The two classic rock hits that have earned Fleetwood Mac over $100m
In 1974, Fleetwood Mac almost called it a day for good. They were distraught, frustrated and fading out of the charts. The prospect of a hefty payday arriving down the line felt unfathomable.
At this stage, they had lost Peter Green and Danny Kirwan to bad acid trips in a German forest, Jeremy Spencer nipped away from the tour van to buy a magazine and ended up joining a cult, replacement guitarist Bob Weston was thrown out of the band for having an affair with Mick Fleetwood’s wife, and all looked lost. Then came the contractual question of ‘Who owns Fleetwood Mac?’
At this stage, they had all but quit, and the question pertained to royalties moving forward. Manager Clifford Davis said, “This band has always been my band”. The group begged to differ.
Amid the ongoing legal arm wrestle, the band thought that if they were fighting for their name in a literal sense, then they may as well reform. So they did. They moved to America, signed to Warner Bros, and eventually settled out of court with Davis four years later. Whatever fee their erstwhile manager received, it was certainly worth it.
Now, they were, in essence, a brand-new band. And their legacy was fading fast. They were in the market for a guitarist and a revival. Lindsey Buckingham was the man they had in mind. They auditioned him, he passed, but an impasse soon arrived: he informed the band that he strictly comes as a pair with Stevie Nicks.
Fleetwood Mac were not interested in hiring a singer, so they stepped back. However, with nobody else quite fitting the bill, they ultimately agreed. This proved to be the most profitable move in their tumultuous history. They were reinvented as hit-makers.
Almost instantly, success would follow. Their second album with Nicks and Buckingham in the band, Rumours, now ranks among the ten best-selling albums of all time and its numbers are still on the up thanks to Nicks bringing the record to a new generation owing to her friendship with Harry Styles and appearances on the likes of American Horror Story. However, while the album has made them millions, there are a couple of tracks that stand out from the pack, according to economic experts.
Two lucrative hits
Technically, two separate songs have earned Fleetwood Mac over $100million. ‘Go Your Own Way’ was a smash-hit single that instantly flew up the charts and enamoured the masses to Rumours. Moreover, it helped to bring vital diversity to the album, with Buckingham’s riff bringing a heavier sound.
Since then, the single has also been included in several other pop culture cross-overs, featuring in the likes of Forest Gump and Casino, each of which adds to the whopping net profit that the song, which became the group’s first top ten hit, has sourced. However, even though it might have made a massive amount, the experts claim it is eclipsed by ‘Dreams’.
Written by Nicks in Sly Stones’ secret studio, the track is pop perfection. It might only consist of a couple of notes, but the single is estimated to have sold over 45 million copies. Thereafter, its simplicity has meant that there have been 130 officially registered covers of the track to date, meaning that it rakes in royalties.
Then, in 2020, it featured on a TikTok video by Nathan Apodaca that has been viewed over three billion times, not only garnering it even more cash but also inspiring a new generation to endlessly stream it. Today, it has a monumental 2.8 billion streams on Spotify alone. Thus, it is estimated that it has made over $8.5million from the platform.
This prompted Primary Wave, a music rights giant, to make various offers to the band members for their share of the royalties. They ran the economics over the band and compiled much of the data above.
So, it is believed that Nicks sold the bulk of her share of the back catalogue rights for around $80-100 million back in 2020. Christine McVie followed suit for an undisclosed fee. And Mick Fleetwood also sold his rights to BMG in 2021. It’s hard to see why companies like Hipgnosis were sniffing around the rights, given that just two tracks combined have fetched over $100m and rising.
While they are a band with a plethora of hits, ‘Dreams’ is the jewel in their crown on the financial front. It remains the group’s only US number one, too. As it continues to grow, it now perhaps resides as one of the most profitable songs of all time. And to repeat for good measure: it only consists of two chords. There’s a lesson in that for everyone.
