystery To Me, Future Games, and Heroes never got that status.
Its strange that in today's internet age its hard to get official figures. For example you cant find sales figures for Chris's 1984 solo album. In 1984 it was not even gold and I wanted to find out if it ever achieved gold status.

In the UK BTM was #1 and went platinum there so that clouds the sales figures in the USA on some sites.

Mystery definitely outsold Penguin and Heroes, though both of the latter initially charted higher. Not sure why Wick wouldn’t cite that has been acknowledged for years. One of the reasons Bare Trees and Mystery outsold the other mid-period albums is FM continued to feature Christine songs from both on their tours until 1977. Not to mention “Hypnotized.” Not sure if their 75 inclusion of “Station Man” triggered some Kiln House sales.

Compilations were big sellers, Greatest Hits and The Very Best Of also went platinum, I think. GH had new music.

It's hard to believe that Mystery wasn't the biggest selling Welch era album, since it's generally accepted as a fantastic album, right up there with Rumours. While I like Bare Trees and Future Games, I've listened to Mystery 10 times as much as those two.

Hell, I've listened to Mystery more than Tango.

I’ve listened to all of their 1971-73 albums more than TANGO. HEROES is kind of the same as TANGO for me—both calculated affairs where the guitarists indulge in their respective obsessions and Christine saves the day with good songs that still could have sounded even better in another context.

Here is the wikipedia page I am quoting and if you click next to the sales figures, many of them are updated in 2022 and 2021 from official RIAA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Mac_discography

This looks right to me. I saw something similar to this a few years ago.

But can we believe ANY of the charts, because they all have different numbers.

Exactly
The official count for the USA is RIAA.I think Mick made that chart :lol: It under cuts Rumours sales while other sales are higher.
Now here is another chart. It also lists BTM as platinum (which I never heard before) but increases SYW to over 800k . Mystery to Me and Future Games at 500k

https://stevienicks.info/music/fleetwood-mac-albums/


I just cant believe Heroes Are Hard To Find sold over 1 million. Even though its one of my favorites, the songs get no airplay what so ever.

I don't believe that, either.

And don't hate me for this, but I've not really listened to Heroes much, in my life. Or Penguin. Back in the day of when I was really getting into Mystery, Bare, and Future....I had those on cd. I only had Penguin and Heroes on vinyl. And I've never really been a big vinyl guy. So I never gave either much air time. Just sheer laziness on my part.

But I digress. Heroes never set the world on fire. I doubt Bob would have left, if it had. No way did Heroes sell a million. Mick's own charts... indeed.

I did buy the 5 disc release of the Welch albums, but was moving shortly after, and it's packed away somewhere.

Maybe Mick's album cover scared too many people away :eek: Go treat yourself and listen to Heroes again. It has unique charm. It was my first Mac album pre Buckingham/Nicks. I love the blusey brass opener with Chris. It features an angry Chris song which is rare and 2 other love songs that are off the charts. Bob does great on Silver Heals too. I love Mystery and its always been a toss up which album is better. Why is such a strong lure to Mystery so that is impossible to ignore.
Its shocking to look back at Heroes being released in Sept 1974 and only a few months later Stevie and Lindsey join. They did that brilliant radio concert in December 1974 which was wonderful. Its sad we never got Mystery To Me and Heroes Are Hard To Find tours. Lots of drama killed any tours sadly :( Heroes is almost like a throw away album since its rarely even mentioned or played. You may hear a song from earlier albums but Heroes is like the step child which is ignored yet it was their first album to crack the top 40 with NO single and NO hits and NO airplay and NO tour. Go figure.

Edit: Silly us. We overlooked the biggest clue and signal some of these albums have not received platinum status. Mick does not have any of them listed for sale :lol: He is selling the gold Bare Trees but is keeping the platinum one I guess ;)

Found this that could explain the multiple charts. It appears since 2016 RIAA started taking into account streaming and purchases. Prior it was shipments which is why some albums remain dead at 500k

Cut and paste from RIAA site:

RIAA certifications are based on wholesale shipments rather than retail sales. Since 2016, the RIAA album certification has also included on-demand audio/video streams (1,500 streams = 1 album unit) and track sale equivalent (10 track sales = 1 album unit).[2] Additionally, awards are only presented if and when a record company applies for certification. Therefore, the total certified units for a given artist may be incomplete or out of date.


Long story short, we may never know the true answer. If the Mac's label has not filed for updated certification by now, it will never happen.