As of this week, the album's actually scanned 739,575 copies.
This is NOT bad. That is NOT embarassing.
Let's use an example- how about Sting. Sting was about a thousand times more commercially viable when Brand New Day came out then Fleetwood Mac is today, simply based on the market. It took Sting nearly four months to hit 750,000 copies sold. It took him nearly five months to reach platinum status, and the last month of that includes when Desert Rose began to hit.
Fleetwood Mac, operating without a huge radio presence, is doing very well compared to similar bands... Steely Dan, considered a relatively large surprise in terms of their continued success, has only sold 140,000 more copies of their record after its 90K opening week three months ago. 140K in three months? 750K in five ain't bad. I know Steely Dan might seem like a stretch in comparison, but honestly- the record company was expecting them to perform no better than SD, and a lot of the public associate them as similar bands, similar stature. (sad but true)
With Grammy nominations coming up (and they will be) and the tour continuing to be successful, they'll pass platinum with change to spare. And platinum is NOT a bad thing.
If Fleetwood Mac really wanted a huge smash record, they wouldn't have released a record like Say You Will... they would've played it more safe and released a shorter, more radio friendly album. Instead, they decided to court success on their own terms- and if you look at it like that- they released a record that's relatively difficult for casual fans or new listeners to attach to because of it's length and "out there"ness- it's VERY successful for what it is.
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