Supposedly, when Tusk came out, the record company put a $13 price tag on it (i think it was $13), whatever the number was, it was the highest price for a record at that time. That was one part.
Another, as ChiliD mentioned, was the radio station playing the entire album, in sequence, without commercials just before the release.
The most important factor was the music. To all of us, as well as many other music listeners, it was great. But to the masses, it just didn't appeal. The album was simply to challenging to most people who listened to mainstream radio (as Rumours was). The single "Tusk" was the wrong choice for first single, which should have been "Sara". To me, "Sara" is the quintessential Fleetwood Mac song. They probably had "Tusk" as the first single to give the public a taste of what the majority of the album was going to be like. It was almost as if the band, especially LB, INTENDED to be different.
Tusk, in all its supposed failures, still has moved 4 million units. Not bad for a double album...
By the way, the Tusk tour was a financial disaster, Mick managed it himself and incurred such tremendous overhead (coke and alcohol included), that there was almost no profit. Thus, the band canned him as manager.
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